Everyone has heard the news about Activision and their decision to fire the two founders of Infinite Ward, West and Zampella. However there has been a big amount of controversy about this, leaving people wondering if this is Activision trying to screw over Infinity Ward. There have been talks about Activision not paying the people at Infinity Ward the money for Modern Warfare 2 or that I was done because they didn’t want to pay the two executives the bonus they were promised. Bobby Kotick, a CEO for Activision, took an opportunity to talk about the topic and try and shed some light on it.
He mentions how they never did it to save themselves the money and it wasn’t something they just came up with over night. It took a lot of discussion and debate before coming to this last fact which, according to him, has cost him two people who he considered friends. He doesn’t fully explain the detail behind the firing of the two Infinity Ward executives but says how they violated their contract in some way along with going against a few other things. All of which was filed in a complaint, which ended up leading to Activision having to firing them to “… protect the company's assets and the interests of our shareholders.”. Also there has been talk of Infinity Ward being dissolved, since they lost 35 members after West and Zempella left, but Kotick says how that’s just the opposite. According to Kotick, they have been growing since the loss of their members and are stronger than ever and are already working on an unnamed project. This is great to hear because despite all of this, there are still a lot of hard working people in that studio and we want them to continue to make great games.
There are still some questions that need to be answered but what’s done is done. What we can hope for now is to just let the past be the past and see what the two members of the Infinity Ward will do now. They have already filed complaints and lawsuits to Activision but hopefully it can be resolved and they can just go back to doing what they do be, making games. West and Zempella both ended up taking 35 members of Infinity Ward with them after they left so they have a good team already. All we can do is sit and wait and here for the news about what they will do next.
