Infinity Ward suit against Activision going to trial

@TMlord95

What? You want Activision to lose the franchise & then Infinity Ward to take it? Activision owns infinity Ward so they can't save it even if they wanted to.

Activision will not lose the rights to Call Of Duty nor will they ever. With the way these games sell, we'll be seeing another Call Of Duty every year until Bobby Kotick keels over.

It's sad but true

@TMlord95
You underestimate how much money Activision has.

Also, Respawn Studios may acquire the rights if in fact rights were to shift.

@kgoo867 Except, according to Infinity Ward, Activision imposed ludicrous time restraints and mandates to the game. Read about what your discussing before insulting people.

@TMlord95 Activision has World of Warcraft It'll be just fine.

@TMlord95

You forget that Kotick burns a path through mounds of money just to get to his desk each day

@kgoo867 You're crazy! The only reason the first Modern Warfare was so good was because IW had creative control. The reason MW2 was so bad was because Activision made them rush development to get it out instead of letting IW polish it up. Their policy of one COD every year is ridiculous! There's nothing new in any of the COD games that come out now. That's one reason I stopped buying any COD game after MW2, because they are crap and don't take the time to do anything new or different or polish it up. It's crap pure and simple.

@kgoo867 And they also had around 2 years between COD and COD2, and that had the largest change between games (The first one had 2 primary slots and a pistol slot as well as having no regenerating health). The people that did the expansion for COD 1 ended up becoming a part of Treyarch.

@TMlord95

FYI, this artical and you are both wrong, it's West and Zampella V. Activision, not Infinity Ward Vs. Activision.

Furthermore, W&Z "own" the right to the "Modern Warfare" IP, a la Call Of Duty 4: "Modern Warfare", Call Of Duty: "Modern Warfare 2" and the disputed Call Of Duty: "Modern Warfare 3".

If they win this case, they will have a say into what happens to the release of MW3 and what will happen to "Modern Warfare" IP as a whole. So if it seems that W&Z will indeed win in a date disclosed AFTER November (the release date), Activision could f#%k the ending up SOOOOOOO bad that it won't even be funny.

@Vcize

Haha! I've been waiting for that game since COD4.

@Jay Z

Technically though they are giving them 2 years to develop due to the swapping between which studio releases for the year.

@TMlord95 Nevermind, it's back now.

@Prboi In the end they are taking a once proud franchise of games and milking it for all it worth. If we just step aside and let them, it just gets worse until they control every damn franchise there is and start producing progressively shittier versions every year.

@TMlord95

A franchise can't be milked if no one buys it. Blame the masses and not Activision and let it go.

@Prboi
The problem sets a really bad example for the rest of the series to follow. Really only Ubisoft should make a new sequel every year. only they can seem to do it right :)

@TMlord95

Really? Activision started with COD so they ruined it on their own. How does ruining COD equate to them owning every franchise. If I'm not mistaken, games like Battlefield & Crysis will not suffer from COD getting stale

@Prboi

"I don't understand the hate towards Activision."

You lost me here.

@i77ogical

I mean I understand why they may seem like assholes but why do YOU hate them? What have they done to YOU? Putting out $15 map packs? I don't see how that hurts YOU in any way. Releasing a game every year? That doesn't hurt YOU either. The way I see it, the hipsters who hate on Activision don't have a legitimate reason for doing so. If they ruined COD, then fine. Get BF3. There are THOUSANDS of other games out there for you to play so don't cry because Activision ruined 1 of them.

@Prboi

What have they done to us? They've insulted our intelligence by trying to pass off piss-poor games for years, at $60 a pop. The list of mediocre games they've put out in the last few years alone would cause you to scroll down. Putting out bad games and charging full price is not the mark of a great company, nor is the constant bragging about how big they are and how they're going to turn gaming into a boring business. As much as a company can "do stuff" to us, Activision has. If there was a lemon law for videogames, Activision would be out of business by now.

GH, R.I.P. ... They're knee-capping COD, by annualizing it without a new game engine in sight, (no wonder the smarter gamer is chanting Battlefield 3), they're at the center of multiple lawsuits (check out the Kotick/stewardess lawsuit, to see how he operates), they buy and shutter popular studios like frat boys crush beer cans on their foreheads, they refuse to patch game-killing glitches (Wolfenstein) ... the list goes on.

You can play ignorant if you want, but just because something makes money for a while, like the Detroit auto industry, doesn't mean there aren't huge problems under the surface. When Activision finally loses the COD franchise to mediocrity, they're hard-charging business tactics will finally catch up with them.

@Prboi
Actually yes it does. It's like GH and RB. Even though they're different games when the quality of GH started to drop so did the sales of RB. Everyone felt they were one in the same, even though they weren't. The same is going to happen with FPS'. If they milk them untill no one wants an FPS anymore because they've been milked dry then what is there? CoD getting bad sales doesn't just affect CoD it saddly affects every FPS. Once a series is milked dry it usually means the decline of the entire genre. While it may not directly lead to the decline it will.

@Doctor Who

Okay, Assassin's Creed is the only game that Ubisoft is releasing on an annual basis and so far it looks good. But what's really smart about Ubisoft is how they can still work on other great franchises and get us excited for them. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one waiting for the next Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six.

@Prboi
Wow, these comments are baseless and terrible. You people really think that COD is gonna sink the FPS genre? Its called evolution. One will replace the other and so on, and so on. Maybe Battlefield can take back the FPS genre and "save" it. Who knows, we shall see though. Can't blame Activision for wanting to make money off their flagship franchise. Cause after all thats said and done, its a business. They are here to make money. Hate Kotnick all you want, the man knows how to make his shareholders happy. Black Ops is the most played game on XBOX Live and the PSN and has been all year long. There maps packs sell like crazy even though they are over priced and will be obsolete once MW3 comes out. $15 really isn't that much money for entertainment (unless your 16, even then get a better job cheapskate). Try going to the movies and getting refreshments for two people usually costs about $30-40 dollars. I swear, everyone expects everything for free anymore.

