Vivendi boss says Activision is over Infinity Ward drama, studio 'reconstructed'

by Alexander Sliwinski on Nov 19th 2010 5:29PM

Jean-Bernard Lévy, chairman and chief exec. of Vivendi, which has a controlling interest in Activision Blizzard, noted that the megapublisher has "reconstructed" Infinity Ward. The Financial Times reports that, at the Morgan Stanley TMT conference, Lévy stated, "We have reconstructed Infinity Ward, we are very happy with the way we have been able to reconstruct it."

Lévy claims Activision "got over" all the Infinity Ward drama from earlier this year, which likely came much easier with the help of the record-breaking success of Call of Duty: Black Ops, which made Treyarch the top cog in the Call of Duty development mill.

Call of Duty currently has (at least) three studios developing titles: Infinity Ward is apparently working on Modern Warfare 3, Sledgehammer Games is delivering the 2011 installment for the franchise and Treyarch's project is currently classified. Meanwhile, Jason West and Vince Zampella, the former studio heads of Infinity Ward, who started Respawn Entertainment after their firing, have started from "absolute zero" on a project for EA Partners.

Via: Gamespot
Source: Financial Times

Tags: Activision, Activision-Blizzard, Infinity-Ward, Jean-Bernard-Levy, microsoft, pc, playstation, ps3, Treyarch, vivendi, Vivendi-Universal, xbox

Reader Comments (40)

It helps when you, you know, dont care whats so ever about the studio.

That's like burning someones house down on purpose and "getting over it" after they get mad with you.

...Wierd analogy, I know.

It will be interesting to see how IW pans out. After playing playing the crap out of Black Ops you begin to appreciate the attention to detail IW put into their games despite the loosey goosey oversight of their multiplayer. Sure Treyarch does a tremendous job of patching their issues on a timely manner, but you also can see the contrast with both developers when Modern Warfare just feels better when your sprinting, knifing, shooting, and countering. Also after playing Black Ops you realize how everyone took for granted Modern Warfare's sound, and the impact it had on its gameplay. It will be interesting to see if the current iteration of IW will still be able to retain some it's subtle magic that many players fell in love with.

@leobebes The interesting thing will be what Treyarch does will they have no studios ideas to build on. COD is useless without IW. And the IW activation invents will not be IW.

@Jack Kevorkian

I agree 100%. The reason Treyarch gets loved by so many COD players is because they had IW, who usually took most of the risks in the franchise due to being the progenitor of the series, and its mistakes to build upon and correct. Now that IW is pretty much disbanded what original ideas will Treyarch come up with next. Mind you IW came up with the ranking/class system and that is responsible for half of the reason COD is still popular today, remember the last time Treyarch had to make a COD from scratch, Call of Duty 3...

@leobebes

Infinity Ward made the changes with COD4 that made it super popular: lethal weapons, consistent high framerate, great netcode, fast matchmaking, extremely low control latency, etc.

That's why you have a formerly sub-par developer like Treyarch with the COD4 engine and they can make a 10 million selling game like World at War. WaW had nothing new, but it had all of the fundamental strengths of the COD4 engine, which were miles ahead of what other shooters did at the time and still do today.

Look at the competition: Far Cry 2: horrible controls due to analog acceleration, useless and nonlethal weapons. Dead. Killzone 2 had the same issues. Bad Company 2 did better than most, but at the end of the day the framerate is still 30 FPS and the controls still less responsive. And that's why all of those competing games sell 2-3 million while COD sells 10-20 million.

@Invigilator

Great post, you have summarized what I have been explaining to everyone who always says "RAWR Treyarch is BETTER than IW, and MW2 SUCKED!!"

Its a philosophical and logical impossibility to say Treyarch is better than IW. This is IW's baby and MW2 was bad not because of its conceptual design or actual gameplay, it was deemed bad because IW didn't patch the game in a timely manner. In fact I think its crazy to think MW2 was bad, the only people I run into who think the game was bad was dues to PC gamers spreading hate because they abandoned dedicated servers, and players who justifiably got upset with all the glitchers and the glitzy killstreaks (which I thought were a riot).

