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BREAKING: Weird happenings at Infinity Ward

One of the completely unsubstantiated rumors floating around is that Activision wanted MW3 on a faster timetable than IW was willing to commit to, something I can totally see given how Activision drove their other money-maker Guitar Hero into the ground.

If that's true, fuck Activision and good on IW for sticking to their guns. I can't imagine it will take long for those guys to land on their feet somewhere else.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if those two don't have multiple emails already from several game companies offering them positions.

I bet we'll get their side of the story sooner or later which may prove to be very entertaining.
 
I hope the IW staff say FU and walk out and make there own company again like they did when they left EA/MOH.
 
Whatever they are supposed to have done, Activision have involved the SEC which ramps up the potential severity of this whole issue a great deal.

It looks like the SEC isn't involved in any sort of enforcement sense, Activision was simply filing a financial disclosure to the agency because the event could have a material impact on its business (litigation, lost sales, etc).

The allegations - insubordination and breach of contract - don't suggest anything criminal.
 
i'll wait before facts are in before jumping to any sort of conclusion... i know it's a crazy idea on the internet, but i'm a trailblazer like that.
 
One of the completely unsubstantiated rumors floating around is that Activision wanted MW3 on a faster timetable than IW was willing to commit to, something I can totally see given how Activision drove their other money-maker Guitar Hero into the ground.

If that's true, fuck Activision and good on IW for sticking to their guns. I can't imagine it will take long for those guys to land on their feet somewhere else.

It wouldn't surprise me. It feels totally weird, but now I pretty much avoid Activision products and get a lot of EA stuff, which is a complete reverse of how it was a few years ago.
 
i'll wait before facts are in before jumping to any sort of conclusion... i know it's a crazy idea on the internet, but i'm a trailblazer like that.

You're not allowed to be on the internet if you won't come to crazy inconclusive conclusions based on even less than speculation!

You can proclaim that they were fired for being Cylons! Or because they spoke poorly about Pitfall. Or because they were caught playing Rock Band at the office. Or because they voted libertarian.
 
i'll wait before facts are in before jumping to any sort of conclusion... i know it's a crazy idea on the internet, but i'm a trailblazer like that.

You're not allowed to be on the internet if you won't come to crazy inconclusive conclusions based on even less than speculation!

You can proclaim that they were fired for being Cylons! Or because they spoke poorly about Pitfall. Or because they were caught playing Rock Band at the office. Or because they voted libertarian.

I heard they were fired for standing up. *looks at article* Yeah, it says right here-oh, wait. Standing on principle. :alienblush:
Hmm, that's different. I didn't even know they were in school. ;) Nevermind.
 
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27482/Analysis_Infinity_Wards_DoubleEdged_Sword.php

Another source with knowledge of the situation tells Gamasutra that although Infinity Ward is only about 75 developers strong, Activision brass demanded layoffs at the studio anticipating a refusal -- which they received, potentially opening the door for Activision to use that refusal as a way to launch a breach suit that would help it escape its contract.
It looks like they were looking for a way to push them out the door anyway. The whole tension with them not wanting to make MW3 and all that might also be true as well.

I find it strange that Activision headhunted away two Dead Space leads just to make more CoD games. Seems like an odd fit, but maybe they're going to whore out the franchise by making a TPS to complement the FPS. It gives them another SKU to sell anyway.

Given how fast Activision killed the music genre, I wonder if Activision will be the first company to make FPSes suddenly uncool to play. :p
 
Looks like it's both Zampella and West that have been fired. So the studio isn't dead - it just lost any of its identity.

I certainly hope that key people decide to leave over the next few months and they can go make their next game some place else.
As do I. It would be sweet justice to see the key developers follow West and Zampella and create a new shooter that takes over the genre again. But they already left EA to found Infinity Ward and do Call of Duty (the original IW team started out on the Medal of Honor series), so where else can they go? Ubisoft? That's not really a great option, either.
 
It depends. They could pull a Valve and be independent with publishing deals (or Bungie for that matter) rather than go back to a studio looking for money.

I don't know. I mean, they probably had an idea of what they were getting into when they sold the company to Activision... but then again, that was before Modern Warfare and they didn't have the cachet that they have now.
 
Infinity Ward have made one game six or seven times over. Activision wants it made fifty times over. You'll forgive me if I don't see one or the other as inherently the "good guy" in all this. Even Rockstar have made games that aren't GTA.
 
Rockstar North, the "real" Rockstar has always done GTA games.

Whatever feelings you may have about IW, at the moment no one does FPS games as well as they do.
 
Well, since assuming the R*N name anyway. :lol

I mean, Bungie hasn't always been doing Halo but they're so far removed from their Mac roots now (and a lot of the people that were there pre-Microsoft are gone) that it's fair to say that Bungie = Halo.

In fact, very few studios manage to break out of their genre/franchise defining games unless they just become big enough to have several teams going at once (Insomniac).
 
Rockstar North, the "real" Rockstar has always done GTA games.

Damn. :lol:

Still don't see why I, as a gamer, should care about this business between IW and Activision. What's the 'worst' that could happen, IW folks split to form a new studio and make Duty Calls? It's not like there's actually anything to the IP beyond the name.

Whatever feelings you may have about IW, at the moment no one does FPS games as well as they do.

Within a certain niche in the genre, perhaps.
 
Still don't see why I, as a gamer, should care about this business between IW and Activision.

You shouldn't. All you should care about is what games actually come out and what you want to spend your money on. Which, incidentally, is what most gamers will do. From a PR perspective this is a non-issue for Activision because most people won't hear about it or care. What they will care about is declining game quality and franchise fatigue, but that's another story.

One of the most interesting things about this is how it's showing that many gamers, at least the ones who talk about this stuff, have absolutely zero grasp on how the industry actually works from a business perspective, both inward and outward facing. Which actually isn't surprising.
 
Still don't see why I, as a gamer, should care about this business between IW and Activision.

You shouldn't. All you should care about is what games actually come out and what you want to spend your money on. Which, incidentally, is what most gamers will do. From a PR perspective this is a non-issue for Activision because most people won't hear about it or care. What they will care about is declining game quality and franchise fatigue, but that's another story.

One of the most interesting things about this is how it's showing that many gamers, at least the ones who talk about this stuff, have absolutely zero grasp on how the industry actually works from a business perspective, both inward and outward facing. Which actually isn't surprising.

Funny, my gaming site is all up in arms over this situation-primarily due to the perception of a decline in quality in future iterations of the COD franchise. And they do get the business model(heck, some of them are in the industry).
 
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