I would hope for the latter of those two bits of speculation, myself, if it didn't usually always end in bullshit games being pushed on the shelf and eventually leaving everyone jobless.

I'm really, honestly sick of all the speculation going around about what happened. First of all, it's hilarious that everyone automatically starts blaming Activision. If there was some sort of breach of contract, how is that the fault of Activision? The IW guys knew what they were agreeing to when they signed the damn thing, so what do you expect?

Yeah, I know, Activision has had some bad press lately. Kotick doesn't seem like the brightest guy (at least in terms of public speaking), but I wouldn't by any means say he's going to single handedly destroy the franchises that we've grown to love, much less immediately point the finger without any facts.

So you're saying that IW might become the new Free Radical Design? I'd enjoy that. Although CoD4MW is the only CoD game I liked, and I doubt CoD5.5MW2 is the second coming its sales seem to imply.

I miss Free Radical Design now.

Totally not a PR stunt planned for the day of the release of their biggest perceived threat, nooo

only mention of said competitor on this site was an add surrounding ZP this week.
...
any publicity is good publicity, this seems to be engineered to make one think IW could split off and become something for its CORE fans again.
remember, you called it IWnet, not activisionnet.
not the hordes whom joined on with easymode guns in cod4.

Excellent article. Honestly, your column is the only one I've been able to read consistently. Something about your writing style I enjoy.

After Activision proudly trumpeting "three more Call of Duties" in a two year time span, I almost hope that the next ones suck terribly.

Almost.

I'm sure I'll end up buying them somehow.

You know, maybe I don't understand the industry, but I dont quite understand how the director of a DEVELOPMENT studio can be fired by a company that essentially hires them to Make a Game? Thats like me walking into Pizza Hut and firing the guy behind the counter and the Pizza Hut corporation just looks the other way.

I thought these "studios" were independent, but from the sound of it, it sounds like Sony could walk in one day and fire Hideo Kojima and then force Mistwalker studios to continue to make metal gear games anyway? Or for Microsoft to walk into Double Fine and have Tim Schaffer escorted off the premises. WTF?

If thats how it works, there is a serious problem with the gaming industry as a business model.

MR T3D:
[...]only mention of said competitor on this site was an add surrounding ZP this week.[...]

You, apparently do not watch any videos, other than ZeroPunctuation, on The Escapist. =P
That same advertisement accompanies every video on the site these days - even old ones (I checked).

And I think Electronic Arts paid for that advertising space, and, at least for me, it's working quite well. . . it's an ingenious placement!

John Funk:

HyenaThePirate:
You know, maybe I don't understand the industry, but I dont quite understand how the director of a DEVELOPMENT studio can be fired by a company that essentially hires them to Make a Game? Thats like me walking into Pizza Hut and firing the guy behind the counter and the Pizza Hut corporation just looks the other way.

I thought these "studios" were independent, but from the sound of it, it sounds like Sony could walk in one day and fire Hideo Kojima and then force Mistwalker studios to continue to make metal gear games anyway? Or for Microsoft to walk into Double Fine and have Tim Schaffer escorted off the premises. WTF?

If thats how it works, there is a serious problem with the gaming industry as a business model.

I'm fairly sure that Activision at least partly owns Infinity Ward. That's the difference.

Haha, only partly.

Activision has published everything Infinity Ward has ever coded since the very first Call of Duty. Hell, Infinity Ward might as well have been another (rather profitable) branch of the Activision tree.
_{Please refer to Slaughterhouse-Five for a lovely money tree metaphor}

Steindorh:

MR T3D:
[...]only mention of said competitor on this site was an add surrounding ZP this week.[...]

You, apparently do not watch any videos, other than ZeroPunctuation, on The Escapist. =P
That same advertisement accompanies every video on the site these days - even old ones (I checked).

And I think Electronic Arts paid for that advertising space, and, at least for me, it's working quite well. . . it's an ingenious placement!

watched unskippable & moviebob!
but nothing tuesday or today, guess that's when it was implemented.
TBH i'm a BF fan, and i wasn't too fond of that add.

but then, i see so few ads anyway any add is annoying.

