The Whole Infinity Ward Fiasco

[schimmel]

So for the past seven days a lot has been going on for both Activision and Infinity Ward. As many of you know, last Monday the two heads of IW (Jason West and Vince Zampella) were fired and replaced with some of Activision's own corporate heads, one of which being the head of Activision Asia Pacific. The Call of Duty franchise has been broken up and given to Treyarch (Call of Duty: World At War, Call of Duty 3, Call of Duty 2: Big Red One) to take the lead on, while Sledgehammer Games (the guys who left EA after making Dead Space) will be making an Action Adventure Call of Duty.

For the whole story summary, go here

What are your thoughts on this? Is Activision trying to remove the two men who brought it the most popular shooter series of all time? Or did they actually do something wrong?

 

[KoalaRainbowPoop]

i dunno if they did anything wrong or not, but pimping out all these cod games out like activision wants too? way to ruin a franchise.

 

[Green_Lantern]

Doesn't it have to do with those two not upholding contractual obligations?

Either way, this won't be settled for quite a long time...

 

[schimmel]

Again, the summarized version of the story is in my OP, but Activision claims things like breaches in contract and other violations after running a pretty much under-the-table HR investigation. The heads are claiming they were let go because of differences with the company and the company not wanting to pay them royalties for MW2.

 

[Guan_Yu]

Jason and Vince have filed a lawsuit against Activision:

http://kotaku.com/5485295/infinity-ward ... -royalties


And Activision has responded:

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3178224



I am just sad because it looks like the Call of Duty series is going to be killed as a result of all this, and that is a damn shame.

 

[Bretimus_v2]

I think that all of this will end up bringing us Medal of Honor: Modern Warfare and CoD:MW (Casual Game of the Century) will just be their resume to get on at EA and do MoH games again.

 

[De-Ting]

The new Medal of Honor looks like a CoD killer, so I don't think I really care. I do wish...um, kinda...to see the Modern Warfare storyline's continuation, however. But thinking about that, I also would rather see it dead than continued in such a way that it should never have been. Catch my drift?

 

[schimmel]

Yeah, Activision has clearly been waiting for a way to get the IW heads out in order to do to Call of Duty what it did to Guitar Hero, especially now since they announced there wouldn't be a big Guitar Hero lineup this year because they noticed people were getting bored with all the new iterations. Sadly, that means we'll see such abominations as Call of Duty: Rocks the '80s and Call of Duty: Walk This Way!

Yep. Another good series killed by a company who doesn't know when to stop

 

[Bretimus_v2]

Call of Duty: Gen. Patton and Call of Duty: Gen. Shwarzkopf, where we pick there best battles and they pick some of their favorite battles from the past and present!!! It'd probably play more like a RTS C&C.

Who's to say though. If Activision is in the right and it turns out these two aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing...well, that's a job, sucka.

 

[schimmel]

The downside to this is that the ex IW heads are gonna make new games that blow the new CoD games out of the water

 

[Bretimus_v2]

No doubt, if this turns out to be about creative control or Activision wanting to douche it up or phone in a ton of DLC, then you know which camp I'm in.

 

[madster111]

Wait, so let me get this straight for a minute..

Activision fired the guys who made CoD?
So now, obviously, the next CoD will be boycotted by everyone, and then the next game those guys make will sell out everywhere the first day.

So, what Activision has effectively done here is...
Shot themselves in the..face?

 

[schimmel]

Yep, pretty much

 

[bomby139143]

Geez, I hope everyone boycotts the next CoD, but we all know that it probably won't happen, and fanboyz will buy a terrible game nevertheless and call it holy.

 

[Bretimus_v2]

Boycotts...top of the list of things that don't work nowadays. We're too self-indulgent now, boys. What games were supposed to have a huge boycott last year? Modern Warfare 2 and Left 4 Dead 2? How'd that work out?

Psh-shaw! I say!

 

[De-Ting]

Speaking of MW2, has anyone run into some fags with unlimited grenades?

 

[Green_Lantern]

There isn't enough info out on the subject to be jumping down Activisions throats yet...


Either way... Bad Company 2 > MW2

 

[madster111]

Either way... Bad Company 2 > MW2

Way too hard to kill someone.

At least hardcore on MW2 makes it so you can kill someone with 3 bullets, instead of Bad Companies utter-bullshit 'full clip to kill' style.

 

[Green_Lantern]

Hardcore in Bad Company is about the same as hardcore in MW2

 

[BigZell2020]

Speaking of MW2, has anyone run into some fags with unlimited grenades?

Scavenger pro = unlimited everything