@Jack Kevorkian

Glenn Schofield of Sledgehammer says, "hello"

He can't hear the complaining over the money pouring over his naked body.

@Shalabi

Why does everyone got to put the imagery of Kotick bathing in money in their post?

IW in name only.

Talk is cheap, show us the games.

@GeoffSchultz I doubt it matters at this point in time. 6 million copies are gonna be sold on the first day without Activision doing a thing.

we'll see how much ''love'' there is once they run the CoD brand to the ground Guitar Hero style.

@CarlosPacheco

you mean they havent yet?

@Faenix

Not until you get three in one year. Until then, it's merely the FPS answer to Madden.

@CarlosPacheco

Guitar Hero was a fad. Tony Hawk was a fad. They would both inevitably die away, why not milk them while the kids think its cool?

Call of Duty is popular because of the gameplay, not because of some gimmicky controller or because skateboarding was cool back in 1998. It's not going to be run into the ground.

Of course, the developer could screw up royally, like DICE did with Battlefield, which could make it less popular over time.

@Faenix yeah, I want to agree with you but the last was actually better than I expected.

@Invigilator yeah, i agree with your points... I guess in my head IW did a good job of innovating and bringing the series forward and I don't feel that will continue.

Sledgehammer's installment should be entitled Call of Duty: Above and Beyond if it is set in the future/outer space.

@TheRedComet

Sledgehammer can probably make something better and coherent than Halo.

"Reconstructed" is code for "filled with talentless, spineless lackeys that won't cause us problems."

3 companies working on the same series? at this rate you're gonna get a "new" cod every 6 months...

I know the internet is filled with hate towards Call of Duty (well most people) but its quite arguably the most established brand in video game history, rivaling Mario, Zelda, Halo, Metal Gear, etc. and it will not die or go away,

They will keep making new ones, and they will keep selling. Will they all break entertainment history records? Probably not ... but they'll still be profitable.

Call of Duty is becoming like the shooter of FIFA or Madden, even if there aren't any major changes year to year, they will continue selling a gazillion copies.

Too bad a prick like Kotick just happens to be the head of this evil snake.

Wait... Vivendi is still around? I thought they were absorbed into the Activision machine?

@BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam

Vivendi owns Activision Blizzard. Quite the other way around.

This is a good reflection of how very little most gamers know about ANYTHING other than when X game is coming out.

@Invigilator
Thanks for the correct and the snark! *thumbsup*

@BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam

It's not you specifically, there are a lot worse examples around. Comment threads like these are just filled with people who have no clue what they're talking about, but will never admit it.

Vivendi is one of the biggest multinationals out there, they make everything....their gaming division was a tiny fraction of their company.

It's kind of like someone assuming that Microsoft only made xboxes and had never heard of their primary operations.

@Invigilator
Ah, yes, I forgot how big Vivendi is. I read a bit about them a while back... but outside of video games, I really have no clue of their works...

And after looking into it further... wow, they control a lot of companies I already know of, heh.

"We have reconstructed Infinity Ward, we are very happy with the way we have been able to reconstruct it."

I am now imagining a horrid Frankenstein's monster composed of remaining Infinity Ward members shuffling around the Activision offices. We'll get to shoot thousands of them in a bonus mode in the next Call of Duty.

@Guts

Funny, given that MW2 is the most reviled game ever on gaming forums like this one, what do you think the reception would be if it had been released AFTER all of this stuff? Obviously people would be saying "see MW2 sux because all the good devs left!"

But they think MW2 sucks and it was made by the supposedly amazing IW developers. How is this not contradictory?

Forums like these never represent the prevailing opinion, and they never will. How is it that MW2 is the best selling shooter of all time AND the most hated on internet forums? Its because the forums have no relation to reality, and are mostly populated by bitter fanboy/trolls of various allegiances while the majority of the people just PLAY the actual games.