@FiXxXeRJL
Problem is, if you were an old school gamer, you should remember waiting for games to be polished and when companies gave out updates they usually threw in free maps and helped fix the MOD tools so the community would stay alive.

@Prboi So you can only dislike corporations or people that directly affect you? That is a load of nonsense.

@Prboi What have they done to us? They abused the Exodus Effect to empty out good games of their players. They make crappy games, but have GREAT advertising.
1) A Good Game (GG) and a Crappy Game with Good Advertising (CGGA) get released.
2) People buy both games, but the CGGA has more sales because of it's advertising.
3) People play both games, but more people bought the CGGA, so it has more players.
4) Any but the most hardcore lover of the GG see that the CGGA has more players, so they move to it because they see it has more people and the Ads make it seem good.
5) GG's playerbase dries up while the CGGA's get's larger.
6) Even the hardcore GG lovers get shaken at the lack of players, and move to the CGGA.
7) GG becomes a "Cult Classic" with a tiny fanbase while the CGGA is hailed as "A Legendary Game, Greatest of All Time, etc." by it's (stolen) fanbase.
You see what they're doing? It's happened to many a good game. And it's usually their fault.

@FiXxXeRJL

"Hate Kotnick all you want, the man knows how to make his shareholders happy."

Is this the Wall Street Journal Online?

RIM, makers of Blackberry, were the toast of the wireless industry for many years. They made money hand-over-fist. Now they're going under, for the same sins that Activision commits daily: putting out the same thing, over and over, and expecting the cash to roll in into infinity.

Google RIM right now. Their shareholders are not happy at all. In the same way, Kotick is stripping the land he owns of all its valuable resources, without any care for R&D or innovation, and the massive profits he is taking out of the wallets of gamers is at the expense of the company's future, and the future of the developers sad enough, desperate enough, or greedy enough to get bought by Activsion. Whenever you have to fall back on how shareholders feel about a video game company, you have no arguments left. It's about the games, dude.

@i77ogical

Most gamers, like me, are starting to fall back on Free To Play games, simply because these companies no longer release demos of their games (for obvious reasons). Some are good, some are cash shop trash, and the latter usually end up being huge somehow. However, the effect is pretty harsh: People like me wait a year or 2 to buy a game, rather than buying it at release, waiting for prices/DLC/"Ultimate" versions to come out.

For all the frat boys that charge through games and demand a new version a month later, who buy DLC on Day 1 for $10 after buying the game, there will be gamers like me. Those disenchanted with the society that cropped up after gaming became a accepted as a hobby, and even celebrated. Do you remember the "Atari Debacle"? 1983? I see that happening again very soon. I'm tired of paying $70 just to get the complete game. I'm tired of being milked. I'm ready to just give up gaming.

I don't, however. Instead, I hold my money, and give it to good indies, studios who listen to their customers, and really cheap sales will all the DLC packed in it (IE, the full game that should have been out Day 1). I miss the days when terrible games, and companies, died, and they had to compete for our attentions. I miss when companies actually released mod tools and encouraged their community, because it brought more sales. Now all they do is try to kill the game quick so you have to buy the game they release the year after.

Oh, and for the record, MW3 will not have Dedicated Servers either. So you either pick Black Ops, a terrible pile of bugs, stuttering, and crashes, or you go with MW3, which will be smooth, play like a dream, and be covered to the brim in hackers. You're screwed either way, one way just hurts less, based on your own preferences.

Or you do what people like me have done: Go back to the oldies. I've been playing Hexen for my FPS fix. Or do what everyone else does: Play Modern Warfare 1. It all depends on what you want to do, and if you don't mind digging out the classics.

@BoBsS

I think Modern Warfare 2 is their evidence. That game is pure trash

@SSMike06

That stupid crap is their bread and butter. Win or lose, their game is likely to be more of the same IW-type stuff, but with a different label.

@SisypheanLife

Actually IW started that whole current generation reward Crap with CoD4:MW back on Nov. 6 2007. Using the exact same engine as CoD2 ( IW engine that is still being used today too) set foot for the current type of FPS.

By current type of FPS I mean the reward, unlocks cool level with new perks etc.. It was fun, granted I enjoyed the hell out of MW1, barely touched a bit of MW2 before I got tired and I haven't even touched Black Ops since it came out and will never play it either.

I'd be happy to go back to the first Unreal Tournament type of play that was just epic and fast pace. But hey, that's just me and not everyone agrees with it too :D

@SSMike06

I also want it to go back to Unreal style...nothing beats fast-paced deathmatch :D

@Machiavellian79

Its a classic battle of millionaires fighting against a giant corporation. Who can't relate to that?
If they ever had concerns about the integrity of the product they were making, they wouldn't have sold out to Activision. This is just a dispute about who should have the pile of money.

@Machiavellian79

I think that the masses are cheering for the poorer of two evils.

@DrDrew Pinsky
That doesn't sound like something a therapist would say. Then again, you're on a show called Celebrity Rehab, so what do I know.

@Lucky48

But more people do like it than any other game in the history of video games.
I don't understand what theoretical video game you want them to make. It's not like the Call of Duty games aren't polished. They are highly polished. They don't need more time to be developed. You want them to change the game? Why not just play a different game? I don't understand the complaining about an annual Call of Duty. I understand people complaining about Resident Evil games which have completely changed the franchise, but why complain about a franchise that stays true to itself? If you are bored of it then that's what other games are for but Activison's job is to appeal to those people that still want Call of Duty games not people that want something new, because something new can be developed by anyone.