I don't know if this situation has been mentioned in the MW2 thread, but bad things have been happening for Activision and IW recently.

http://www.explicitgamer.com/blog/2010/03/the-infinity-ward-situation/

Quote :

"After meeting with Activision the heads of Infinity Ward, Jason West and Vince Zampella, have not been seen back at the studio. Both have since updated their Facebook and LinkedIn accounts to change their job status to ‘unemployed’ and their Infinity Ward positions as ‘previous employment’."

http://www.explicitgamer.com/blog/2010/04/activision-not-surprised-by-ea-deal-with-ex-infinity-ward-leadership/

Quote :

"EA has announced that both Jason West and Vince Zampella, former leads at Infinity Ward, will work on new games with them."

http://www.explicitgamer.com/blog/2010/04/infinity-ward-loses-7-more-developers/

Quote :

"According to the twitter account of George Broussard, a developer for 3D Realms, developers have slowly been leaving throughout the day in what he has called “Black Friday for Activision. The departures include Charlie Wiederhold, a former employee of 3D Realms. With Activision still struggling to pull people from other studios in order to fill positions created by the last round of departures, this is bound to hurt as they try to keep on progress for Modern Warfare 3. However, no one can say whether or not that will be possible with yet another turn of events. When asked if the Call of Duty Franchise was doomed at this point George Broussard said “Not necessarily, but the heart and soul that created it is leaving the building and that has long term effects.” It’s hard to disagree. We have contacted Activision several times with no response and are still awaiting a response to this as well. They are not likely to comment. We’re still working on verifying and will update as soon as confirmed. Only a week ago an insider predicted more departures and referred to Infinity Ward as being dead."

4/26/2010 4:12:11 AM

This news bodes well.


Thanks for letting me start my day on a good note.

4/26/2010 6:56:22 AM

activision dicked them over so a lot of them are leaving and forming a new studio backed by EA

4/26/2010 7:42:39 AM

Tired of being dicked over by huge publishers?

Create a dev team backed by EA!

4/26/2010 9:11:09 AM

did they not get a big enough cut of MW2 $

4/26/2010 9:16:06 AM

^^

I also found that a little odd.

4/26/2010 9:19:26 AM

Yea but Bobby Kotick is an absolute fucktard running Activision. He didn't want to pay them the royalties owed, which were massive, so rather than continue putting up with his shit and waiting to get paid while working on another game for them, they bounced. Can't say as I blame them.

And apparently the EA thing is a loose partnership where EA publishes it for them, but isn't going to be on top of them like it appears Activision was.

BTW, somebody should tell George to get off his fucking Twitter account and make a damn game, or at least when we can expect Duke Nukem Forever to be released?

[Edited on April 26, 2010 at 9:49 AM. Reason : ]

4/26/2010 9:49:10 AM

Im so pissed off with some stuff in MW2, I could care less. happy trails, fellas.

4/26/2010 10:13:09 AM

I wouldn't call it "slowly."

4/26/2010 10:17:24 AM

Quote :

"this situation has been mentioned in the MW2 thread"

--

Lol at their new company being called "Respawn Entertainment"

[Edited on April 26, 2010 at 12:34 PM. Reason : jobs@respawn.com]

4/26/2010 12:33:40 PM

Quote :

"Tired of being dicked over by huge publishers? Create a dev team backed by EA!"

lol, the whole reason they made Infinity Ward was to get away from EA and make COD.

4/26/2010 1:18:37 PM

^^ Yeah I wasn't gonna read through 100 pages of "Who wants to mount up"

4/26/2010 2:02:56 PM

Just look at what EA did to Ultima Online.

4/26/2010 11:24:50 PM

I can't wait for COD:MW3 to come with a free voucher for $15 worth of "DLC"!!

4/27/2010 12:07:51 AM

Quote :

"Just look at what EA did to Ultima Online. every franchise ever"

FYP

4/27/2010 12:08:16 AM

since 2008 EA has been significantly improved, certainly a lot better than Activision.

4/27/2010 12:13:03 AM

^I don't know about that. If EA highered some network administrators and kept their servers from crashing day and night, then maybe they'd be "better".

4/27/2010 3:07:55 AM

HIGHERED

4/27/2010 7:00:52 AM

Three more hit the door.

Quote :

"Lead character artist Joel Emslie and artists Ryan Lastimosa and Brad Allen are the latest employees at Infinity Ward to hang up their hats and leave the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare developer. All three now-former employees have updated their Facebook profiles to reflect the recent decision, a source close to Infinity Ward has told me. None have announced their future development plans. "

4/27/2010 5:13:50 PM

40 current and previous IW employees are suing Activision for HALF A BILLION

http://kotaku.com/5525814/modern-warfare-developers-seek-half-a-billion-in-activision-suit-update

4/27/2010 7:08:25 PM

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6260500.html
Infinity Ward to close, expects analyst
Janco Partners' Mike Hickey says Modern Warfare 2 developer likely to be closed after next map pack; Modern Warfare 3 duties to be split between two other studios.

4/29/2010 2:01:31 AM

Doesn't Blizzards parent company own Activision or the other way around?

4/29/2010 2:16:40 AM

Activision merged with vivendi games to form Activision Blizzard.

Vivendi SA owns a majority share of Activision Blizzard.

4/29/2010 2:46:06 AM

4 more staff members left yesterday.

4/29/2010 6:54:12 AM

Looks like Activision just found a new developer to make Call of Duty games for them....

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=news&cid=25920

Quote :

"Bungie, the developer of blockbuster game franchises including Halo, Myth and Marathon, and Activision, a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the #1 online games publisher (Nasdaq: ATVI), announced today that they have entered into an exclusive 10-year partnership to bring Bungie’s next big action game universe to market. Under the terms of the agreement, Activision will have exclusive, worldwide rights to publish and distribute all future Bungie games based on the new intellectual property on multiple platforms and devices. Bungie remains an independent company and will continue to own their intellectual property. Additional terms of the agreement were not disclosed. "

4/29/2010 8:46:05 AM

There's no way Bungie will make CoD games. Activision won't own them.

But this is terrible news anyway.

4/29/2010 12:00:39 PM

How can anyone be ready to jump into bed with Activision after seeing that they're being sued for half a billion for some seriously sketchy shit? One would think the SMART business decision would be to wait for the outcome of that.

4/29/2010 12:21:00 PM

I'm sure Bungie is looking for anyone to get them out of the umbrella of M$

plus being able to pay them what their name is worth

4/29/2010 12:57:26 PM