Jason West and Vince Zampella fired from Infinity Ward/Activision

[Acert93]

To date, there's no proof of Acti milking the COD franchise. There is only evidence of the reverse in fact. All this milk talk seems to be entirely you guys speculating.

What was Big Red? CoD3? WaW? Or talk of a title in 2010 as well as an MMO to monetize the franchise as quick as possible through digital transactions?

 

[Brad Grenz]

The IW guys would have to be plain simply mad to go platform exclusive. They have the talent, the audience, the tech - COD makes at least 40% of its revenue on the PS3, MS can never compensate for that.

If they wanted to go the platform exclusive route it seems like these days Sony would actually be the better partner for maintaining creative freedom.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I think it's kind of funny how you hear from one side, Epic, Id, etc, that the independent studio is dying or at least endangered. That it takes so much money to compete today, there's too much risk in big budget projects, publishers favor their owned IP's, and that sort of thing.

Then on the other side you have studios like IW and Bungie apparently chomping at the bit to be independent. Which is it?

Bungie has a unique situation. They are semi-independant. Basically they have relatively full independance with 100% publisher support. In other words, they are guaranteed a good publishing deal for whatever title they make for MS.

IW just released 2 blockbusters in a row, so likely there are other publishers chomping at the bits to publish their next game if they were to go independant.

Now, contrast that to ID which was an independant engine developer (primarily). Their last licensed IP (Wolfenstein) wasn't well received and probably didn't sell as well as expected. The last ID game was Doom 3 in 2004 and received mixed reviews. Rage has been in developement for longer than some were expecting, and I'm sure EA were putting pressure on ID to deliver sooner rather than later. Additionally pressure from Epic and UE3 meant their core income stream was being challenged and reduced.

A far cry from their heyday when they only needed 10 or less devs to produce a game with large ROI possibilities and then even larger ROI on engine licensing. Feeling the pinch, they obviously felt it better to have solid financial backing over pure independance.

Epic is like Bungie in that they can maintain almost 100% independance being guaranteed good publishing contracts from MS (at least for Gears). And UE3 has been doing better than ID created engines in the past few years. However, looming on the horizon is a few engines that could challenge their current dominance (as they did to ID in the past). And also like ID, some of their past efforts released to mixed reviews. The last Unreal Tournament didn't perform to expectations and released to mixed reviews. Undermining somewhat their ability to negotiate a good publishing deal.

Also, Independant developers don't have the luxury of hoping a blockbuster somewhere else in their lineup will float an underperforming title. Sure they have publisher dollars for whatever they are currently working on, but if they underperform on a title, what are the chances of getting a lucrative publishing deal after that? For someone like ID, that's getting tough as their engine revenue is being reduced and their past few games haven't exactly released to universal acclaim and sales.

So far, only Bungie and Blizzard that I can think of (and probably IW) have a virtually unblemished track record of releasing blockbuster after blockbuster with no stinkers in between. Even ODST did phenomenally despite relatively low sales for a Halo title. Budget was extremely low since it was basically an expansion pack + well over 1 million in sales at regular title price.

As such those companies are in the drivers seat with regards to negotiating publishing deals. If they suddenly have a string of under performing titles however (2 or more), suddenly they won't be in quite as good position to negotiate contracts.

Regards,
SB

 

[Laa-Yosh]

The last ID game was Doom 3 in 2004 and received mixed reviews.

Doom 3 is id's best selling game to date, just so you know...

 

[Phil]

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.

I find this rather harsh, considering most of what Tryarch achieved in regards to COD is thanks to the tech InfinityWard developed. If my tech and foundation was responsible for the success of a major series, I think I'd be entitled to a bit of hostility in regards to what happens with it and if and to how much other teams within the same company receive rewards and benefits for my hard work.

World-at-War wasn't a bad game by any means, but it definately wasn't to the level of what InfinityWards has delievered so far. And I doubt WaW would have achieved the success it did, were it not for the success of Modern Warfare and the Call of Duty brand.

