The stampede toward the exit continues at Infinity Ward, despite parent company Activision/Blizzard still refusing to pay the studio hundreds of millions in royalties owed for the success of Modern Warfare 2. The current departure list stands at eleven, not including the fired COO/CEO/CTO/CCOs Jason West and Vince Zampella. According to a source I know within Infinity Ward, more are likely submitting their resignations today, and even Activision has now admitted that it expects more departures, and will use their share of unpaid royalties to “reinvent the studio” with whoever remains. If anyone does.
UPDATE: as of April 23, the number of employees who have bolted from IW has reached 17, with at least five leaving today.
UPDATE UPDATE: the total departures stand at 26 as of April 27, with three confirmed to have joined West and Zampella’s new company, Respawn Entertainment.
Things are bad at Infinity Ward. Morale is zero, the “Stimulus Package” expansion for Modern Warfare 2 is an unmitigated disaster, several group leads have departed, the royalties are nowhere in sight, and sacked corporate bosses West and Zampella have already founded a new studio to be published by EA. We all know Activision will settle the lawsuits out of court, retain the IP for Call of Duty and Modern Warfare in exchange for X millions of dollars. The end has written itself before the middle. (Personally, I’m also betting that Activision concedes the right for Respawn Entertainment, West/Zamp’s new company, to advertise future games as “From the makers of Modern Warfare.” It will be a bitter pill, but if A/B insists on taking this to court, they might lose; they might also win, but it would be costly; and W/Z may simply insist on it or refuse to settle. Just a thought)
What surprises me, to be honest, is the EA thing. Infinity Ward fled EA and went to Activision not that many years ago. And while EA CEO John Ricitiello has been struggling to put the “Arts” back in “Electronic Arts,” his company has suffered heavily for its attempts at innovation and new franchises. He might be replaced, though I personally would be sad to see that happen. Admittedly, the EA under Larry Probst’s dominion – the EA that had its claws in Infinity Ward – is rather dissimilar from the current Ricitiello administration. But still, to scamper back to the publisher that burned you once seems… odd.
I think it’s safe to assume that West and Zampella were doing what their former masters are suing them for: that is, shopping Infinity Ward to another publisher under the A/B radar. And it does look like that other publisher was EA. But even while they were at Infinity Ward, it makes little sense that they’d go back to the other big fish, especially when it mistreated them so. After all, Infinity Ward has a pretty darn solid history and reputation. The Ubis, Take-Twos, Squares, and other medium-sized publishers in the galaxy would probably offer delicious incentives, and do have the money to finance a new big-budget Infinity Ward Respawn Entertainment production.
But that decision has been made, much as I don’t fully understand it. While I’m certain that the departed Infinity Ward employees are all under non-competes, these documents have historically proven nearly impossible to enforce in the games industry. I’m interested to see how many flee straight to Respawn, as most think they will, and how many decide to seek fortune elsewhere.
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I’m curious in what way the “Stimulus Package” was an unmitigated disaster? Poor sales, fan outrage, combination of the two? I traded in MW2 just before the DLC hit and never looked back so I am asking out of morbid curiosity.
I will say that I thought calling it the Stimulus Package was ill conceived. A $15 map pack for less than original content made it seem like they were looking for gamers to Stimulate Activision’s bank account more than anything. Possibly the worse marketing scheme in history.
I should have been clearer, especially since the Stimulus Package has moved 2.5 million units.
It’s an unmitigated disaster in the sense that it’s crap software with, I think, two or three new maps and a bunch of remakes that doesn’t fix any of the myriad bugs, glitches, cheats, and exploits that people complain are ruining the online experience.
Videogames are odd in that quality and customer satisfaction have nothing to do with sales figures or loyalty. Had Infinity Ward had its way, who knows, maybe they’d have waiting and shipped a cheaper, more robust expansion. But with Activision at the helm, quality is irrelevant and price is everything. Offhand I’m inclined to say that Activision ordered the company to finish what they had and ship it in anticipation of the huge exodus we’re seeing now, but hey, as an industry analyst my predictive accuracy is only marginally higher than Michael Pachter’s. 😉
As per my previous article, I’ve long since abandoned Modern Warfare 2. However, I do know afew of my friends were less than pleased with the Stimlus Pack. Glitchy gameplay (ontop of the standard games flaws) and a lack of new additions for the price paid being chief of concerns. At $15 for 3 new maps and 2 revisions of older maps from COD4, I’m not convinced myself how much “value” is really there. In the grand scheme of things, I’d also question how successful the pack has been from a sales point of view, given how many copies the full game shipped.
