Archives

The wheels of justice continue to turn (sort of) this week, with the conclusion of two big wrangles that games industry watchers have been, ah, watching.

The biggest news is the settlement between goliath publisher Activision/Blizzard and former Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella, both of whom were abruptly fired in March of 2010. West and Zampella sued, claiming A/B owed them monstrous royalties for Modern Warfare 2. Activision/Blizzard countersued, claiming that West and Zampella were stupid-heads, and the whole sordid affair dragged on for a while.

This is actually A/B vs. 40FIWE, Round 2, but that would just make for a confusing title card. Since we’re already world-famous for our exclusive, hard-hitting coverage of the ongoing saga between Activision/Blizzard and its former trophy studio Infinity Ward, we’ll stick with the title we know. 40 Former Infinity Ward Employees have also filed suit against the publishing giant, alongside former studio heads Jason West and Vince Zampella. The day before yesterday, they revised …

It’s been a little since Activision/Blizzard scumhole CEO Bobby Kotick shoved his foot so far into his mouth that it came out his ass – he’s been too busy cornholing his most profitable studio to be verbally inflammatory – but who can forget such lovable quotes as this and this? But the Most Hated Man in Gaming is at it again, telling the Wall Street Journal that fans are “clamoring” for a subscription-based Call of …

Following on from Steerpike’s excellent news grabs relating to Infinity Ward’s internal staffing squabbles and to continue the sorry saga, you may not be surprised to hear that Jason West and Vincent Zampella have wasted no time in establishing a new studio under the dreary yet appropriate name of Respawn Entertainment.  To pile further media misery onto Activision/Blizzard, two more of Infinity Ward’s staff are heading for the exits today, bringing the grand total to …

So in the wake of their bosses getting fired under increasingly suspicious circumstances, analysts ranging from me to Michael Pachter have predicted mass departures from Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward. Yet no one has left. A guy I know who’s in a position to be the bearer of such news tells me that the reason no one has left is because owner Activision/Blizzard still hasn’t paid Infinity Ward any royalties – not a dime – for the …

There comes a time in the life of every gaming girl and boy when we just hit a wall within a video game. It may be an individual game or an entire franchise, and it may even be something we’ve enjoyed playing immensely for several weeks, months or years. It might not even happen within every game we play, nor is it necessarily restricted to typically “bad” games. Make no mistake however that once that …

Info is slowly trickling out about the recent bang-up between Activision/Blizzard and Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward. Terminated studio heads Jason West and Vince Zampella have filed suit against their former corporate masters, alleging wrongful termination, meanness, and stealing of royalties, and asserting that they own the rights to the Modern Warfare IP. My buddy Bill Harris over at Dubious Quality has his usual insightful analysis of key portions of the lawsuit, so rather than …

So check this out. It would seem some large and scary dudes showed up at Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward’s Encino offices and… lurked. Apparently they’re a gift to the studio from owner and industry goliath Activision/Blizzard. Meanwhile two of the company’s top dogs, Vince Zampella and Jason West, weren’t in the office – they were at Activision. In a meeting. Now we hear that CTO/CCO West, at least, has been fired. Activision recently made …

I’m a bit behind on this one, the game having come out in November, but I recently unwrapped a 360 copy of Infinity Ward’s latest freedom-is-awesome, terrorist Russian Arab South American buffet-of-crazy-insurgents-killing shooter. I’ve put in a good two hours now, which means that I’m probably 97% through the single-player campaign if some of the early complaints about the game are so (that’s not true, I kind of suck at shooters unless I play them on a PC, but Call of Duty games, including Modern Warfare, have always been 360 fodder for me, and always will be), and here’s my Close Impressions of the First Kind.

So IndustryGamers and others are reporting a new controversy surrounding Infinity Ward’s upcoming Modern Warfare 2: it looks like, for at least a small portion of the game, you will play as a terrorist, with the objective of gunning down civilians in an airport terminal. It’s sparked quite the little inferno. I’m okay with this, and I’ll tell you why. But I do worry about the mainstream kneejerks… and I’ll tell you why.