Curious what's going to happen when they make ppl pay to play multiplayer... Really hope IW can break away from crAapitvision bungie style.

Sorry to say it, but IMO Treyarch is not a game creator. They are generally tasked with porting great games, and they are capable hands at that, but whenever they are given any kind of design-power, it never seems to work out well.

Maybe W&Z were evil Troglodytes while at Activision. Maybe they were like the boss from Office Space, and simply profiting from the immense skill of their underlings. That seems unlikely to me, though. I'm sure they had lots of talent on their team, but you can put lots of talent together and still make a crappy game (Daikatana). You need good leadership and good direction. If Activision has "reconstructed" that, well, I guess we should all be happy. Good luck, Activizzard.

Seeing as how much joystiqers and other "gamers" hate Kotick, I wonder if they'll create an irrational hatred toward this "Jean Bernard Levy" guy too.

After all, he is the CEO of the corporation that owns Activision! If Kotick is Darth Vader, then this guy is like the Emperor.

Activision: It's not me, it's you.

[Developer Name] leaves building.

EA, waiting outside, steps out of swanky limo.
EA: So I heard you guys like making games?

@Lukeyo

Ironic, given that the very same devs had left EA and went to Activision after Medal of Honor.

But of course you didn't know that, because then you'd realize that post makes you look like an idiot.

http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/ this instantly popped into my head, it fits to because you know Anakin got reconstructed as well.

@Guts You realize very few franchises, whether they be games movies tv shows whatever, have the same group doing it?

Katzenburg left Disney, but Disney didn't emplode and stop making money.

But Katzenburg DID finally make hits at Dreamworks, with the help of all new people not from disney.

There are plenty of talented people making video games. The 2 dudes that started IW don't have the exclusive on video game making tallent.

@annonymiss Well you have to remember it wasnt just 2 guys, it was a lot of people that left IW. And "reconstruction" is usually code for a lot of people getting fired and a new staff brought in. Now while yes those new people could be good at making a new MW game. However it wont have the same touch that it did before. Just like how Treyarch games look like IW games, they are not the same. IW has been turned into a new studio.

treyach is worst game maker. if it isn't why so many people have lots of problems on black ops? I wish that they shouldn't make future any kind of call of duty game. I have to wait for MW 3. black ops is a joke. console gamers have no idea what I talk about.

Vivendi boss says Activision is over Infinity Ward drama, studio 'reconstructed'

Reader Comments (40)

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 5:33PM Faenix said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 5:39PM Danthaman said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 5:39PM leobebes said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 6:17PM Jack Kevorkian said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 6:34PM leobebes said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 7:58PM Invigilator said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 8:16PM leobebes said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 10:17PM kentuckyfried said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 5:39PM Shalabi said

Posted: Nov 20th 2010 3:25AM pandaSmore said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 5:43PM Drake Lake said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 5:45PM GeoffSchultz said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 5:58PM onlyk said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 5:46PM CarlosPacheco said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 6:51PM Faenix said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 7:29PM False said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 7:53PM Invigilator said

Posted: Nov 21st 2010 2:50PM CarlosPacheco said

Posted: Nov 21st 2010 2:52PM CarlosPacheco said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 5:50PM TheRedComet said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 10:19PM kentuckyfried said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 7:05PM PoisonedAl said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 7:32PM golobulus said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 7:43PM BoBsS said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 7:45PM BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 7:52PM Invigilator said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 7:53PM BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 8:15PM Invigilator said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 8:32PM BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 7:54PM Elmoogle said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 7:55PM Invigilator said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 8:05PM styleznma said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 8:10PM sigma8 said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 8:14PM Invigilator said

Posted: Nov 19th 2010 8:23PM Lukeyo said

Posted: Nov 20th 2010 6:37PM Invigilator said

Posted: Nov 20th 2010 3:23AM pandaSmore said

Posted: Nov 20th 2010 4:25AM annonymiss said

Posted: Nov 20th 2010 8:57AM Jing2487 said

Posted: Nov 20th 2010 1:06PM taeguenyoo said

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