Following the firings of Infinity Ward studio heads Jason West and Vince Zampella, several more development leads and employees resigned from the Modern Warfare developer, and it's likely that a bunch more will walk out the door in the next couple of months. This is one of the unfortunate downsides of losing your independence as a game developer. If you let a large publisher buy you and control the IP you create, then you've essentially signed away your freedom.
The talented folks at Insomniac Games (Ratchet & Clank, Resistance: Fall of Man) recognize this fact, and it's made the Infinity Ward situation seem all the more horrible from the outside looking in. Speaking to PSM3 [via CVG], Insomniac lead multiplayer designer Jake Biegel commented, "I have some friends at Infinity Ward and I can't tell you how happy I was to be at Insomniac when I heard that news [of West and Zampella's sacking]."
"I was totally horrified for my friends and called every one of them asking what the hell was going on. It reiterated to me how good it is to be working at a wholly independent developer where we call the shots," he added.
Of course, West and Zampella will no longer have to worry about this sort of thing at their new studio, Respawn Entertainment, which enables the duo to own the IP they create. And they'll have some very solid marketing and distribution thanks to their exclusive agreement with EA.
2 Comments
April 16, 2010
Well Jason West and Frank Zampella are great leaders in fact that they left Infinity Ward to start their own.I really can't get this.
m3 zero
April 18, 2010
I would say the Resistance games are very average indeed, they don't offer anything extra ordinary, they aren't technically bad or anything just bland. Saying that i picked up the first earlier this year and graphically the years have not been kind to it.
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