" Remember how that awful grenade spam video was produced by a video production team that had some weird unspecified overlap with IW? At the time I thought it was a little weird that a wholly-owned studio would have a side project like this. Any bets on whether that has anything to do with the current flap? "
i dont think so. it was called F.A.G.S. Friends Against Grenade Spam. it was one of the stupidest things to ever come out of the marketing machine! However that thing got settled a while ago.
@ZombiePie: I'm not sure why you say the evidence looks concrete. All I see is an allegation.
Also, it's insane for them to claim that shaking up Infinity Ward will not materially affect the company. Medal of Honor didn't survive these guys leaving, and neither will Call of Duty. There's going to be an exodus from Infinity Ward, and Treyarch can't take up the slack.
@Foggen: But job security isn't the same as it was when Infinity Ward left the Medal of Honor series, I do not expect a mass exodus from Infinity Ward.
" @Jackel2072: Rumour regarding MW3 was IW and Treyarch wouldn't be developing it and that Activision had decided to hand development to a third studio. I can imagine this, if true, would have caused extreme conflict between IW & Activision. Especially if it meant IW had to hand over code and assets of their work on the COD series to an unknown third studio to continue the series with. "
Ya, rumour has it that it would have been/will be Sledgehammer Games, the studio formed with former Dead Space devs. They've been quoted as saying they're working one a "future game for an exisiting Activision franchise" and a job listing of theirs lists requirements like: "5 years experience working on current AAA multiplayer shooters for current consoles and PC"
Sounds to me like Activision is pulling some not illegal but mean and nasty business practices, ie. "You signed a contract, now we own you, do what you're told or we fire you and then sue you." Technically Activision may be "in the right", but that don't make it right, if you know what I'm saying...
And also BF:BC2 is released today, but you'd hardly guess. What a coicidence. "
Are all the BF:BC2 fanboys going to use this as an excuse if it doesn't become huge like they think it will? I'm not saying it will or won't, but seriously people. This isn't a publicity stunt. It was timed the way it was due to a required SEC filing.
Also, personally, I'm much more interested in the Battefield games after this than I ever was before.
@ZombiePie: I don't think so. As of COD4 and MW2, Infinity Ward is on top of the FPS game. Their key guys are worth their weight in gold as far as big publishers are concerned. Even if these guys don't do the exact same thing that they did when they left EA and start up again with a big chunk of the IW team, those team members have a good shot at jumping to other studios. EA has reformed quite a bit, and god knows Ubisoft could use some more talent on their Tom Clancy shooters.
I can't help but ask myself who are Jason West and Vince Zampella? Are they really people I should be sympathetic towards or care about? I don't know anything about them and for all I know those two are as talentless and douchy as Kotick?
My life/work experience has shown me that the "heads" of the studio that creates awesome product, are not always the one's responsible for it's awesomeness and can often be as assholish as the head of those heads.
(...again, spoken out of my ass, as someone who knows nothing about them, just curious)
I'm gonna go with my usual line - let's stop fulfilling Godwin's Law and stop mentioning Bobby Kotick anywhere.
Also - am I the only one who got a serious Prison Break vibe when reading that "Company" part? Fuck, we seriously need to send someone to prison and then bust him out, so there's maybe a chance a fortunate turn of events will lead to Activision's demise.
I don't know if we'll ever get the full story, but I would imagine Activision has a solid foundation for these moves.
The IW leadership has sounded like a bunch of whiny tools for a while now. My guess is that they probably pushed it beyond public sniping and innuendo to flat-out failure to do their jobs under the contract.
Lesson to be learned: don't mess with your boss unless you are prepared to get fired.
Since insubordination would constitute a valid cause for termination, I'd imagine that any non-compete clauses to their contract are going to hold up. It might be several years before we see anything new from these guys.
Gotta love all the Battlefield fanboys spinning this. What? Your game can't stand up on its own merits?
