The Infinity Ward exodus continues and seems to show no signs of slowing down. What started as a trickle of departures is slowly gaining enough momentum to be considered a torrent, with the latest numbers showing twelve key personnel making their exit.
Lead animator Mark Grigsby and lead character animator Paul Messerly are the latest to leave, taking five and eight years of company experience with them. It seems that Activisions attempts to make Zampella and West look like heartless Bill Sykes characters has done little to breed solidarity at the Modern Warfare studio.
To show the impact that these departures may have on future Modern Warfare games, PC Gamer edited the last Call of Duty's credits to reflect the losses. As you can see, these are not insignificant omissions. Whatever you may think of the situation, it seems quite clear that the next Modern Warfare game will not be the same vision anymore. At this rate, we wouldn't be surprised if Activision just digested Infinity Ward entirely.
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hey activision, forcing iw to exclude mod/dedicated server support and asking other studios to make retarded entries to the series was totally worth it right?
Wow. This makes me just really angry. I honestly enjoyed the Call of Duty titles that Infinity Ward put out, before I even knew it was two developers making the games. Activision's COD titles always felt shoddy and unpolished to me, and now I guess that's all that will be left.
To the rest of the Infinity Ward team: Get out. Get out and start another infinity ward, and tell Activision they can suck your balls.
You know whats crazy its gotta be very hard for some of those people to leave there studio that was founded by them. Even if it wasn't that great working for Activison, those guys still put there heart and soul into that studio. I look forward to seeing what there next project will be.
You know it doesn't really sound like a big deal, you'd think IW would be huge, but that's an extremely important dozen there. It's almost exclusively leads, writers, and of course the CEOs.
I don't really care enough to get up in arms and hate on Activision, but I will say MW and MW2 are the only Activision games I have purchased in a long long long time and they will be the last... that is, until they pull a 180 EA-style.
I've never even owned a Guitar Hero game and I'm proud of that fact. :)
This probably won't have any measurable impact on sales of the next title at this point. I'd bet 90% of those that bought MW2 are unaware that any of this even transpired.
But I think it will make devs/studios more hesitant to work with Activision...
So they'll get some new people, and the next game will have a different vision. Maybe this will be a good thing? I haven't played MW2, but a lot of people seem to find it to be less than their expectations. Maybe some different people will bring in some new ideas.
Why are so many people bent on handing over Battlefield to Respawn? Geezus they just got away from Activision let them do whatever they want. Give 'em a chance to do something original. They come from under one overbearing wing that forced the same old franchise on them and now you guys wants to push another one on them? How does that possibly sound like a good idea?
It won't have an impact on the next title, but CoD will be dead in 5-6 years. No IW + farming out series to other studios + oversaturation = dead franchise.
sucks that they lost all their writers. MW2 single player was really awesome and I loved the story. Now with no writers i bet MW3's story is going to fucking gay.
I like MW2 story as well. Sure, it's nothing more than BOOM EXPLOSION CLICHE BETRAYAL ACTION MOVIE CULTURAL REFERENCES, but that's what makes it so over the top fun. I don't play MW2 to get a deep philosophical storyline.
I play the games first for the single player and then the multiplayer, so it's a little sad to see them all leave too.
@Cupcakes
Which part did you liked best? The one which the main villain simply disappears from the plot? Or the one where the US decides it's best to go along with killing innocents instead of just finishing the terrorist the whole world knows is a huge threat?
This makes Activision look even worse. Yea the 2 guys you booted out are gone, but to lose 12 total people over the firing of 2 says more than words can say. If you treated your people well they would stay if they liked working there, that obviously isn't the case here. Congratulations Activision on losing some of the more talented people in the business. You have no one to blame but yourself. But we know that won't happen because no one takes responsibility for anything anymore.
It won't have an impact on sales, but it will have an impact on quality and doubly so when it comes to activision wanting to milk to series. It will have it's demise just as the GH series did.
This will have an effect on MW3 sales, on the assumption that bringing in new leads will effect the quality of the product negatively.
As much as hype sustains MW as a brand, quality pushes it beyond the hype. Isn't there a noticeable difference between sales of Treyach's CoD shtick? That's been my perception- I have not fact to back it.
Tubatic is right. Everyone knows that the CoD games developed by Treyarch sell less than those of Infinity Ward's due to the quality that Infinity Ward puts into CoD. If that quality dies (and by the way its looking, it probably will) even the most idiotic consumer will stay clear.
