Activision Cans Infinity Ward Studio Heads

" 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? "

Okay, Activision, now you have to move up and take their position, otherwise they'll just respawn and you'll have to fire them all over again.

Fuck Activision

" its probably because MW2 sucked so much and they know it "

Man, that was crazy last night. Not understanding what was going on.

Kotick: "Make my shareholders happy by creating another billion dollar selling game...by next summer!"
 
IW: "But we don't want tooooooooooo!" *throws tantrum*
 
Kotick: "Then ya fired!"
 
Essentially.                     
 
And also BF:BC2 is released today, but you'd hardly guess. What a coicidence.

" @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. "

I hope Activision falls apart, and all the good people who work there find proper jobs.

More interested in Bad Company 2 right now.

Morale at Activision subsidiaries must be pretty low.

Well... this sucks.
 
I hope there is a Giantbomb-esqu shift of IW employees over to a new developer. It would be a real shame if this team was broken up :(

And also BF:BC2 is released today, but you'd hardly guess. What a coicidence. "

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.

" These two men will go on to start their own studio, and will have more than enought support. "

AND so the evil empire rears it's head once more!

This is just dumb of Activision. Unless it is really that bad, this is seriously gonna kill company morale there.

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.

Still going to hold my opinion until we see what exactly they have apparently done, but this seems insane.

" This is just dumb of Activision. Unless it is really that bad, this is seriously gonna kill company morale there. "

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.

Modern Warfare 2 = last worthy COD game?
 
 
I look forward to seeing where West and Zampella go.

SHIT'S REAL FUCKED UP

Wouldn't it be kinda funny if Kotick is in the right about this, and West and the the other guy were doing something kinda shady. NEED MORE DETAILS.

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".

I do hope that Activision loses IW in this process.
 
I think IW always wanted to move on to newer things, and this gives them an opportunity, just like when they left EA over Metal of Honor.
 
It would be interesting if they joined an unexpected publisher, like Square Enix or something.

One of them probably smiled in front of Kotick.

" 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.

What a bizarre situation. I can't believe Activision didn't treat the IW folks better considering all the money they've bought them.

activision just released a statement regarding COD and IW according to g4's Patrick Klepek's twitter

RIP IW 
Next up; Blizzard

Fuck Activision and Fuck Gamespot, stop biting the hand that feeds you in the long run, you mother fuckers.

These are the same guys who walked out on EA and 2015, so apparently they are hard-to-work-with-assholes who want to stay independent.

If this is for real how the fuck is activision so stupid as to can the heads of the one studio besides blizzard making them money.

it just got real people! 
 
 http://kotaku.com/5484026/activisions-new-plans-for-call-of-duty-include-new-developer

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.

Hold the Bombcast now and include a segment on this story, now is the time.  If you wait until next week to comment on it, it will be too late.

Cheers.

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.

"it just got real people! 
 
 http://kotaku.com/5484026/activisions-new-plans-for-call-of-duty-include-new-developer "