I agree with the journalism for games being a pseudo-dictatorship of information, and I also look forward to new ideas, I played every CoD for PC and I enjoyed all of them, but I've been longing for something new for a while now, CoD 4 was great, [email protected] was okay, and MW2 could be better, though I give them credit for some tweaks.
As CoD was born from MoHAA, I want something to be born from what was CoD and to be awesome and refreshing. But if in the end, they make another CoD, I might play like any other one, it's not hard to make me happy.

Frankly I wasn't floored in any way,shape, or form by MW2. It just came off as a really shiny but otherwise hollow FPS that has little more on old FPS's other than previously mentioned visuals.

Which might be why in my mind if these people broke away from their parent company they'd just go off to make another run of the mill shiny game. Except without the record breaking marketing I don't think they'll sell anywhere near as well.

Just my thoughts. Not say they make bad games but they do nothing better than their predecessors other than marketing.

AC10:
My guess is that West and Zampalla said some nasty things about Bobby "dickface" Kotick, who flew off the handle and fired them. That or he axed their contracts right before they should be payed their royalties to gain another few million dollars. What a fuck, he should be in jail.

Holy F&%k jump to conclusions much?

I didn't mind MW2 but when you said

'Think back to the difference between Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Modern Warfare and try to imagine where the developers could take us next if they were truly passionate about their direction.'

I may have gone D: if they were truly free to do whatever they wanted they could create a monster... of truly epic proportions!

I find it hard to believe that either party is really the "bad guy" in this scenario. Why would IW break away from Activision if not for a good reason (e.g. creative strangulation, financial issues)? Why would Activision get rid of, or mess around with, some of the individuals responsible for one of the best-selling games of all time?

I hope IW breaks free, though. I'm not a fan of developers milking a concept to death, and for them to be forced into that cycle depresses me. There's no arguing the talent of these guys. I look forward to seeing what they can do.

Hard to tell who is the bad guy here (if there even is one).

Could turn into an oppertunity for the IW guys to prove that they can offer something interesting. I mean at the end of the day CoD4 and MW2 were just very good FPS offerings. Even taking that into account, on a creative front, MW2 was hardly groundbreaking. I woul like to see soething that earns IW the amount of hype they get.

It would seem they are suing Activision for royalties and the rights to use the Modern Warfare brand so they obviously still want to work on MW3, but then I guess if you have a shot at owning the most lucrative intellectual property of today it would be mad not to take it.

I totally agree here, and I liked both Call of Duty games. Something new and fresh is always welcome, and unfortunately these developers to get caught just making sequels of successful titles, which is good for business, but bad for art...

John Funk:

HyenaThePirate:
You know, maybe I don't understand the industry, but I dont quite understand how the director of a DEVELOPMENT studio can be fired by a company that essentially hires them to Make a Game? Thats like me walking into Pizza Hut and firing the guy behind the counter and the Pizza Hut corporation just looks the other way.

I thought these "studios" were independent, but from the sound of it, it sounds like Sony could walk in one day and fire Hideo Kojima and then force Mistwalker studios to continue to make metal gear games anyway? Or for Microsoft to walk into Double Fine and have Tim Schaffer escorted off the premises. WTF?

If thats how it works, there is a serious problem with the gaming industry as a business model.

I'm fairly sure that Activision at least partly owns Infinity Ward. That's the difference.

I still don't get it...
This is like Aerosmith signing a deal with Sony or summat like that, and then Sony Music gets mad and fires Steven Tyler. How the hell can you expect anything good out of a scenario like that, you just gutted any chance of the new album (er in this case Video games) they were working on to:

a.) be any good
B.) have any loyal fan support, which is part of the reason MW2 had such prestigious praise to begin with.

My initial reaction when all this news was popping up on my Twitter feed was "Good, maybe they'll move their talents to a different genre". I'd love to see what else they can do aside from shooters. I mean, I dug CoD2, but I LOVED MW1 because of a lot of the narrative elements. The guys have talent and an idea as to what the games medium offers as an experience, now I'd like to see them move that to something new.