Infinity Ward's Future?

The video game world is going crazy and IW is imploding.

Seems as if IW and Activision are going at each other. Apparently Activision refused to pay IW royalties owed and also seemed to disagree with the direction for future titles. All of this has resulted in both parties issuing lawsuits etc... and both the Studio Head and the President of IW quitting (Vince Zampella and Jason West). These are the two guy who made the COD and MW franchises.

The former IW vets claim the rights to all COD "present or future"
based games but I am not sure how all that will work out. The lawsuits
will probably decide a lot of it.

What does this mean for the COD and MW franchise? Well, right now it looks like the Call of Duty franchise will be carried on by Tryarch and new MW titles will go to the in house Activision studio Sledgehammer.

IW is still owned by Activition and the two open position have already been filled but future involvement with the COD franchise is still unknown at this time.

Here is a link to all the details so far - http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/107/1074869p1.html

Looks like MW2 might be the last COD/MW title I end up playing. I hope Vince Zampella and Jason West end up making their own independent company and get back to making great games.

terrible news.

treyarch sucks balls.

Indeed. I think this is the end of the COD/MW franchise for me but I am sure Activition will continue to milk it for years to come.

I've been following this since the two heads of IW got fired. I'm glad they're suing Activision and not just taking this lying down. Activision better settle soon or they will get their asses handed to them in court.

I really hate Activision and Bobby Kotick (sp?) anyway. So in some ways I am glad they quit. Like I said earlier, I hope they go off and start a new independent studio. Some of the best games come out of independent studios.

Activision can go f#ck off!

Amen to that Interseptor. Still sucks that Treyarch is gonna be carrying on COD...they kinda failed with WaW. It was kinda fun, but alot of the gameplay in SP and MP was medicore and copy and paste of COD4...want will they do now(well after COD: Vietnem because they'll just copy and paste MW2 engine to run that).

Flood I don't think it was copy and paste, I just think it was more of if it isn't broke don't fix it mentality IMO lol. But with that being said I really hope they don't butcher the MW titles it'll be a shame for them and us.

I seriously doubt that Activision will lose the rights to the MW games or that IW won't make any more. It's all just overhyped industry stuff. There's no way Activision wouldn't have had the IP's tied up when they bought IW.

The two IW founders could be likely to see some $$$ from the lawsuits as it does seem like there has been some foul play on Activision's part but when all is said and done, the game industry is cut-throat. If you work for a company, especially a big one, they pretty much own your soul. Seriously, if you quit to start your own company, they'd have their legal right up your asses to see if they could make any claims on whatever new game it is you were making.

P.S. - Flood: COD4 was made by IW, not Treyarch. Did you mean CoD3? Or that MW2 was a copy/paste of MW?

thats what happens when all you see is $$$$$$$$


i am sure they will go off and make games just like COD MW not under that title be it but still...

S7 Sticky wrote:thats what happens when all you see is $$$$$$$$


i am sure they will go off and make games just like COD MW not under that title be it but still...

IP/Features/Code/etc. It's all locked down. If anything, they'd make a totally different game. They'd pretty much be forced to do so...

S7 Epic wrote:I seriously doubt that Activision will lose the rights to the MW games or that IW won't make any more. It's all just overhyped industry stuff. There's no way Activision wouldn't have had the IP's tied up when they bought IW.

The two IW founders could be likely to see some $$$ from the lawsuits as it does seem like there has been some foul play on Activision's part but when all is said and done, the game industry is cut-throat. If you work for a company, especially a big one, they pretty much own your soul. Seriously, if you quit to start your own company, they'd have their legal right up your asses to see if they could make any claims on whatever new game it is you were making.

P.S. - Flood: COD4 was made by IW, not Treyarch. Did you mean CoD3? Or that MW2 was a copy/paste of MW?

Yes I know Epic. I was saying that Treyarch kinda copy and pasted the stuff of COD4.

Well, it was built on the CoD4 engine. Which is kinda hard to believe considering how crap WaW is and how good CoD4 was.

I know it was some of the higher up's that were fired, but if the programming group and directors remain the same, I don't see why they still can't put out a quality product if they want too. You know who ever gets hired to replace these guys are going to have some big shoes to fill and a lot to prove. With that we could see some good innovation that could make the next game in the series even better. Of course it could be a quick hire to turn a buck off the brand name and ruin the franchise as well, but you have to think optimistically that the people working on the project are still working to do their best.

That’s why it always gets me when people say something like how surprised a low budget movie, such as the Hurt Locker, is good or does so well. Everyone working on that project is doing their best, and are not purposely putting out an inferior product just because of some budget constraints.

So you have the philosophy that the guys coming on board with IW/Activision will be doing their all to make a quality game, or it will be some hack and they are just looking for a quick “cash in” on the brand (like those knock-off direct to video movies if we want to roll with the Hollywood example above).

~mrmiller