I agree Activision is clearly looking out for their sole interest and that alone, but I really doubt InfinityWard's role in this affair is without reason.

 

[dskneo]

My honest opinion? I think Iw could learn from WAW multiplayer. Well, except the knife killing.


such a good online with mohaa vibes.

 

[Acert93]

My honest opinion of WaW is they can keep it far, far away from MW! It felt like a reskinned MW1 mod which didn't feel right for WWII imo. Not to mention when I played it there were billions of hacks, e.g. floor walking.

 

[BRiT]

If IW could only learn one more thing, I wish it was match making and networking and online stats and replay video and map forge and custom games from Bungie.. Well alright, maybe it's more than just one thing, but mostly the first two. Now if they could learn anything from Epic it could only be Horde mode.

 

[Acert93]

Yeah, I had a long list of things I wish they would do differently in the console MW2 thread. As for MatchMaking, if they deployed it I couldn't play with you

 

[BRiT]

This seems to be the best source for up to date information -- http://www.cynicalsmirk.com/who_remains_at_infinity_ward.html

When Infinity Ward released Modern Warfare 2, there were 105 unique employees I have received word that the writer, Jesse Stern and his assistant Aaron Tracy were not formal employees of Infinity Ward, as well as confirmation that the two ATVI people were not as well. So that would make the actual IW employee count at the end of Modern Warfare 2 to be 101 people.

As of June 5th 2010, 44 have been terminated or resigned and are denoted with a strike. I will note that it appears 2 of these 44 people left before this rift between Activision and Infinity Ward went down.

(3 of 10) 30% of animators/technical animators/mocap people are gone
(7 of 22) 32% of artists/concept artists are gone
(16 of 23) 69% of designers and scripters are gone
(11 of 15) 73% of engineers are gone
(5 of 5) 100% of writers are gone
(13 of 16) 82% of leads/directors from these departments combined are gone

It seems 32 of the 44 have joined and are working at Respawn.

 

[Graham]

Er. According to that break down, 55 of 91 have left... Or am I misinterpreting the numbers?

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Er. According to that break down, 55 of 91 have left... Or am I misinterpreting the numbers?

Some people had multiple positions and their departure is counted more than once. 44 is the actual people count. That 91 does not include all employees.

 

[Graham]

Ohh duh I was also counting the 'leads' part.

 

[AlNom]

That's um... still a lot? Wonder how many went to the new studio...

 

[BRiT]

That's um... still a lot? Wonder how many went to the new studio...

Yes. A lot left IW. From the looks of it, 32 are working at the new development studio, Respawn.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

As expected, really, anyone who doubted this would happen were fooling themselves.

On the other hand the new COD looks very, very nice too.

 

[Acert93]

And the likelihood of all 30+ individuals having the same misunderstanding...

 

[BRiT]

On the other hand the new COD looks very, very nice too.

It does, but I have my doubts about it considering what was rumored/posted there...

It seems Activision had Treyarch (COD:Black Ops) already working on the Map Packs to extract even more money from the consumers before the game is even released [November 9, 2010]. Activision then pulled Treyarch off that and shifted Raven to doing the COD:Black Ops Map Packs. This was to free up Treyarch resources to do immense damage control on the COD:MW3 title that was being handled in the shambles of what's left at Infinity Ward.

If that's true, that would mean Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Sledgehammer Games and now Raven Software all simultaneously working on something related to the Call of Duty franchise. It sure sounds like Activision is doing their damnedest to milk the franchise dry.

 

[flynn]

If that's true, that would mean Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Sledgehammer Games and now Raven Software all simultaneously working on something related to the Call of Duty franchise. It sure sounds like Activision is doing their damnedest to milk the franchise dry.

Of course they are. And when the COD sales start going down they will find another franchise and do the same. The public at large probably does not care much but now everytime I see an Activision logo in a game I rethink my purchase. Happened recently with Blur.

 

[N_B]

All the writers gone? Guess we'll never see the REAL end to the Modern Warfare story