Jason West and Vince Zampella fired from Infinity Ward/Activision
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NathansFortune
Regular
It's because Activision are the ultimate short sighted company who can't see beyond the next fiscal year. Every year they have the same problem, what, other than COD, is going to bring in money. They had the Hero series, but that's dead, Tony Hawk series is dead and Prototype was not particularly well received and mostly overshadowed by Infamous. So what's left out of Activision's portfolio then, I can't see very much other than COD/MW. So losing control of the MW IP would have been disastrous to to their bottom line, and not having a numbered COD for even a single year would have lead to huge losses in the Activision side and probably cost that idiot Kotick his job once investors realised how poorly the business has been run and how little worthwhile IP Activision actually owns compared to EA.
Veto rights over one of the biggest game series there is at the moment ... even if they weren't rich enough to get decent lawyers (which I doubt) they could get them on contingency.
And you know what? Every quarter Activision profits and EA records huge losses. Oh and I'm pretty sure Prototype well outsold infamous (being on two platforms...)
I know the gaming community is in love with Riccitiello and all this, but sometimes I wonder if it's based on reality. The fact is if EA doesn't pick it up Riccitiello is going to be fired, and soon, and he should be. All the supposed gamer goodwill in the world for EA mean nothing if they aren't buying it's games. And a game like Mirror's Edge, ok, it looked kind of cool, but in the end did I want to purchase it? No. That's not doing EA any good no matter how much goodwill it gets them.
The other thing Acti gets crap for is "running franchises into the ground". Again, I think that's often unfair. Exactly how? Ok, the music games. Guess what, music games were probably just a fad anyway. The question was how to maximize revenue while it lasted. And maybe, Activision did that just fine. It's not like we somehow see their competitor, Rock Band, thriving while they struggle. Same thing with the COD games. World at War didn't sell as well as MW, but guess what, it sold amazingly well and made Acti a ton of money. I dont know that theyre wrong or "running the franchise into the ground" by putting WaW out there.
I'm kind of being contrary here, sure. But this reminds me of the whole Conan-Leno thing. Seems everybody rushed to Conan's side. I said hey, wait a minute, what did Leno do so bad?...and the funny thing is, I was a big Conan fan from LONG before most of these johnny come lately yahoos who flocked with the crowd to him in the Leno fiasco. I was a huge Conan fan from year 1 of his show (actually in later years it went down a lot, though still far better than Leno), and I guarantee 99.9% of those backing him in the latest scandal were NOT. They were just going with the crowd.
Anyway I went way OT there, but my point is my inclination is a bit towards Activision here, simply because everybody is rushing to judgment against them.
That said, the court documents look bad for Activision. Then again, guess who leaked them? West and Zampenella did, almost certainly. It is only one side of the story. Activision had better respond quickly though in the public PR war.
Unsaid, and begging the question, in the whole suit documents is WHY Activision was so set against West/Z and trying to fire them. That's what I'm wondering. I guess if you believe West, it was simply to avoid paying them. But maybe, there was suspicion they were planning to jilt Acti and take much of IW with them to a new studio? That would indeed be breach of contract. Or maybe Acti was just tired of IW not doing what they were told? They were employees, after all. This was a festering situation and the documents only tell one side of it.
Whats weird though is why things would turn sour so quickly, why would Acti sign IW, then turn around against them so quickly? Acti should have had an idea of whatever problems came up, long before, and never signed them.
Also, the damages West asks for is rather draconian, no COD set in any post Vietnam era? Talk about tying Acti's hands. That makes West strike me as rather greedy. West is scared to even allow Acti to make a Modern Warfare without him? Why, because it might succeed? I mean, I had wondered why Treyarch hadn't done a modern day COD. Now we see why, because IW wouldn't let them. I also figured Treyarch should be working on a COD: Future Soldier type game while IW kept churning out the modern day stuff. Again, turns out they couldn't, because of IW's controlling ways. Also, West asks rights to sign off on any Modern Day COD. What does that mean? If somehow he's just going to ensure some level of quality..ok, great. But I imagine what it really means, is he's going to want XXX millions dollars to sign the dotted line, and that's all.
Also, there's the simple fact that imo, COD is a horrifically overrated game series, and thus any IW "genius" is pretty overrated in my book. In a lot of ways I despise COD's ultra linear, ultra scripted approach, and now it's box office success has made that infect many other games such as the new Bad Company (but thankfully, no Halo yet).
One thing's for sure, it makes the Bungie/MS split look like roses
Bungie is happy and independent and churning out a great looking Halo game for MS, and will guide/oversee the series going forward, both sides are happy.Well anyway, I wrote a lot of anti IW pro Acti stuff, but I have to admit the documents make Acti look really bad. Acti need to get their side of the story out and if it's not compelling I will have to support IW.
