BREAKING NEWS: Infinity ward studio situation

http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/702911/Security-Appears-Unannounced-At-Infinity-Ward-Studio-Heads-Missing-Staff-Freaked-Out-.html

what on earth is going on? any ideas anyone?

publicity

publicity

Ravirr

Activision couldn't possibly kidnap the two Infinity Ward heads and do something to the two of them. Goodness gracious me has the two companies become Mafia rivals or something.

Sounds like a stunt to promote some impending dlc release which is great because I'm really itching for some dlc to come out. :DArchangel3371

The DLC for the first MW was crap. Only 4 maps? Treyarch gave World at War 12 new maps and 3 zombie games. I hope IW supports MW2 with that many more maps before they make us fork over $60 for MW3.

Isn't it obvious? Activision is shutting down Infinity Ward and has fired the entire staff. The security is there to make sure disgruntled employees don't steal or trash the place. Obviously since Activision owns call of duty brand and has other studios working on its sequels, they feel IW is disposable if they're demanding too much. Welcome to the business world. runbleduck

Activision won't shut down Infinity Ward, they're one of their biggest cash cows.

First the killing civilians at the airport now this stunt. Do you really need to pull all these things for publicity IW, youre game already sold a bazillion copies.

Infinity Ward kind of jumped the shark with MW2, so if heads are rolling, I don't really care. It's not like the game is bad or anything, it's just sort.... DLC-y. Short, unrealistic campaign ripped straight out of a Jean-Claude Goddamn flick or an Ubisoft shooter, with not enough of the awesome challenge levels and co-op goodness. Veteran was neutered too -- game's way, way too easy, and there was no Mile High moment like there was in COD4.

I was pretty disappointed given the game's pedigree. Oh, and I hope the dude who got fired was responsible for making your guy fire his gun sideways like a pimp in a rap video in the snowmobile chase sequence. I saw that, and I was like, "Man, Infinity Ward did this? REALLY?" It's one of those small things that just makes you realize someone's jumping the shark, kind of like seeing Lee Majors pimping Bionic Hearing Aids.

Best of luck, boys. Go make a platformer or something.

You guys really think this is a publicity stunt? What, they're gonna pretend he's fired and then a week later say "gotcha!"???

Why in the world would someone kill the goose that laid the golden eggs? Oh right, this is Bobby Kotick we're talking about.MAILER_DAEMON

Kotick would kill said goose by making it lay a golden egg monthly until all it could produce was a speckled brown thing that looked like an egg, but smelled like something else. Perhaps that's what led to this, but since I wasn't particularly enamored with MW2, I think the brown egg kind of got here all on its own. Well, not brown, but kind of brassy.

In an SEC filing made earlier today, Activision cited a human resources investigation into "into breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward."

Why in the world would someone kill the goose that laid the golden eggs? Oh right, this is Bobby Kotick we're talking about.MAILER_DAEMON

If true, I praise Activision for the firings. LongZhiZi

ummm....really?

In all likelyhood, IW is being forced to make a MW sequel which they dont want to. All Activision is doing here is flexing its muscles.

Here is the full disclosure in the Commitments and Contingencies section of Activision's SEC Form 10-K filing for the fiscal year ended 12/31/09, dated 3/1/10:

In November 2009, the Company released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare2, a game developed by one of the Company's wholly-owned studios, Infinity Ward. As noted above, Modern Warfare2 was the best selling console title in the U.S. and Europe in 2009. Consistent with past practice, the Company intends to release a Call of Duty game in 2010 developed by another wholly-owned studio. The Company is concluding an internal human resources inquiry into breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward. This matter is expected to involve the departure of key personnel and litigation. At present, the Company does not expect this matter to have a material impact on the Company.

A Form 10-K is a public company's annual report filed with the SEC, including its financial statements, notes to financial statements, and manager's discussion & analysis (MD&A).

For Activision to make this disclosure in its 10-k is very important. Companies are required to disclose legal proceedings that are ongoing or "more than probable or likely" which may have a material impact upon their financial statements.

I expect Activision to file a Form 8-k with the SEC (basically, a press release) in the next few days announcing that the individuals have been released.

Oh, here's the link to Activision's annual report:

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/718877/000104746910001649/a2196314z10-k.htm#ds11401_item_8._financial_statements_and_supplementary_data

In the Table of Contents, click on "Item 8: Financial Statements and Supplementatry Data." Then, keep scrolling unil you get to "Commitments and Contingencies" in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements (page F-50). If you're interested, you can also read about Activision's merger with Vivendi in the notes and the MD&A.