DLC is another area where I think Infinity Ward have been let off very lightly by gamers and the critical press. If I recall correctly, IW only supported COD4 with 2 expansions over the course of it’s 2 year cycle. Treyarch, often portrayed as the ugly sister of the Call of Duty family, were very supportive of both the full game and the Nazi Zombies mini game.
I just hope Respawn is about more than just a name. As a studio, I think this is a good opportunity to right some of Inifinty Ward’s wrongs. I’m absolutely sick to the back teeth of modern/near-future shooters, assuming Battlefield is the only one I’m happy to continue supporting, so hopefully we’ll see something abit more creative from Respawn. Is that just me being horribly naive?
I hope not, Mat, but the gaming press is awfully quick to hand out Get Out of Jail Free cards to certain developers or their offspring. Everyone in the press wanted so desperately to love Dead Space that no one except us (because we are awesome) happened to mention that the game wasn’t scary in the slightest; similarly, the same developer under a different name misfired again with Dante’s Inferno, which received breathless 8-out-of-10s while Darksiders, a game I haven’t played but which many says is a far better experience, languished.
Infinity Ward have proven that they can make kickass, visceral experiences in single player. I loved the campaigns of both Moderns Warfare – silly as the stories were – for their gut-punching adrenaline. Frankly I hope the new studio would focus more on single player experiences, but the money does seem to be in multiplay these days.
I’d probably agree with that, to be fair. I enjoyed both the single player games, but I think it would be interesting to see how the same formulaes would fair in a different context. 6-8 hours of explosive set pieces and dramatic stand offs are fine within the confines of Modern Warfare but I’d be intrigued to
see what else they have in their locker.
Incidently, due to my lack of Internet at home (post move) I’ve been forced into the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 single player. Man, does that feel like a laborious chore. I’m a massive fan of single player gaming and 9 times out of 10 will always choose a good campaign over a good multiplayer component, but I can’t get along with Bad Company 2’s story at all, despite the awesomeness that is the multiplayer.
Dead Space and Dante’s Inferno were created by the same studio? Wow, that’s surprising, because while DI looked like a complete sham of a game, I actually quite enjoy Dead Space; it definitely doesn’t come off big in the “scare” department, I might score it slightly higher than the laughable Doom 3 (sorry Carmack, your games look awesome but they’re otherwise shit), but I do enjoy it as a shooter. And I’m one of the 28 people who thinks Resident Evil 4 sucks (and all other Resident Evils, for that matter).
I think “not scary in the slightest” is being a bit unfair. I thought it was pretty scary at times. Okay yes, in the end it revolved around a lot of cheap scares and it was a regular old shooter to the core, but it had many a good moment. I assume some people who are more into the horror genre could walk through that without feeling anything. That is only partly the games’ problem. Part of being a good journalist is being able to account for how desensitised you are, and how much that matters, before giving that final score.
And Mat, I really don’t think it matters that IW released “only” 2 DLCS in as many years. An online game can remain interesting, and fresh while only receiving tech support like bug fixes. What I think about when I think bad support is not fixing major (and minor bugs), releasing crap DLCs that amount to map packs with a price tag and generally ignoring the community at large. I think we’re all a bit spoiled by Valve, among others, so I wouldn’t fault a developer for not releasing a DLC at all, as long as support remains after the first month of sales.
I’ve got to say xtal, at the time I really, really enjoyed Resi 4 but the last time I booted it up I felt suddenly apathetic about it as if my entire world view of gaming had changed since, which thinking about it, it most definitely has. I blame Planescape: Torment.
@wds: I don’t really think it’s to do with how desensitised we are as veterans, though that certainly will be an issue to begin with. I believe with Dead Space it’s more down to the recycling of scares from start to finish that I’d expect even new gamers to notice. There comes a point in the game where you’re one step ahead of the developer; expecting the apparently unexpected, and when the game plays into that expectation it naturally fails to surprise. I personally thought that Dead Space had blown its load by about chapter 6-7 after which the game just retrod the same ground all the way to the end. Don’t get me wrong though, I did enjoy it overall. The sound quality was incredible through a 5.1 system.
That’s where I last left off in Dead Space, chapter 6 or 7. It’s all downhill from here!
RE: Resident Evil 4 (see what I did there?), I played it on Wii. And despite hearing all the great things that version did to resurrect the game/series, I’m sure I got the weak version; I do hold a firm belief that all Wii games that don’t start with “Super” or “The Legend Of” are crap.
Okay, Trauma Center was kind of fun for 3 days, because I got to pretend I was Dr. Jack Shephard: “I’m gonna fix you…..I promise”
* awkward stares from around the room *
Ouch! 38 Infinity Ward employees file suit against Activision for up to $125M.