I just learned that recently. Activision used the MW3 leak as a marketing opportunity instead of taking the usual (and unpleasent) route:

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2012/01/20/activision-turned-mw3-leak-marketing-opportunity

Was I dreaming?

lol, and that's only IF the leak wasn't intentional in the first place.

Well from a marketting perpective - well done! Sounds like people doing the job they're paid to do.

As for the rest of the community, I feel sorry for the devs. They basically got their timetable cut short by that amount, and will still be flamed for the bugs.

Developers always get blamed for the bugs. We write them, we fail to find them, testers fail to find them, management don't bother looking, management signs off the product, we are at fault.

Pushing the release up 4 weeks, or 10 weeks, or even 4 months, wouldn't have mattered much. The problem with this game was the shocking level of design quality in both the story and the visual elements. I didn't notice any bugs at all, what I noticed was shoddy half-assed developmental efforts, that make the game a shadow of the quality of the previous 2 MW's.

So no, I dont think having their timetable cut by such a small amount had any bearing on the overall quality of the game. It was in serious trouble right from the planning stages, and doomed when they brought this particular team in (I believe the "talent" in IW all jumped ship after MW2, right?)

its just mindblowing that such a terrible game (and bear in mind, im not an anti-cod lunatic, i totally admit i ENJOYED the previous 2 MW's) managed to sell so fantastically well.

So yes, ALL praises to the marketing team at activision, because THEY were the ENTIRE force behind the success of this game. The developers themselves definately contributed nothing...