Call Of Duty:Infinity Ward-fare

[MalReynolds]

God i love that title...

So MW2 is out and has made of a billion dollars, which is all good. A lot of you are playing it on line, so i guess it's pretty popular, but no one has really mentioned the internal war between Infinity Ward and Activision or the future of Call Of Duty. (Serious Miller where are you?)

So I'll try and break it down short and snappy.

Essentially Jason West and Vince Zampella joined Infinity Ward, after the success they had with Medal of Honour: Allied Assault, and Infinity ward was bought out pretty sharpish by Activision and they were appointed the bosses. Total take over, over 2 Call of Duty games was about $5 million and Infinity Ward was allowed to operate as a separate entity given creative freedom and control to develop a Modern Warfare title in the franchise, while Treyarch developed another WW2 version.

Infinity Ward is an important company within the Activision Umbrella. Apart from profit, they develop engines and tools used throughout Activision and work faster and produce higher quality products than most other companies. Jason West and Vince Zampella were hired on 3 year contract terms and Modern Warfare was released with 1 year left on their contracts. Of course Modern Warfare was very popular and Activision wanted them to make a sequel, but Jason West and Vince Zampella weren't keen as Activision was beginning to set unrealistic deadlines and deny them creative freedom to develop new projects and feared the Infinity Ward team would burn out.

For MW2, Jason West and Vince Zampella made an agreement that allowed Infinity Ward to start to develop original projects after Modern Warfare 2 and any Modern Warfare title would come with bonuses and have to be signed off by both Jason and Vince. Activision agreed and 20 months later Modern Warfare2 was released.

MW2 was a success, a huge success, but this is where Activision supposedly started an Inquisition against Infinity Ward. Bonuses from Modern Warfare2 would be paid the 31st of March and on the first of March Jason West and Vince Zampella were both fired from Infinity Ward. They are now suing Activision and their claim has been released online.

According to them, Activision sent a legal team to investigate members of Infinity Ward. When asked what they were looking for, they were told "you know what we are looking for". Members were interviewed in windowless offices for upto 6hours over weekends and reduced to tears, assets such as mobile phones and computers were seized and any failure to co-operate would be a sign of guilt. Jason and Vince knew they were looking for reasons to fire them because of royalty deal and employment agreements they made before MW2 and sure enough they were both handed a Notice of Discharge on the 1st of March. They also claim that they were fired on trumped up charges, the investigation and report both dismissing the very reasons they were fired.

So ok i guess i did ramble, but what is important is the agreement over the Modern Warfare name and the next title being set in Vietnam.

What i also find fascinating are these corporate shenanigans are finding their ways online, just like the recent 'Wives against Rockstar' reports recently. How it affects the future of Call of Duty remains to be seen as well as what Activision has to say about all of this.

[Miller]

its been twitching my ears!! Too many things up in the air at the moment.

[Kal-El]

an interesting read Mr Rambler Reynolds!