Activision confirms Infinity Ward studio heads' departures; Publishing execs take over

by Ben Gilbert on Mar 2nd 2010 4:55PM

According to the official statement we've all been waiting for, Activision has announced that Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella are no longer with the studio. Activision Publishing chief technology officer Steve Pearce and head of production Steve Ackrich will head up the development house on "an interim basis." Furthermore, Call of Duty-related business will now be overseen by Philip Earl (now ex-head of Activision's Asia-Pacific region).

We first heard rumor of the Infinity Ward shakeup in the wee hours this morning and saw a few clues throughout the day regarding the two, now ex-Infinity Ward heads. While Activision's formal announcement is certainly confirmation of the sudden changes, it lacks any real explanation. We've put in word to both Infinity Ward and Activision to learn more about the future of the studio and what caused the apparent schism.

Source

Tags: activision, activision-publishing, Call-of-Duty, infinity-ward, jason-west, philip-earl, steve-pearce, vince-zampella

Reader Comments (92)

Oh dear....

I just can't wait for the truck loads of inevitable parodies...

The mega64 one will be epic :D

How do you fire the people that made you a k-jillion dollars with mw2?

P.S. I guess this means a patch for (current) PC haxor'ing will be delayed.

This just sucks period. EA never got this bad IMO, it is time to tell Activision with our wallets that they can go suck an egg, ESPECIALLY Bobby KoDICK.

ASSHOLES

Obviously Activision realizes that everyone has a very negative opinion of them at the moment, and, seeing no entirely financially beneficial solution to fix that, have decided to run their most successful franchises into the ground, thus essentially committing suicide. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Kurt_Cobain

I refuse to buy an activision game ever again. I can't stand the way things run over there.

QUICK EVERYONE WHIP OUT THEIR JUMP TO CONCLUSION MATS!!

+1 for the Office Space reference

Jump to conclusion mats will likely be a new game accessory for Activision.

You mean you can't stand how they try to make money for their shareholders and deliver predictable financial results? The nerve of some people!

@Griff he means how they sacrifice a lot of stuff we'd like in order to do that.

"You mean you can't stand how they try to make money for their shareholders and deliver predictable financial results?"

Got news for you, Griff. Once Activision has killed off their Tony Hawk brand, their Guitar Hero brand, and their Call of Duty brand, their financial results are gonna get a lot less predictable.

And I feel ashamed for not spotting the reference

Fair enough copa and Alex. Still people complain about how the Treyarch CoD games suck or aren't innovative, and they move millions of units. People complain about Tony Hawk getting stale and in an attempt to innovate, they kill the franchise. As far as I can tell, pumping out sequel after sequel to CoD is about the only move Activision has here. Trying to expand the brand with the new Sledgehammer title is a low risk move that if it fails won't stop people from buying the core CoD branded games.

it seems like a real dick move to bounce the top creative guys at IW, but a few hours/days of game blog backlash, vs. keeping an annual money train rolling seems like acting in the best interests of your shareholders.

@Griff

When Call of Duty bites the dust and takes Activision's profits with it, I'm sure they'll be saying "oh, Kotick was acting for the best, really..."

They'll eat him alive.

Griff, it's a great example of short-term gains at the cost of long-term ones. CoD may still sell well for another game or two, but the brand will burn out without innovation. They've already crushed the rhythm game industry, sucking all available short-term profit out at the expense of future growth. FPS's are more resilient as a genre, but Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 didn't become the best-selling game of all time just because of its name; innovative and fun gameplay, delivered by IW, is what got it there. If they drive IW into the ground, CoD is going to go the way of Guitar Hero, and in a couple of years Kotick's going to be replaced due to declining profits.

This same attitude is so prevalent throughout corporate America, with CEO's constantly getting replaced after mini-boom and -bust cycles. It's ludicrous.

And let the walkouts begin.

i'd love it if everyone quit and went with the heads.

too bad those damn things called contracts exist.

Eh, if rumors are true all they have to do is talk to EA. Then they'll be fired for insubordination...

You can just sit at your desk and be unproductive. It's not like Activision will keep paying you just to keep you from following your old boss to EA.

@aristokrat

Well, at least the people who walk out to EA will still be doing the same thing they have been doing for the last few years.

Milking game franchises by continuously re-releasing certain games.

