Jason West and Vince Zampella fired from Infinity Ward/Activision

NathansFortune said:
The result is largely academic though, with the two founders of the studio gone and replaced with random publishing/distribution heads internally from Activision the natives at IW won't stick around too long after their contracts expire...
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They are a lot cheaper to convince to stay ...
 
Also, it's an insult to the rest of the 70+ Infinity Ward developers to claim that the two head honchos were the only ones who made the games good, and without them nothing will ever be the same.
 
I'm not trying to insult the others, but rather pointing out that they may very well be next (looks at what happened to Guitar Hero).

Also, earned income should be payed for everyone, especially if there's so much of it.
 
Bonuses were generous last year at Treyarch. Somebody said Activision is due to pay royalties/bonuses at the end of Q1, that is, right now. I don't buy the unpaid salaries line, at all.
 
assen said:
Bonuses were generous last year at Treyarch. Somebody said Activision is due to pay royalties/bonuses at the end of Q1, that is, right now. I don't buy the unpaid salaries line, at all.
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The way I got it, the two founders who got fired would not get their share of the royalties.
I may be wrong on this though, or the media might be misreporting it...

Also, I see this issue as a prime example of what's wrong with the current publisher model. Activision's greed is crashing franchises into the ground at an alarming rate, burning through established and proven development studios in the process. It should be stopped...
 
upnorthsox said:
Until money is in hand they are unpaid.
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Especially in the context of a very hostile relationship.

Item 35 from the docs mentions that West and Zampella were unable to get confirmation from Activision that they would still be paid their bonuses on the day they were fired. Perhaps there was some confusion over how future COD bonues were to be handled but considering the way they describe the "orwellian" investigation with that seemed to have been a preordained conclusion I think any faith they had in Activision doing the right thing was legitimately gone.
 
One of the likely reasons behind all this is that at the time the contracts were written, no-one expected MW1 and MW2 to become such huge hits. COD2 has sold nowhere near as much as even MW1 and it's probably beaten by its sequel now. It's also been reported that Activision was actually against moving the franchise into a contemporary setting - which is probably why IW shares rights to this incarnation (but not to the COD IP itself).
To put it simple - royalty percentages are probably quite high, which means everyone at IW would get a lot of money from the sales (instead of the publisher). It would also make them far more interested in taking their time with the next iteration and not letting anyone else work on it. But Activision wants another MW pronto - so now they're trying to "re-negotiate" the contract this way. There's even word about them presenting an impossible situation to make the founders act in an "insubordinate" way, by trying to force them to fire a certain amount of employees.


I understand that Activision has funded the development of the franchise and its their investment. But it shouldn't allow them to take control of the IP and the actual people behind it in this way.
 
It just sounds like a case of pure greed on behalf of Activision. They have this amazing franchise they didn't really have much faith in that suddenly became stratospheric and now they want to milk it just for themselves without rewarding the people who actually did the work. Without the MW franchise Activision would be a flat-lining publisher.
 
Not surprising considering Activision's various comments over the past 24 months.
 
I don't think it's about greed ... it's about power and stupidity if that bit about the MOU is true. Would be nice to actually read it, but if it says what they say it says then Activision has basically completely fucked themselves regardless if the termination was justified and regardless if they pay royalties. They are over a barrel. I don't see any lawyer at Activision writing off on their present course of action unless they were forced to do so by management ... I just don't see a +EV in it.

If the MOU is/was valid then I wouldn't be surprised to see Vivendi step in, fire some sacrificial goats including Kotic, pay reparations to West/Zampella and putting them back with IW.
 
Laa-Yosh said:
One of the likely reasons behind all this is that at the time the contracts were written, no-one expected MW1 and MW2 to become such huge hits. COD2 has sold nowhere near as much as even MW1 and it's probably beaten by its sequel now. It's also been reported that Activision was actually against moving the franchise into a contemporary setting - which is probably why IW shares rights to this incarnation (but not to the COD IP itself).
To put it simple - royalty percentages are probably quite high, which means everyone at IW would get a lot of money from the sales (instead of the publisher). It would also make them far more interested in taking their time with the next iteration and not letting anyone else work on it. But Activision wants another MW pronto - so now they're trying to "re-negotiate" the contract this way. There's even word about them presenting an impossible situation to make the founders act in an "insubordinate" way, by trying to force them to fire a certain amount of employees.


I understand that Activision has funded the development of the franchise and its their investment. But it shouldn't allow them to take control of the IP and the actual people behind it in this way.
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According to the court filing (I can't believe I read the whole thing) the MOU in question is only like 18 months old. It was created in the wake of MW1's phenomenal success, and it sounds like Activision made lots of concessions in order to get MW2 made, and completed by November 15th 2009. It's sounds like a pretty crazy agreement, but maybe they were sure the gang at IW would crave the bonuses possible by making MW title after MW title. That didn't happen and since they had literally agreed to let IW make new IP, choose their next project AND have veto power over any COD game set after the Vietnam era, Activision literally painted themselves into a corner.

What I don't really understand is why no one at Activision trusted IW to try something new. Last time they did they got Modern Warfare, and that turned out pretty good. And if they had kept IW fat and happy maybe they would have become less protective of the MW brand and allowed another team to take it up. Or, hey, they could have staffed up even further in order to run two projects at once...

For whatever reason Activision couldn't see these options and chose the only other obvious way to get out of their pickle: fire West and Zampella for cause. It looks like that cause is going to be related to them exploring their options outside the Activision framework which is kinda dirty because they were probably making contingency plans under the assumption Activision was doing everything they could to avoid honoring their commitments.
 
Interesting, they may have been pushing Activision for more time for the next game also as I'm sure they weren't happy that they didn't have enough time to have a more substantial single player campaign. Activision obviously wanted to have a blockbuster franchise on a set schedule so they could rely on at least one title bringing in company floating profits every 2 years.

Releasing ever 2 years doesn't give a lot of time to both improve graphics and IQ AND do all the level design and whatnot for a large SP campaign.

Regards,
SB
 
Activision's lawyers are too big to lose this, since the course of events sounds planned in their favor anyway. West & Co. should call it quits and take their talent to a new gig, cuz I don't see them winning a huge chunk of money out of this lawsuit. Take what they have now, make a new studio and start that project, or waste all this time in a legal battle with the publishing company that has an upper hand.

New cod's will come out sucking balls compared to cod4/5/6, and West & Co. will go onto a new project that will totally roxor, and hopefully be awarded the profit it earns as well.

They shouldn't waste their time trying to win this.... IMO.
 
If they really did not recieve any royalty payments then at least that part of the lawsuit is more than justified. We're talking about a revenue of ~1.5 billion here, even 1% of that is a LOT of money.
 
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