Everyone assumes they all left because they were upset or were fired. They worked on the most succesful game of all time and they are going to get paid huge money from other devs because cod is on their resume. I know some are leaving because activision blows but no one seems to het that point cmon let's have some reasoning in our thoughts
Fuck Activision, and long live Respawn Entertainment. I'm looking forward to what they put out, and I hope that the talented devs that left can find other jobs quickly, which they probably will. I wouldn't be surprised if more IW employees got out of there, and hopefully they will.
When developers get to make the games THEY want, we all win as gamers.
But COD: World at War was just as good as COD4. I never will understand the hate for that game. I keep thinking it's because of blind loyalty to IW and condemning anything not by IW.
NOW the losses are starting to add up
Frankly, loosing the two guys at the head of the development i don't think will effect things too great because the development heads are generally only as good as the team working below them. They may have loss the leads but they still had most of the talent... but now we got the leaders of the talent leaving... The animation leads, all of the design leads, most of the writers, members of the engineering... things are not at all looking well for IW... Hell if i was employed at infinity ward i'd be sending an application to respawn.
it does make me hope that MW3 sucks just to help prove how important the development team really is... honestly if MW3 did well, i feel like that would be activision winning as they will prove that the development team is expendable at that their are plenty of talented people out there to replace them... which in a way may be true
granted thinking about it, i do kind of imagined it would be easier to replace the developers of a war game more easily than other games... I mean, the fact that their are plenty of other games similar to COD, makes me feel you could find other people who can do the same thing as the old team and gamers will hardly notice... the sharp contrast to this would be something like Rachet and Clank which has so much imagination and style that it would be difficult to hand the franchise over to a new team and expect the same quality... eh, the quality (not sales) of MW3 will probably help show whether or not that is true
@Cupcakes
No, oh my god, this can't be happening. You know, while I loves MW2's multiplayer, the reason I had distaste for the game in general was that it proved something to me. You can make a game with flashy explosions and absoultely NO decent storytelling whatsoever, and idiots will still buy it. I figured all gamers knew this and just accepted it, but to actually see someone who thinks MW2's story was good? Well, it's just depressing to say the least. I mean, have you ever watched a TV show, movie, or novel in the last 20 years? Unless you've culturally stagnated and isolated yourself, MW2's story is shitpile of cliches, plot holes, and paper flat characters.
On topic, good, the more the merrier. The faster Respawn grows the better. I hope now that they're free, they'll be able to give us even better games (with hopefully better stories). Don't know why you people want them to do BC3 though. It's as if you you people couldn't handle the idea of DICE doing it (despite doing a perfectly fine job with BC2) and just wanted BC3 to become another MW. I play BC2 because it's different from MW2, not to compliment the latter.
World at War wasn't bad, but it was basically just trying to emulate everything MW did. And I thinnk we can consider MW2 the peak of that franchise as even if there is a 3rd, itwon't follow the same vision as Jim points out.
From Activisions Response to The Respawn Entertainment announcement:
“This agreement comes as no surprise to Activision given the myriad of improper activities detailed in the cross-complaint filed on Friday against Jason West and Vince Zampella. We look forward to continuing to work with Infinity Ward’s deep bench of proven talent on exciting new projects.”
Maybe not so much, huh guys? Seems like the major corporate play failed and failed hard. I hope those guys from IW get the cash they deserved, and maybe, just maybe Activision will learn to treat it's studios with respect, like EA did when they started to let their studios have almost complete independence. Look how that turned out. We got Dead Space, Burnout Paradise and Mirrors Edge. Then again, what the hell do I know.
@ArcticFox
Ya that statement is what makes these latest developments so delicious. Seems activision thought they could control all of IW as long as they controlled their bosses, but no the employees can see how things really are. Fact is when talented people have a place to go then their is nothing stopping them from quiting; i'd be willing to bet those guys that walked out may already have positions promised to them at respawn... if the bosses liked working with them they'll hirer them in a heart beat. Activision can keep the studio, but not the talent.
Wow, that puts stuff into perspective even more. The sheer volume of people leaving was one thing, but nearly all of the ones who left were "leads" of some department. Yikes.
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Contest:
9:20 AM on 04.16.2010
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To the rest of the Infinity Ward team: Get out. Get out and start another infinity ward, and tell Activision they can suck your balls.
Get out guys, jump ship.
let this be a warning to other developers looking for some activision "support".
I don't really care enough to get up in arms and hate on Activision, but I will say MW and MW2 are the only Activision games I have purchased in a long long long time and they will be the last... that is, until they pull a 180 EA-style.
