Rock, Paper, Shotgun

A while back, on a slow news day, I wrote a spoof story about there being only one man left at Infinity Ward. I’m started to wonder if it was prophecy. The Modern Warfare developers are rapidly running out of employees as more leave, many to join Respawn Entertainment, the new studio started up by former Infinity Ward top dogs, Vince Zampella and Jason West. The total number of IW employees who have now jumped ship or been pushed, at the time of writing, is 28. That leaves 75 remaining. And now things are getting even more strange, with 38 Infinity Warders, calling themselves the Infinity Ward Employee Group, filing a lawsuit against Activision for up to $125 million.

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Shortly after the news of the legal barrage starting, news breaks that the ejected Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella have formed a new company – the wittily named, minimialistically site-d Respawn – which will partner with EA to produce their next game. Eurogamer’s long interview with West and Zampella reveals few facts – there’s much they can’t comment on, either due to legal reasons or because their company hasn’t even offices or staff yet – but manages to entertainingly capture the mood of the pair right now. The key fact is: whatever they create will be theirs, rather than the publisher’s. But what to expect? “Well, we hope that it will be a fresh and new experience that will surprise people, but we’re not going to make Boom Blox or something, it’s going to be a big huge game,” says West. I dare speculate that it’ll involve a weapon sticking out of the bottom right of the screen.

You’ll probably have already picked up on the ongoing fallout from Tuesday’s Activision-Infinity Ward oh-so-modern warfare, but as the talking point du jour we should probably cover it. The story so far: Infinity Ward heads Vince Zampella and Jason West didn’t turn up to work after a meeting with the developer’s owner Activision – but some hired muscle did. Shortly afterwards, Activision filed suit against the pair for “breaches of contract and insubordination”, a charge that is yet to be explained. Since then, Zampella and West have filed right back at ‘em, with accusations of withheld royalties and “Orwellian moves” to construct a case for their dismissal. Activision have duly refuted the claims, but it’s increasingly looking like this stems from a tussle for control of the Call of Duty and Modern Warfare franchises. Oh, why can’t more happy things happen in the videogame industry?
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This is, I suspect, only the start of a story which is going to grow and grow. G4 broke the rumour yesterday that “a bunch of bouncer types” had showed up at Infinity Ward, following the Infinity Ward heads Vince Zampella and Jason West’s reported meeting with Activision in the morning – which they hadn’t returned from. Kotaku picked up that Jason West’s facebook account claimed to be drinking and no-longer employed. G4 uncovers that morning Activision had an SEC filing stating investigation into “breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward.” And now VG247 are reporting rumours that unpaid royalties to Infinity Ward was part of the cause of stress. Oh – and Tim Schafer says the best one liner about the whole thing.

Really, all we’ve got right now is theories. Though, like Rock8man at Qt3, Bobby Kotick’s hailing of “skepticism, pessimism, and fear” does tend to leap worryingly easily to mind.

Rumblings in the Call of Duty world. Or the World Of Call Of Duty, as seems inevitable at this point when so many teams appear to be invested in the franchise. You may have heard back in November that Activision had apparently added a third development team onto CoD making duty, alongside Treyarch and the main bods, Infinity Ward. It now seems, according to rumours reported by VG247, that those main bods may not be the people responsible for Modern Warfare 3. Which becomes an interesting story when you realise it frees the team up to potentially work on a new project.

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Yeah, this is the definition of people spinning out a story from very little, but Massively report the LA Time doing an article the LA Times did on MW2’s launch. Fairly standard fluff. Except at the end a source close to the company say that they’re considering an MMO. Which is an interesting idea, especially tied to news that a third company are now working on Call of Duty franchise games. Of course, “considering” is a word which means little. You’ve got a franchise like Call of Duty? You at least consider it.

It’s bullshit, isn’t it?
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A videogame has been released. Also, the Beatles have split up and Kennedy’s been shot. Hadn’t you heard?

I haven’t hurried, as such, to get my thoughts on this omnipresent game up on RPS, as it’s not like it’s going to affect anyone’s buying decision after all that hype and backlash, is it? But here they are now, after having had some time to digest and absorb now the shouting’s died down – for the singleplayer campaign, at least. Thoughts on the multiplayer will be along next week. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, then. Probably one or two things to say about it, I’d have thought…
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You might have noticed. You might have queued up at silly o’clock to get a copy. You might even have got some sort of tattoo to commemorate how excited you are about the prospect of shooting virtual men of assorted ethnic origins. Aye, today was Modern Warfare 2 day – a game that, for a lot of the industry and its consumers, has managed to become pretty much the only game of the year. I was at the UK launch last night – some thoughts on that and some of the rolling PC version problems follow.
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You know the scene in the Hobbit where they arrive at Beorn’s house? Rather than the whole mass of ‘em going in at once, they just send a couple in first, and then gradually reveal exactly how many dwarves are going to be scoffing his honeycakes. The idea being, that he’d tell them to sling their hook if they all marched in at once. Since the number of how many smelly, bearded bastards are going to be staying in his gaff creeps up on him, he rolls with it. I’m beginning to suspect Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare PC PR tactic is inspired by that. I’m also beginning to hope that the PC Beorn turns into a bear and eats them. Yes, it’s been confirmed that the PC Multiplayer will be capped at 9v9. Perhaps predictable with the removal of dedicated servers, but yet more dwarves in our house. In brighter news, Zombiecow are trying to ease the wait for the faithful with a 50% discount off their Time, Gentlemen Please until it comes out. Go gets.

Oh – fancy seeing the launch trailer? Here you go:
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