World of Warcraft.
The message you replied to tell you why they were dead set on firing them ... the MOU basically gave control of MW to West/Zampella, this is a desperation attempt to get it back before Vivendi and other share holders find out what they did with the second largest franchise they have. What West/Zampella are asking for seems exactly what they were given in the MOU ... that's not draconian, that's just business. If the MOU says what they says it does then Activision has to negotiate the right to release these games with them, that's just how it is.
PS. the court filings might be leaked, but they are still court filings ... lying on them has slightly different consequences than leaking untrue rumours to the press.
The message you replied to tell you why they were dead set on firing them ... the MOU basically gave control of MW to West/Zampella, this is a desperation attempt to get it back before Vivendi and other share holders find out what they did with the second largest franchise they have. What West/Zampella are asking for seems exactly what they were given in the MOU ... that's not draconian, that's just business. If the MOU says what they says it does then Activision has to negotiate the right to release these games with them, that's just how it is.
PS. the court filings might be leaked, but they are still court filings ... lying on them has slightly different consequences than leaking untrue rumours to the press.
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Why did Acti want their cell phones, personal computers, etc?
Probably because they expect there to be "hey, after they fire us, lets go make our own studio" stuff on there.
And are West/Zampella asking for rights to MW FOREVER or just through 2011, that the MOU ran for? I'm guessing the former, and that doesn't seem fair.
Again it's all about money, they want a huge payoff to sign the MW rights back to Acti. These things are always about money on both sides. Just like Saint Conan got 40 million dollars from NBC for his troubles and public posturing, and didn't donate it to charity.
Again, though, they know what theyre doing. To deny Acti the rights to make any COD game set after Vietnam, well yes, that will really hurt. That's the golden goose there.
Probably because they expect there to be "hey, after they fire us, lets go make our own studio" stuff on there.
And are West/Zampella asking for rights to MW FOREVER or just through 2011, that the MOU ran for? I'm guessing the former, and that doesn't seem fair.
Again it's all about money, they want a huge payoff to sign the MW rights back to Acti. These things are always about money on both sides. Just like Saint Conan got 40 million dollars from NBC for his troubles and public posturing, and didn't donate it to charity.
Again, though, they know what theyre doing. To deny Acti the rights to make any COD game set after Vietnam, well yes, that will really hurt. That's the golden goose there.
I have to agree with West/Zampella on this ... they probably just said they wanted them to sour the talks. Regardless of what you think you will find on them you just don't fucking ask for those, it's unconscionable. What would you tell your boss if he did the same?
They are asking the court to decide, the last part of the claim for relief.
Partly about money, partly about power (power games and management are inseparable ... frightening amounts of money are pissed away for the most childish reasons) and probably partly about simply wanting to make good games (the fact that they put in extra royalty options in the MOU for the rest of the studio really does speak in their favour).
I think it's hard to dispute that Activision ran Tony Hawk into the ground. I also find it hard to argue that damaging the music games market the way they did was inevitable. Yeah, Rock Band was hurt too, and they had their own responsibility in the genre's fall. There was just very little effort to actually nurture the genre; we're not even talking about annualizing music games, but releasing a half dozen of them in a given year.
And it seems that they're looking to milk CoD the same way. We already know of 2 CoD games in the works, which suggests they'll go beyond just 'annualizing' the brand (which CoD seemed like it could support).
And even beyond that, if you actually care for CoD as a franchise, think of it as a gamer. Do you want what happened to Tony Hawk to happen to it? People who actually cared for that franchise don't play it anymore.
And it seems that they're looking to milk CoD the same way. We already know of 2 CoD games in the works, which suggests they'll go beyond just 'annualizing' the brand (which CoD seemed like it could support).
And even beyond that, if you actually care for CoD as a franchise, think of it as a gamer. Do you want what happened to Tony Hawk to happen to it? People who actually cared for that franchise don't play it anymore.
Newscorp is a way larger business than Activision and they just settled for $500 million dollars due to a lawsuit over their coupon business. There is no such thing as too big to lose, if any large company thought like that, they would never settle.
Yeah, is it that hard to believe that the IW guys were really interested in protecting their franchise from a 4-5 games per year demise?
And please remember Kotic's comments on how they want to take the 'fun' out of game development. All the big independent or semi-independent studios like Naughty Dog, Bungie, Blizzard etc. have a very different approach and company culture. That also could have been something Activision wanted to change at IW by force.
And please remember Kotic's comments on how they want to take the 'fun' out of game development. All the big independent or semi-independent studios like Naughty Dog, Bungie, Blizzard etc. have a very different approach and company culture. That also could have been something Activision wanted to change at IW by force.