Two of the heads of one of Activision's strongest franchises just got fired, and all you can think about is how it is a publicity stunt to get attention away from Bad Company 2? In case you idiots didn't know, MW2 was already released.
" This is just dumb of Activision. Unless it is really that bad, this is seriously gonna kill company morale there. "
I'm really quite curious about this now. Does anyone have details of their contribution to the Call of Duty games? ...and I don't mean their fucking job titles. I'd totally agree that this is a terrible move if I had any idea of whether these guys were legitimately important to the franchise and team or not. I mean, maybe the guys who worked on COD hated these two dudes, and firing them was a move to improve morale?
For all I know these guys' job was to drive around in Lamborghini's and take long lobster lunches? (I could attempt to do my own research I guess)
im surprised how legitimately upset I am about this situation. I love Infinity Ward, I love all their games, they are my favorite shooter dev, and now the two studio heads have been dismissed? this is a horrible day in gaming. I can only hope the two find success in future endeavors, and I'm sure many of IW will join them if they choose to continue making games under a new Developer name with a new publisher. I am so sick of Activision, they whore out their franchises, repackaging the same shit, and if rumors and speculation prove true, that's what they're trying to do with IW. Force them to make another MW game or Force them to hand over MW to another developer. Why not just do wha tthe developer wants to do!? I mean look at what happened when 2015 disbanded and formed IW, they made a hit WWII game based off their vision, not EA's. Then they wanted to do MW but Activision forced them to do COD2, which was also successful and led to the greenlight of COD4 which was HUGELY successful, then comes MW2 which was even more hugely successful. Now see what happens when you let the developer do what they were/are eager to do? You find success!! I don't understand Activision, all I know is I am very upset with this situation and I hope the gaming community gets some answers soon.
The head guys aren't necessarily the key to the studios talent, just look at John Romero, Richard Garriot, and David Jaffe. The big question will be if the rest of the dev team jumps ship to follow them.
Could EA or Ubi swoop in and headhunt the lot of them for a new studio deal? You bet your NVGs.
As for the cause of this, I'm reminded by the executive washroom scene in Robocop.
"I once called the old man "boner", but there was always respect, we knew where the line was. And you just crossed it buddy-boy".
" Sounds to me like Activision is pulling some not illegal but mean and nasty business practices, ie. "You signed a contract, now we own you, do what you're told or we fire you and then sue you." Technically Activision may be "in the right", but that don't make it right, if you know what I'm saying... "
They are leeches. I won't be surprised at all if this'll turn out as true. Remember the whole Schafer-Activision beaf? After the merger with Vivendi, they've dropped Brutal Legend without even informing Double Fine - the guys read a press release and noticed that their game is not on the list, so they went to EA. Activision smelled the beans and wanted a piece of cake of it (like in Atari's case with Assault on Dark Athena and Ghostbusters), pretending that they wanted to negotiate a new deal. After the game gained hype, they've decided to block the release of the game with a suit, claiming they put cash in it and therefore are entitled to it. The whole case was settled without a judge, but there's a pattern - they've got a reason to sue, it's all perfectly legal, but quite assholish, hypocritical and crippling to the devs. It looks this could be the case with Infinity Ward here.
Still, it's way too fucking early to say anything for certain. But the best part is, that even if that's not the case - Activision are fucktards. It's a win-win situation.
Infinity Ward basically is no longer going to make Call of Duty games and the game that Sledgehammer Games is developing is an Action Adventure game (lame crossover). I'm pissed, I'm not happy, screw activision, you just alienated half of Call of Duty's fanbase. And Call of Duty is my favorite gaming franchise so I'm in a sticky situation here. Do I lend my allegiance to IW or... what was Infinity Ward? or do I continue to but COD games? Ugh... screw you Activision. This is a dark day in gaming.
Wow...Unless what they did is major, someone at Activision should get canned instead. It'll be interesting to see if talent floods out of there into the new studio these guys will likely form.
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