The scary case of Infinity Ward

    Quote from Warby

    iw is activision OWNED right ?! there is not gonna be a bidding war over anything ... maybe once these guys have started a new studio and established a new winning ip

    Oh I knew that but they left EA formed a new studio and now they may do the same thing. Except now they have two of the best selling FPS games behind them.

    I can't imagine that some other company won't want to acquire them.

    I have been hugely surprised by Activision's last earnings report. With 4 billion dollars in revenue, you'd think they'd make a LOT more profit but it was pretty even as I recall.

    In other words, it looks like CoD is the only franchise within the Activision portfolio that's paying the bills for every other failure. Management never changes. They give you 2 years to make the most polished game ever with a mandate of 95% and up, you do that in 20 months, so next time around, why don't you do it in 18 instead?

    Fucking retarded, this industry's dev model needs to change fast. If you burn through your seniors and can't replace them fast enough with untrained juniors, you're left with jack before long.

    The thing is, their studio is still there. They just fired the top two guys (well, at least one). Activision could force their hand a few different ways to keep everyone there, and possibly keep them doing whatever was reportedly refused that led to the firing.

    But, I don't expect IW as we know it to survive long. It sounds like these guys were well-liked by their team, and the bond of a strong team in this industry is very strong.

    Maybe most of the devs might jump ship, follow the two leads and form a new company again? In any case, pretty crappy on Activision's part. I guess they wanna run CoD to the ground like they did with Guitar Hero. They never learn.

    Dont worry, arnie will walk in and terminate those dicks at activision for everyone.

    Is it official now that Activision is worse than EA?

    Apparently the rumors are now that

    a)Activision weren't paying IW their due royalties for MW2's sales

    b) IW's contract with Activision ends in October, and

    c) Activision wanted MW3 before then.

    http://investor.activision.com/released ... eID=448656

    Whole lotta words and boasting but the part that sticks out to me is

    Quote

    The company is also for the first time announcing that a new game in the Call of Duty series is expected to be released in 2011 and that Sledgehammer Games, a newly formed, wholly owned studio, is in development on a Call of Duty game that will extend the franchise into the action-adventure genre. Sledgehammer is helmed by industry veterans Glen A. Schofield and Michael Condrey. Prior to joining Activision Publishing, Schofield was the Executive Producer of the award-winning game, Dead Space and Michael Condrey was the Sr. Development Director on the game. The Dead Space franchise has won more than 80 industry awards worldwide including the prestigious A.I.A.S. Action Game of the Year and two B.A.F.T.A.S.The Call of Duty business unit will be led by Philip Earl, who currently runs Activision Publishing's Asia Pacific region and previously served in senior executive positions with Procter & Gamble and Nestle. Activision Publishing veterans Steve Pearce, chief technology officer and Steve Ackrich, head of production, will lead Infinity Ward on an interim basis. Jason West and Vince Zampella are no longer with Infinity Ward.

    Quote from Jetsetlemming

    http://investor.activision.com/releasedetail.…eID=448656Whole lotta words and boasting but the part that sticks out to me is

    Haha, I like how they're essentially glorifying a rivals product, but I guess the bit they want people to take away is that they got the key people from Dead Space over.

    Also like how they mention West and Zampella's departures as a small side note. I bet investors are slightly worried that there's trouble in one of the studios that's making them the big bucks.

    Anyway, hope proper word gets out soon about whats exactly gone down.

    I have known for SledgeHammer Games's new game for over two months now and I also know the engine they'll be using for that. I can honestly say there is absolutely no way this has anything to do with Zampella and West's departure. It's simply Activision's way of telling the shareholder to hold on to their shares because the stock was starting to dip. I'm sure Activision wouldn't have said a soul if it wasn't for that and would have kept it under wraps until after this year's CoD came out. Now they are going to have announced the next before this one ships and that's never a good move.

    This is more internal than this. Something triggered their departure in the meeting they had earlier yesterday.

    Quote from Furyo

    I can honestly say there is absolutely no way this has anything to do with Zampella and West's departure.

    I dunno, there's been a lot of stuff in the past about how protective IW are about the Call of Duty brand, and "Action adventure COD" seems like the sort of thing that would bother them. I remember there being some shit back before WaW came out when IW came out and publicly complained about Treyarch and Activision trying to attach the game to COD4 as much as possible.

    Yeah that's happened, but why yesterday of all days? And after meeting with Activision in the morning? If the principle was the problem they'd have had that hissy fit long ago when Schofield set up shop for Activision. Maybe that's when they first saw what the Schofield game was going to be like and they flipped, but yeah that's a stretch

    It's also silly to blame him for everything Activision does, just like people blame Gabe Newell whenever they're not happy with Valve. They don't take all the decisions, that's why they have delegated responsibilities...

    Some new stuff:

    http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2748 ... _Sword.php

    Quote

    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.

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