[INSERT COMMENT ABOUT ACTIVISION'S SHITTY-NESS HERE]

They did it before when they left EA and we all call the Activision the old EA so let history repeat itself and lets hope for a new studio where great devs can make great games the way they want to.

Wouldn't it be ironic and hilarious if EA hired these guys to helm the Medal of Honor reboot?

That would be awesome but I think it would be even better if MTV games hired them and their new series would outsell call of duty and rockband would outsell guitar hero. Valve would be another company I would love to see hire such talent.

What to call it?

Call of Honor?
Medal of Duty?

Call of the Honorable Medal for Duty?

poor BFBC2 is getting no attention, because today out off all days Activision just had to bring this out. how sad I cant wait to get my copy in the mail soon though.

You know... You might be onto something Solace!

Maybe this all is just a way to distract people from Bad Company 2! Some cruel, yet clever way to keep Activision in the minds of the people, and make them forget that Bad Company 2 was released, so people will stay with the inferior multiplayer of Modern Warfare 2!

@devil: Ya know, to be honest, that wouldn't surprise me at all.

Great, now the Call of Duty games will have absolutely no innovation. Good job Activision.

MW2 was evolution, not innovation. Call of Duty 4 was the biggest step foward.

And remember, Activision didn't want Call of Duty to go Modern at all...

Yeah, and who made the first Modern Warfare? IW. It didn't really happen again with MW2 (not that it needed to) but it sure as hell won't happen with Treyarch.

HOLY SHIT!

Activision.....fuuuuuuuuuck youuuuuuuuuu!

I hope all IW employees quit this bitch Office Space style and make a new, independent company.

Wouldn't be surprised, that sort of thing is almost a daily occurance in the game industry.

Looks like IW's vision wasn't active enough to see this coming.

www.instantrimshot.com

That's a Ludwig-caliber pun. Good jorb.

Thank the maker you guys didn't downvote Trey this time... Now, I'm going to make a sandwich, and then spend a good 10 minutes staring at his fabulous, fabulous avatar of Miranda and her lace underthings in all their upvoted glory! Excelsior!!

Untill we hear the complete story, it's hard to make a final judgment right now as to which party is truly at fault here. It does seem overly harsh...but the SEC filing contained some pretty strong allegations levied at the IW Heads. Either way, sort of glad I never bought MW2 and am looking forward to playing BC2 this afternoon instead.

Do you wanna know what the allegations involve? If rumors are to be believed, it's because they were talking with EA.

Talking. Their contract expires in October.

Well, if they were fired becuase they were reaching out EA, then I can how the wording in the SEC filing applies as that can be viewed as breach of contract and insubordination (bascially, communicating with a competetor). Wether or not that justifies being fired as opposed to just recieving a reprimand is another matter. I think we will find out that there is alot more to this story.

I'm going to assume here that Jason and Vince wanted to branch outside of the franchise and create OTHER games which was met with a resounded "HELL NO". From the press release, it sounds like this was, at the very least, in the best interest of Activision to "preserve" the Call of Duty franchise.

At the end of the day, this is just business guys. I dislike Activision as much as the next guy but this is pretty standard shit in this burgeoning industry.

The SEC filing may be a CYA move. Remember, in the US at least non-compete agreements cannot be enforced if the employee is *fired*. If these guys were fired because they wanted to defect to EA, it is in Activision's interest to sue them, no matter how frivolously, since their non-compete is still in force if they can allege wrongdoing.

If these guys are just plain *fired*, they can basically pick up their stuff and move to EA no questions asked, which I suspect is not something Activision wants.

I don't understand how figuring out what you're going to do when your contract expires in 7 months is a breach of contract. Any reasonable person would want to plan ahead a little bit, and I'm sure it was obvious to Kotick and the rest that these 2 were not coming back. Exploring options is not the same as competing.

@Potato

My guess is Activision will offer a settlement: Give us the CoD IP rights you retain, we'll drop the suit.

I hope those two gentlemen make another studio and create another mega first person shooter that trumps anything that activision dishes out.....I hate activision now.

How quick does EA try to suck those guys up for MoH?

Also, if there is one thing you want as a developer, its getting a bunch of Activision guys to come be in charge. They know their tech and product. hehe

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Activision confirms Infinity Ward studio heads' departures; Publishing execs take over

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