As soon as Activision fired Jason West and Vince Zampella and the duo went on to form Respawn (and sign with EA), we all knew Infinity Ward's future would be in question. Sure enough, the defections continued for weeks, and just yesterday 38 Infinity Ward employees filed a huge lawsuit against Activision for potentially half a billion dollars. At this point, the damage to the Modern Warfare studio seems almost unrepairable.
Indeed, Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey believes that all of Infinity Ward is about to be closed. "We expect Infinity Ward studio will be essentially closed after their next map pack release, with development work on Modern Warfare 3 spread between two studios not historically tied to the franchise," he noted.
With Infinity Ward nothing more than a shell of its former self, future Call of Duty games may not ever live up to the pedigree of Modern Warfare 2. The brand remains very strong right now, but the franchise will see some very tough competition from Respawn and EA's DICE (Battlefield).
8 Comments
April 28, 2010
Ain't that a kick in the head. If this happens, I wonder what they would do with the Infinity Ward name.
April 28, 2010
The name could possibly live on, sort of how the Pandemic name continues to be used at EA.
April 28, 2010
Definitely a raw deal for the people who "remained loyal" to Activision. Now they're out of work, because there's no way EA wants to carry the full burn-rate of all those people under Respawn yet.
April 28, 2010
"essentialhy"
April 28, 2010
doh! I need more coffee. That's how Hickey wrote it but I should have corrected it, fixing now. Thanks Lardyrevenger.
April 28, 2010
Well I figured that Activision was only going to keep Infinity Ward going because of their pride and as a way to show West and Zampella that they could run the company perfectly fine without them. I wonder how thats working out for them, lol.
Because of this lawsuit Activision now knows where the remaining IW employee's alligence lies, so IW is basically on borrowed time. By this time next year there will be no more Infinity Ward.
As for the next Modern Warfare game, theres no way it can live up to the past two games legacy. Well, not unless West and Zampella win that oart of the court case: gaining control over the Modern Warfare brand that they created. That would be sweet ironic justice.
May 2, 2010
Hi James, I live just a couple of miles from IW and used to have a WWII shooter studio a few blocks from them.
I saw the reference to the 1/2 billion in punitive damages in your and David's pieces. But, those kind of damages are not typically awarded in contract law cases, they're usually only doled out in tort law.
Any idea why their counsel thinks they can get these here?
Daniel
May 3, 2010
Hey Daniel, honestly I'm no lawyer and I've not spoken with the IWEG attorney, so I could only speculate. I believe the damages take into account the $1 billion+ sales of Modern Warfare 2, so that's part of it. But you're right, I'd be quite surprised to see the IW guys awarded those lofty damage numbers.