Corporate Warfare: Top Execs at Infinity Ward Fired

[rantoc]

No surprice really. Mr Greed (Activision's infamous CEO) probably didn't like that the execs got to confortable in their chairs with the title sucess (arguably soo on the PC due to the lack of real servers). The Activision CEO have even said he wants to destabilize all the deveplopers in order to pursue even more revenues by harder working people who feel they arent secure in the companies, what a "nice" guy...

 

[Guest]

now we know why there's no dedicated server for COD6MW2: the guy was drunk !

 

[Spoony]

any chance of a job then ?

1st thing i would do is kill fps games on consoles and bring back dedicated servers for the pc hardcore mass fan base.

 

[user-one]

good now if can get rid of koticks bitch ass all we be well again.

 

[dan117]

Something tells me it's because of the overpriced & shitty PC port.

 

[tommysch]

No dedicated server and a lazy console port, somebody better get fired ASAP!

 

[redplanet_returns]

But there appears to be trouble in paradise

i don't know marcus, i wouldn't exactly call where activision scumbags are "paradise"

 

[Lavacon]

Hopefully court goes well for these fellas

 

[Guest]

Trust me Activision didn't let these guys go because of a shitty game launch or bad sales, MW2 was a HUGE ticket item for Activision and made boatloads of cash. The reason for letting them go has nothing to do with a bad product. Activision wishes it could ship a title every year that sold as well and reviewed as well as MW2 did.

 

[mfarrukh]

Hope this is for the betterment

 

[robwright]

This has been a long time coming. Lots of bad blood over there. It's been common knowledge within the industry that 1) Infinity Ward HATES Activision, and 2) other Activision developers such as Treyarch don't very much like IW because the IW guys are always taking shots at other Activision developers, especially Treyarch. Why because Activision let Treyarch make a few Call of Duty games, which rubbed IW the wrong way.

Honestly, there was so much ill will that Activision brass wouldn't even set foot on the IW offices. There were only a handful of folks from the parent company who were cleared to visit IW and deal with them. That's how bad the blood was.

I don't know why West and Zampella were dismissed, but whatever the reason, justified or not, this looks horrible for Activision. It's another black eye for the pub after gutting a bunch of its developers and shutting down others devs. It's like Activision is following the old EA playbook titled "How to Become the Most Hated Company in Gaming."

 

[Nightsilver]

SHOULD HAVE LET US LEAN.

 

[beergoggles]

Isn't (wasn't) IW a bunch of people that left EA and the MOH series to start their own? (what became COD). IF so, then they have a history of wanting to be independent. Why they chose to sign on with Act. is anybody's guess or a 'he said he said" situation. Maybe they'll move on to create something beyond mil shooters. I can imagine the Act will sue them for intellectual theft if they try anything that remotely looks like COD.

 

[omega321a]

A rumor is going around that West and Zampella were fired because Activision want to put MONTHLY FEES into CoD MW2 and later CoD games. As we all knew they would, West and Zampella refused this very boldly and were kicked out of the meeting by security and fired immediately.

 

[HavoCnMe]

Closer and closer to not making games......they will become a anti-virus company before to long, that or make toilet paper. I can see it now, "Try Activision's New Super-Soft Toilet paper" "It's even septic safe!"...JMO

 

[robwright]

[citation][nom]omega321a[/nom]A rumor is going around that West and Zampella were fired because Activision want to put MONTHLY FEES into CoD MW2 and later CoD games. As we all knew they would, West and Zampella refused this very boldly and were kicked out of the meeting by security and fired immediately.[/citation]

This is a rumor that has been unsubstantiated at this point. It's also kind of absurd (though I don't put absurd past Activision at this point). It seems highly unlikely that Activision could charge monthly fees for MW2 -- how exactly would they pull that off on Xbox Live and PSN? Would Sony and MS allow such a thing? That's where the big bucks are for CoD now, sadly -- the consoles. A monthly fee model for the console crowd wouldn't work.

Furthmore, after MW2 sales took a hit on the PC because of the dedicated server issue, it's outrageous to think the Activision brass would force monthly fees for a non-MMO on an already disenfranchised PC fan base. It's been long rumored that Activison instead wants to make a full-fledged MMO in the CoD universe so it can start pulling in monthly subscription dollars like Blizzard does with WoW.

 

[Guest]

While there is no doubt that a lot of 'bad blood' existed (exists) between IW and Activision, if there is any blame to be laid for that it should be laid directly at Bobby Kotick's feet. His ham-fisted managerial style of "Don't argue with me; I'm the boss and I know exactly what I am doing!" coupled with his well-known penchant for throwing folks under the bus when his plans / ideas fail certainly create toxic environments wherever he goes. Folks (and studios) who stand up and disagree with him are right-sized, and then threatened with litigation. It's no wonder he's spinning this and his other recent human resource changes within Activision as part of his master plan to create a work environment of "hungry" developers; much easier to have a CYA fallback position than to man up and admit to Vivendi "Yeah... I kinda screwed the pooch on GH, and now COD... my bad..."

 

[zipzoomflyhigh]

Cracks me up people are still crying about dedicated servers.
The game is great, regardless. 99% of all you babies that signed the petition to boycott the game ended up buying it anyways.

 

[idisarmu]

[citation][nom]anamaniac[/nom]1024vs1024.Generals, commanders, pilots, artillery, soldiers of two or three armies, guerrilla factions, rogue operations (cut from the main group communication) etc. running around an entirely destructible cityI've dreamed of this for years.I'm not talking about some crappy little FPS, I'm talking about WAR!Someone make that, and $100 + $50 monthly is all yours.[/citation]

1024vs1024 on a single server is WAYYY too demanding for a game like COD. I think it would be awesome though if they made a World Domination game mode where the games are timed and all the servers are linked and in sync. Then, if the Nazi/terrorists win one map, another server will be notified and their next map will be a map to retake the battlefield. It could be turned into a huge competition too with prizes- i'd be down for that.

 

[clixcorp]

News on the front...

Jason West and Vince Zampella File Lawsuit Against Activision

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/jason-west-and-vince-zampella-file-lawsuit-against-activision-86295312.html