I don't think Kotick's comments should be taken at face-value, but I do think they might bite him in the ass for this lawsuit, where it comes to characterizing ATVI.
But I don't particularly mind the 'fun' comment -- I read it as making game development more process-oriented, which is something I support. Dobwal quoted ATVI's financials in a diferent thread and their R&D expenditure seemed small compared to EA's. Without more input on titles in development it's hard to come to a conclusion, but it could mean ATVI has stronger pre-production than EA and can decide whether a title is not viable much earlier -- which is something ERP pointed out as an issue. (Conversely, the lower R&D can represent the relatively small number of new IPs in ATVI's stable.)
But I don't particularly mind the 'fun' comment -- I read it as making game development more process-oriented, which is something I support. Dobwal quoted ATVI's financials in a diferent thread and their R&D expenditure seemed small compared to EA's. Without more input on titles in development it's hard to come to a conclusion, but it could mean ATVI has stronger pre-production than EA and can decide whether a title is not viable much earlier -- which is something ERP pointed out as an issue. (Conversely, the lower R&D can represent the relatively small number of new IPs in ATVI's stable.)
ATVI's seems to get more bang for their buck when its comes R&D, but its seems that ATVI is also dependent on a few key franchises, where EA has a more diverse and populated portfolio. Losing Madden or FIFA would hurt EA, but alot less so than losing COD or WOW.
ATVI's desire for continued growth seems predicated on basically wearing out their top franchises. Its seems that Guitar Hero is already showing a bunch of cracks (in terms of demand) from this strategy and COD seems to headed in this direction. There is no garauntee that a WOW2 will recreate the success currently enjoyed by WOW, just ask Sony about Everquest 2.
I don't have a good outlook on the future of ATVI in terms of maintaining its current success. They basically got rid of guys, who has already showed success at leaving, starting a studio and making a viable IP based on a previous project. If these guys show up with a new studio and new IP based around modern warfare, plenty of hardcore COD:MWers are going to flock to this new IP, especially if it turns out to be good.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
I'm not entirely convinced that Activision doesn't know how to take care of the COD fanchise, that's one thing they've had for quite a few years and could have run it into the ground at anytime. Granted it wasn't a runaway blockbuster until MW was released, but it brought in steady dependable high dollar profits up until then.
If nothing else, the history of the COD series would show that they at least care about that one franchise and have at least a tentative grasp on how to keep it relevant and earning money.
At least part of that is due to IW, but the Treyarch games didn't do shabby during the time period either.
Now, whether Activision can keep the MW series at the current level of MW2 is certainly questionable. It's not easy to keep any franchise relevant in those stratospheric numbers. But even at a fraction of that it would still be relevant and profitable.
NOTE - this isn't to say that Activision is or isn't wrong in their firing of Jason West and Vince Zampella, just that I'm not convinced that by doing such they are suddenly going to become inept at producing and promoting one of the longest running FPS franchises around.
Also, it would only be fair to see what their side of the story is as well as any evidence they have to back up their story.
Personally, I think West and Zampella are probably in the right, but I'm not ready to make a firm decision without seeing what Activision has.
Regards,
SB
They had Tony Hawk for several years too, that's not a proof of anything. We know the series can support being annualized, at least so far, but ATVI isn't content with just annualizing it -- we're looking at at least 2 CoD games coming up. If it follows the GH format, we'll see several more in 2011, except by then, between MOH, Battlefield, Spec Ops: The Line and all those other modern warfare shooters, we'll probably see the genre exhausted and I guess DICE will be back to making Rallisport games.
Unless it is Microsoft. They would get away from anything bad they do.
Apparently the duo got sacked after Activision found out that they were in talks with someone else for other projects, but it is lame from Activision. Like I say again, this is exactly what happened with EA years ago, huge shame.
Don't they have to strip XML out of Excel because they lost a patent lawsuit?
Im not so sure. Yearly refreshes makes sense if you have a game like football where each season produce a level of excitement and gameplay mechanic thats is naturally conducive to growth because the interaction during a football game in reality is highly complex and hard to mimic. Plus, it doesn't help to own a exclusive lock on the only NFL license. But yearly refreshes to COD is bound to get old. Maybe not for the hardcore, but you can't expect to bounce between 5 million and 15 million on a yearly basis. Those no franchise thats been that sustainable with that level of success. Futhermore, if those two start a new studio and pull away additional Infinity Ward staff, then a Call of Warfare:Modern Duty will be looked at as the spiritual successor to MW2, like Crysis is the spiritual successor to FarCry. And is bound to rain on Activision's parade.
Is it more like 4? The annual installments with an action adventure from sledgehammer and with a MMO on top of those titles, all coming in 2010 and 2011?
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