The irony is that Activision was founded by ex-Atari employees who felt marginalized by AtariCEO Ray Kassar and decided to create what was essentially the first third party software company for gaming consoles.

Talk about history repeating itself.

Does anyone know who owns the COD IP? Is it Activision or IW?

Does anyone know who owns the COD IP? Is it Activision or IW?

S0lidSnake

[QUOTE="runbleduck"]Isn't it obvious? Activision is shutting down Infinity Ward and has fired the entire staff. The security is there to make sure disgruntled employees don't steal or trash the place. Obviously since Activision owns call of duty brand and has other studios working on its sequels, they feel IW is disposable if they're demanding too much. Welcome to the business world. Mist3rBungle

Activision won't shut down Infinity Ward, they're one of their biggest cash cows.

Um, no. The CoD brand is. After all IW didn't do anything for World at War, and that sucker sold millions. Also keep in mind that they bought the Guitar Hero brand, and immediately booted the developer (Harmonix) that made it and gave it to an inexperienced studio. In Activision's eyes, the IP is ALL that matters, not the people making the game. They've proved this many times in their past. Activision really won't care if everyone in IW resigns today, as they'll just hand it off to another studio to work on. They may prefer that as IW has always tried to maintain some creative independence, and Activision has been smacking them down. That's probably what the act of insubordination/breach of contract is - the IW brass expressed that they want to create something new, but Activision demands MW3.

Didn't Kotick just make a speech recently, trying to save his image and claim to care about developers? Didn't that happen, like, a week ago? With all the other developers that are getting let go, this definitely isn't helping.

There's two sides to the story, I'm sure, but if the reason they let these guys go was just for Activision to flex their muscle and temper down any thought other than "make COD games", then... well, I don't like Activision much to begin with anyway. Maybe part of the reason for being let go had to do with these devs talking behind the scenes with the gaming press. Learning things that Activ wanted nothing more than WWII games, or any kind of change for instance, I find it pretty upsetting, not to mention it looks like IW has more business sense than Acti, who can't seem to see anything farther than the franchise name. Sure it's going to be pretty successful for a while, but if they keep dropping talent, I feel like they're just going to destroy their IP.

Eurogamer is reporting that the situation might be caused by unpayed Modern Warfare 2 royalties and Infinity Ward's execs having secret conversations with rival publishers.

Apparantly, Activision and Infinity Ward had a meeting this morning that didn't go well ending in Infinity Ward bosses Jason West and Frank Zampella being fired on the spot. Security showed up and everything.

Tim Shafer's twitter: "Getting mad at Activision for this kind of thing is like getting mad at an ape for throwing feces. It's just how the beast communicates."

This is coming hot on the heels of Activision shutting down a fan-made, non-commercial release of a King's Quest sequel. It was in development for years, the team had an agreement with Vivendi/Sierra, but Activision simply nullified it.

What is there to say? Total scum.

Eurogamer is reporting that the situation might be caused by unpayed Modern Warfare 2 royalties and Infinity Ward's execs having secret conversations with rival publishers.

Apparantly, Activision and Infinity Ward had a meeting this morning that didn't go well ending in Infinity Ward bosses Jason West and Frank Zampella being fired on the spot. Security showed up and everything.

Tim Shafer's twitter: "Getting mad at Activision for this kind of thing is like getting mad at an ape for throwing feces. It's just how the beast communicates."

This is coming hot on the heels of Activision shutting down a fan-made, non-commercial release of a King's Quest sequel. It was in development for years, the team had an agreement with Vivendi/Sierra, but Activision simply nullified it.

What is there to say? Total scum.

UpInFlames

Yeah. I just hope the whole IW team packs up their bags again and moves to a different studio like they did back when they were sick of making Medal of Honor games.

Eurogamer is reporting that the situation might be caused by unpayed Modern Warfare 2 royalties and Infinity Ward's execs having secret conversations with rival publishers.

Apparantly, Activision and Infinity Ward had a meeting this morning that didn't go well ending in Infinity Ward bosses Jason West and Frank Zampella being fired on the spot. Security showed up and everything.

Tim Shafer's twitter: "Getting mad at Activision for this kind of thing is like getting mad at an ape for throwing feces. It's just how the beast communicates."

This is coming hot on the heels of Activision shutting down a fan-made, non-commercial release of a King's Quest sequel. It was in development for years, the team had an agreement with Vivendi/Sierra, but Activision simply nullified it.

