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Report: Four more Infinity Ward employees leave studio

by Ben Gilbert on Apr 13th 2010 9:00PM

Lead designers Zied Reike and Steve Fukuda, as well as programmer Rayme Vinson, have left ailing Modern Warfare 2 developer Infinity Ward, according to "sources close to the studio" speaking with Kotaku. Additionally, lead artist Chris Cherubini is confirmed to have left the studio. And yes, folks, this is the second story we've written today about developers exiting the Activision-owned dev house, bringing the number of employee departures since studio co-founders Jason West and Vince Zampella were fired up to nine in total.

As with other developers that left IW recently, little information has been given as to where everyone will end up -- none have been confirmed as moving to West and Zampella's newly formed Respawn Entertainment as of yet. Regardless, if previous reports about low studio morale and unpaid royalties were true, we wouldn't be surprised to see quite a few more IW departures in the near future.

Source

Tags: activision, chris-cherubini, infinity-ward, jason-west, modern-warfare-2, rayme-vinson, respawn-entertainment, steve-fukuda, vince-zampella, zied-reike

Reader Comments (93)

That really didn't make sense.

What, you don't feel any testicular pain about IW being dismantled just because Activision is being greedy? It's painful to see something like this.

On that note, how do you think other developers feel? IW made money from their work and hard efforts and they're being greeted with bullshit.

all I'm sayin, is have you ever had your jewels smashed repeatedly on a table?

You really want me to answer that?

Several times.

Does this mean the Call of Duty and Modern Warfare series are dead?

I doubt it. Activison will most likely still keep the IW studio around soley for the name recognition. Sadly only those of us within the the "know" will realize its a sham.

No two other studios now work on CoD too.

Give it a few hours..

"Report: Four more Infinity Ward employees left at studio

The cleaner, tea maid & two goldfish.."

(delete 'more')

A day later there's only two left. The goldfish died.

I hope they all go to Respawn and make an awesome game. It wont beat MW2 in sales but the quality would be better.

EA still knows how to market a game.

I think.

Princess Leia sums it up best: "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

It's so weird. EA used to be the bad guys in the video game industry last gen, but now EA are the good guys and Activision are the bad guys.

So will Activision be the good guys next gen or have they gone too far already?

They've gone too far. Kotick will leave that company a wreck.

EA is still the devil but Activison is trying to vie for the title.

Generally it seems EA is trying to learn from it's past mistakes. Activision currently seems it can do no harm and keeps digging further down a hole untill it will be too late. But even if that happens being joined at the hip with Blizzard will probably save them regardless the outcome.

nah, it will be Ubsoft... just something about them makes me nervous...

When Riccitiello took over for EA in 2007, that's when they became the good guys. Activision will continue being evil until Kotick gets bored of this world and returns to Hell.

Hope they join Respawn. I won't be buying activision games in the future because of all this bad business. I also plan on buying whatever game Respawn releases first to show my support. But who really cares right? I'm just (looks left, looks right), one man.

You should buy a game because it's GOOD, not just to get back at another company. Otherwise you're going to be sending the wrong message. I know there's a lot of IW fanboys around here, but personally I'm still going to wait and see if their new game is even any good before deciding to buy it or not. I'm treating them like any other developer, and you should too.

Very true. I'm just trusting that the founders of IW and COD will make something I will be interested in. Let's hope it's not like Jaffey making calling all cars after he made god of war.

So what's the count now? How many have left so far? I'm thinkin it's around 10 or so?

1up says it's 9 since the initial West/Zampella ousting, 11 senior staff total.

You can be sure the bonuses have been paid. They do serve as retention bonuses. If the people didn't receive them yet, they wouldn't have left yet.

Or they said "Fu-ck it".

Down down down into a burning ring of fire...

I'm hoping the ghost Recon reboot will fit the bill. Thats where my cash is going for FPS army games from now on, atleast until Respawn releases what I'm sure will be one hell of a game, but thats probably 3-4 years away.

Methinks Ghost Recon is third person.

I single-handedly destroyed your budget plans!

Activision, everything you touch, DIES!

Bye Blizz.

This reminds me of Gerstmann-gate. GameSpot/Activision insists there's nothing wrong, but all the people leaving them proves otherwise. Hopefully the ex-Activision people will make like the ex-GameSpotters and join the person(s) fired by their now-former employers. I can see the rise of Respawn like Giant Bomb.

Ha, What a bunch of greedy morons. These ex-IW employees, Activision. All of them.

They have all completely lost their fricking minds looking at how much money the game made, and now they all feel they should get the big part of the pie.

I hope these guys that left get ZERO of the bonus pool and those still at IW reap the rewards of these other fools leaving IW.

They got damn near nothing. Activision is/was withholding royalties owed, which is MOST of what they get paid.

I don't know about you, but I like to get PAID for my work.

well this shows you cant treat Employees like crap... they just leave you the first chance they get

TAKE THAT ACTIVISION... Nobody Likes You, you can go burn in hell

Talk about some dirty deals going down on the inside...this wont fair well for the franchise.

it's probably a good thing these guys are leaving. MW2 has the most crappy online play of any CoD game to date (ridiculous killstreaks, non-stop camping, out of control lag, small boring maps, etc...). They need someone new to step in there and completely restructure the online play.

Good for them! I'd leave my job too if my Boss/Parent Company were a bunch of Crank Addicts... Activision FTL!

As soon as Respawn rents office space and gets computers, expect to see AT LEAST half of IW employees leave.

Imagine how crummy the members left at infinity ward feel. It would be like living in a house of 20 people and out of no where 15 people leave haha. I have no doubt most of IW will join respawn because i bet you would feel so inferior and other things at IW now.

Based on my own experience, there will people GLAD to stay around and take the status jump. Some entry-level poly-pusher will get to be the new art director, or some HUD programmer will become a team lead.

So yeah, Activision will milk the franchise, but the staff is going to take a massive talent shift toward mediocrity.

Remember when Medal of Honor was the king of military shooters? IW was started by guys who'd mostly worked on MoH games, then the second stringers were left holding the bag, and EA is HOPING to reestablish the MoH franchise this year.

It's the Circle... the Circle of Knife!

Previous 50 Comments

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Report: Four more Infinity Ward employees leave studio

Reader Comments (93)

Posted: Apr 13th 2010 9:19PM Dr Blight said

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