I've never even owned a Guitar Hero game and I'm proud of that fact. :)
But I think it will make devs/studios more hesitant to work with Activision...
MAKE THIS HAPPEN!
My brother is definitely one of those people, I got SC conviction yesterday and what does my brother play? Modern fucking warfare 2!!
Umm.... haven't DICE made all of the true Battlefields?
Also, good name.
You liked the story in MW2?
Are you on crack?
Your joking right MW2's "Story" was shit.
--
Also what's with people saying that re spawn should make battlefield. Dice did a great job with BC2. Leave it with them
I play the games first for the single player and then the multiplayer, so it's a little sad to see them all leave too.
Of all the people on the IW team, the writers were the ones I hoped would stay at Activision.
The "story" in MW2 is garbage.
Which part did you liked best? The one which the main villain simply disappears from the plot? Or the one where the US decides it's best to go along with killing innocents instead of just finishing the terrorist the whole world knows is a huge threat?
and that's just what they did
cause Activsion made it quite clear,
"we'll walk all over you"
As much as hype sustains MW as a brand, quality pushes it beyond the hype. Isn't there a noticeable difference between sales of Treyach's CoD shtick? That's been my perception- I have not fact to back it.
Fuck Activision, and long live Respawn Entertainment. I'm looking forward to what they put out, and I hope that the talented devs that left can find other jobs quickly, which they probably will. I wouldn't be surprised if more IW employees got out of there, and hopefully they will.
When developers get to make the games THEY want, we all win as gamers.
Frankly, loosing the two guys at the head of the development i don't think will effect things too great because the development heads are generally only as good as the team working below them. They may have loss the leads but they still had most of the talent... but now we got the leaders of the talent leaving... The animation leads, all of the design leads, most of the writers, members of the engineering... things are not at all looking well for IW... Hell if i was employed at infinity ward i'd be sending an application to respawn.
it does make me hope that MW3 sucks just to help prove how important the development team really is... honestly if MW3 did well, i feel like that would be activision winning as they will prove that the development team is expendable at that their are plenty of talented people out there to replace them... which in a way may be true
granted thinking about it, i do kind of imagined it would be easier to replace the developers of a war game more easily than other games... I mean, the fact that their are plenty of other games similar to COD, makes me feel you could find other people who can do the same thing as the old team and gamers will hardly notice... the sharp contrast to this would be something like Rachet and Clank which has so much imagination and style that it would be difficult to hand the franchise over to a new team and expect the same quality... eh, the quality (not sales) of MW3 will probably help show whether or not that is true
No, oh my god, this can't be happening. You know, while I loves MW2's multiplayer, the reason I had distaste for the game in general was that it proved something to me. You can make a game with flashy explosions and absoultely NO decent storytelling whatsoever, and idiots will still buy it. I figured all gamers knew this and just accepted it, but to actually see someone who thinks MW2's story was good? Well, it's just depressing to say the least. I mean, have you ever watched a TV show, movie, or novel in the last 20 years? Unless you've culturally stagnated and isolated yourself, MW2's story is shitpile of cliches, plot holes, and paper flat characters.
On topic, good, the more the merrier. The faster Respawn grows the better. I hope now that they're free, they'll be able to give us even better games (with hopefully better stories). Don't know why you people want them to do BC3 though. It's as if you you people couldn't handle the idea of DICE doing it (despite doing a perfectly fine job with BC2) and just wanted BC3 to become another MW. I play BC2 because it's different from MW2, not to compliment the latter.
“This agreement comes as no surprise to Activision given the myriad of improper activities detailed in the cross-complaint filed on Friday against Jason West and Vince Zampella. We look forward to continuing to work with Infinity Ward’s deep bench of proven talent on exciting new projects.”
Maybe not so much, huh guys? Seems like the major corporate play failed and failed hard. I hope those guys from IW get the cash they deserved, and maybe, just maybe Activision will learn to treat it's studios with respect, like EA did when they started to let their studios have almost complete independence. Look how that turned out. We got Dead Space, Burnout Paradise and Mirrors Edge. Then again, what the hell do I know.
Ya that statement is what makes these latest developments so delicious. Seems activision thought they could control all of IW as long as they controlled their bosses, but no the employees can see how things really are. Fact is when talented people have a place to go then their is nothing stopping them from quiting; i'd be willing to bet those guys that walked out may already have positions promised to them at respawn... if the bosses liked working with them they'll hirer them in a heart beat. Activision can keep the studio, but not the talent.