Since it seems to be the central focus of the gaming industry as of now, I guess I’ll weigh in on the Infinity Ward crisis. Because, you know, Activision hasn’t already received enough hate.
 

I can’t say I personally like Activision. Their games and the way they go about business troubles me. Bobby Kotick may be a loud mouth, pretentious and extremely arrogant business man, but that’s just it – Activision is a business. They utilize their strengths and focus on creating solid, well-known titles with little room for experimental ones. While that may be bothersome to the people, like me, who want more innovation than the same old experience, the path Activision follows has more of a conscience for business.

You never know what you’re going to get when you create a brand new game. Sometimes it can be a break-out success, other times it can fall completely into the chasm of atrocity. As I previously stated, I don’t care for the games Activision carries. Of the most popular, Tony Hawk has fallen completely off the grid, Guitar Hero may have instilled the music-game phenomenon but it’s severely punished by the quality of Rock Band, and Call of Duty has already begun the plummet into mediocrity. Of course, there’s plenty of working titles that look fun and perhaps some sequels that could propel themselves ahead of their predecessors, like Prototype, but I’m just not feeling it. I can play anything and I certainly look forward to being surprised by titles that appear to be soulless and devoid of any fun-factor, but there’s not a lot working for Activision in the games department right now. Especially after this news.

Following the dismissal of the Infinity Ward lead-duo Jason West and Vince Zampella, people were quick to accuse Activision of malicious activity. Honestly, I completely see why that’s true. Now, I’m ignorant on every minute detail that occurred that day, but according to the sources who poured the information to the media, Activision acted bullish by sending security over to the studio and was all hush-hush about it. My question is, why? Why would you dismiss the leads of one of the best selling game of all-time and put to risk the entire franchise? Obviously it would affect the studio as a whole and since they’re such a business-minded company, what could be the possible gains? Did they think they could slap random dude number three into the gaping holes and think the inevitable sequels would do just fine? They couldn’t have worked out a repair plan? I seriously don’t get it.

Business-wise, by eliminating your staff or in some way causing them to leave, you’re effectively shooting yourself in the foot. The good that comes out of this is that at least some of the other “lesser” talents in Infinity Ward will get a moment to shine now that they have a chance to move up the ladder. Even still, you can bet the next game in the franchise will suffer significant setbacks.

Funny thing, come to find out Infinity Ward was actually born from the demise of 2015 studios who was responsible for games like Medal of Honor. 2015 went out in a very similar way. Really, history seems to be repeating itself. Slowly but surely, key members of Infinity Ward are leaving and with Respawn coming into existence who knows what we’ll get.