What is there to say? Total scum.

Eurogamer is reporting that the situation might be caused by unpayed Modern Warfare 2 royalties and Infinity Ward's execs having secret conversations with rival publishers.

Apparantly, Activision and Infinity Ward had a meeting this morning that didn't go well ending in Infinity Ward bosses Jason West and Frank Zampella being fired on the spot. Security showed up and everything.

Tim Shafer's twitter: "Getting mad at Activision for this kind of thing is like getting mad at an ape for throwing feces. It's just how the beast communicates."

This is coming hot on the heels of Activision shutting down a fan-made, non-commercial release of a King's Quest sequel. It was in development for years, the team had an agreement with Vivendi/Sierra, but Activision simply nullified it.

What is there to say? Total scum.

UpInFlames

Hmm interesting. I wonder who those rival publishers are and I also how the rest of IW will react, if they'll stay or go with Jason West and Frank Zampella.

[QUOTE="S0lidSnake"]

[QUOTE="UpInFlames"]

Eurogamer is reporting that the situation might be caused by unpayed Modern Warfare 2 royalties and Infinity Ward's execs having secret conversations with rival publishers.

Apparantly, Activision and Infinity Ward had a meeting this morning that didn't go well ending in Infinity Ward bosses Jason West and Frank Zampella being fired on the spot. Security showed up and everything.

Tim Shafer's twitter: "Getting mad at Activision for this kind of thing is like getting mad at an ape for throwing feces. It's just how the beast communicates."

This is coming hot on the heels of Activision shutting down a fan-made, non-commercial release of a King's Quest sequel. It was in development for years, the team had an agreement with Vivendi/Sierra, but Activision simply nullified it.

What is there to say? Total scum.

dvader654

Yeah. I just hope the whole IW team packs up their bags again and moves to a different studio like they did back when they were sick of making Medal of Honor games.

Believe it or not, the COD series started out pretty awesome. The single player was entirely different than the MOH games which were becoming more about being a one man army rather than depicting WWII in a realistic light. The first couple of CODs were way more realistic than the MOH games. COD1 was completely different than the MOH games before it. They only shared the WWII setting, and nothing else IMO.

Oh man... They do get that the only reason the Treyarch games have sold well is because they had the template IW set up for them? World at War was fine, but it was basically just a total conversion of COD4. I expect the next one to do something similar with Modern Warfare 2...

Also, I don't think that is the team you want to upset. They put out games that sell tons and that the other developers are just trying to keep up with. Then you take into account their history where they ditched EA because they wanted more control over their games? I don't know about the legal aspects of this, so it could complicate things, but Activision sounds like they are just handing over IW to the next company that wants to pick up the employees.

The people that went on to form Infinity Ward were former 2015 employees and the only Medal of Honor they did was Allied Assault which was basically the template for Call of Duty.

This week in gaming is insane. IW is a very talented developer, without them the CoD name would fall apart in 2 years or so. As usual Activision is being the cliche villain here, not really a surprise. I wonder what happens next.dvader654

More fuel on the fire.

Activision announces new "strategic plans" for Call of Duty franchise

Publisher Activision announced today new "strategic plans" for the Call of Duty franchise, announcing a new developer for the shooter franchise and confirming the departure of key Infinity Ward staffers.

The plans include the formation of a dedicated business unit that will bring together its various new brand initiatives with focused, dedicated resources around the world. The company intends to expand the Call of Duty brand with the same focus seen in its Blizzard® Entertainment business unit. This will include a focus on high-margin digital online content and further the brand as the leading action entertainment franchise in new geographies, new genres and with new digital business models.

"2010 will be another important year for the Call of Duty franchise," stated Mike Griffith, President and CEO of Activision Publishing. "In addition to continued catalog sales, new downloadable content from Infinity Ward and a new Call of Duty release, we are excited about the opportunity to bring the franchise to new geographies, genres and players."

The company expects to release a new Call of Duty game from Treyarch this fall. In addition, Infinity Ward is in development on the first two downloadable map packs for Modern Warfare® 2 for release in 2010.

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.

Lastly, Activision Publishing announced that the company is in discussions with a select number of partners to bring the franchise to Asia, one of the fastest growing regions for online multiplayer games in the world.

PR

It sounds like COD has been taken away from IW and given to Treyarch and Sledgehammer.

wow that was fast. i guess u dont **** with bobby kotick.