By Lorin Baumgarten
So this weeks column is going to be short and to the point. What I want to know is, do you give a sh#t? Do you care or are you a sick of it as I am? When I heard the boys bring the subject up on this week’s episode of EpicBattleCry I wanted to punch myself in the face. Fortunately for us (and my face), the three amigos are very good at what they do and theirs turned out to be one of the best conversations on the subject I have heard. Nonetheless, I don’t really want to hear about it anymore. It feels overdone, over dramatized, and I am over it! If you don’t already know what I am talking about (which many of you likely do), I am talking about Infinigate!
For those of you who have no idea what Infinigate is referring to, and I assume if you read this column that you do, it is the story of Jason West and Vince Zampella, the former heads of Infinity Ward, and the sudden completion of their tenure at the aforementioned company. West and Zampella founded Infinity Ward, the studio that brought us Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 among others, after leaving Electronic Arts several years ago. Ultimately, the two sold Infinity Ward to Activision. Early last week West and Zampella were relieved of their duties (no pun intended) at Infinity Ward quite hastily (they were fired). To hear it told by the media, it sounds as if fifteen FBI agents moved in to the Infinty Ward headquarters and surrounded the building. After securing the premises, they removed all pertinent documents, killed all witnesses, and somehow made the two executives disappear. By all accounts, it was quite the black op.
After the surreal events of that day, the muckraking ensued. Words were flung. I am sure that comes as no surprise to anyone. Then a lawsuit was filed. No surprise there, either I suppose. The two ousted entrepreneurs filed a suit against Activision claiming they are owed royalties and that they have a right to the Modern Warfare name, or franchise, or both. More words were flung and then documents surfaced (which, guess what – contained more flung words).
So okay – fine. We don’t get many dramatic stories like this in the gaming industry. I get that. And yes – Bobby Kotick is rapidly becoming the gaming industry’s own Jack Thompson (or Darth Kotick or the Emperor or fill in evil-doer here). Likewise, Activision has done wonders for Electronic Arts by making the formerly reviled company look like Little Red Riding Hood to their Big Bad Wolf. I get all of that. But I am so sick of hearing about this story I could scream.
This kind of stuff goes on in business all of the time. I am sorry for Mr. West and Mr. Zampella that their time at Infinity Ward ended this way. And if they have a legal right to money or franchise rights, then I hope they get what is due to them, I really do. But until the case is decided, I just don’t care. And frankly, once it is decided I only barely care. Once it has all been settled, all I need from the press is a short story to know what happened. Really. We don’t need continuous blog posts and discussions about this. No one is going to stop buying Activision games because Bobby Kotick is a dick. No one. You think the next Call Of Duty is gonna lose one sale because of this? I promise you, not one.
It is possible that the fact that Infinity Ward is not making the next Modern Warfare (maybe) could cause a dip in sales. After all, Call Of Duty: World At War, made by Treyarch, received an 84 on Metacritic while both iterations of Modern Warfare earned a 94. However, that being said, many (and I mean most) fans of the COD franchise don’t follow the gaming industry as closely as you and I and World At War sold well north of ten million copies. So while there certainly may be a dip in sales if Infinity Ward isn’t making the games, the franchise isn’t exactly going to flounder.
Either way, I would like to know who is going to handle the franchise in the future and what West and Zampella will be doing next (as they obviously produce quality work). That’s it. That is all I need to know. Beyond those two things, just update me when they dust settles and save me the melodramatic blow-by-blow until then. Capiche?
So what do you think EBA? What is your take on the situation? Does this barrage of Bobby annoy you as much as it does me? Or do you want to watch each daily episode of Games Of Our Lives unfold before your very eyes?
Sound off below and let your your voice be heard to Valhalla!!
Editor’s Note: Lorin Baumgarten is the founder/owner of Furious Gamer Radio and is also sick of news stories relating to Tiger Woods, Eric Massa, and Somali Pirates.
I posted something about this somewhere before but I don’t remember where. In short, I disagree.
No, I don’t think that people will stop buying Activision games because Kotick is a dick or anything. However, I do believe that COD franchise will go down.
I look at Halo as an example. It’s another series that beat a bunch of records at launch and whatnot but the series already lost a lot of steam. ODST sales were not comparable to Halo 3 and it only took two games for that to happen: Halo Wars and ODST. Both good games but not at the same level as the main three Halos, yet they did a lot to cheapen the franchise and lower expectations. Now we got Bungie trying to convince everyone that Reach will be a different game and try to put some pimp back into the series but what’s next? It is their last Halo game (or so they claim).
If Activision doesn’t continue to have the situation where non-IW COD games are sprinkled in between IW COD games, but come out one after another, they will do to COD what ODST and Halo Wars did to Halo. And historically, non-IW’s CODs have also been just good, not great.
I agree with boysangur, and indeed was going to make the same halo argument. The it’s-popular-lets-make-more approach doesn’t always work. Personally I prefer IW’s COD over treyarch’s. But let’s face it, ODST and Halo Wars made a bucket of money. Maybe not as much, but as long as they have revenue, they keep producing crap til they don’t.
And because of all this, the whole situation has annoyed the shit out of me since the get-go.
FUCK TIGER WOODS!
your title reminds me of Buzz Lightyear from Star Command haha. but that put aside, I only have played Call of Duty 1 and 4. The bitchin that went down with MW2 gave me the feeling already that i had to pull my hands of the franchise, next to the fact that i find the game a bit overrated, especially the singleplayer. the saying you play this game for the multiplayer, but then why the hell is a SP forged in there. Moving on to the real topic.
I also found a bit of irony in all of this. These guys stopped working with EA because they wanted to do what they wanted, and thus they moved to Activision. Now, several years later, they got fired at Activision, with one of the rumors was being in negotiation with for example EA to make a new game…
From EA to Activision, back to EA.
But I wasn’t actually surprised that the guys wanted to do some thing else, and that Activision wouldnt go with that. MW is there number one franchise, and with Kotick on the helm, they will milk gaming franchise till they are dried out, and only a carcas that not even fultures could pick on.
If the two former heads of Ifinity Ward are smart, they will reclaim the name, but do nothing with it anymore, because Modern Warfare has a massive stain on it now.
I’d like to hear what Activision has to say as to why they fired Zampella and West. All I’ve heard is “insubordination,” and given the accusations flying around, that’s not a lot to go on. Their silence is really helping fuel all the speculation that’s going on. As for people not buying Activision games, I know one person who won’t be buying any more Activision games: me. I am sick and tired of the way Kotick is screwing both gamer and game developer alike for the sake of the Almighty Dollar.
I totally agree with Lorin’s article, but he also has to understand that a lot of people who follow the gaming industry don’t follow anything else, so news like this make for a week long gossip.
I guess we just need more games to talk about instead of anything else taking our attention from them.
I’m sure that if March has another scandal of this caliber, nobody is going to give a damn, I mean, with FFXIII, GoW III, Infinite Undiscovery, etc.. coming out, if EA shuts down today, nobody would care beyond the first 4 hours of the news.
I hope West, Zampella, and Activision (Kotick) get what they deserve (good or bad).
Cheers axe heads.
…. Well all I got to say is that they have lost at least 1 sale cuz I wont be getting “Modern Warfare 3″, or at least I highly doubt it. Or any other CoD game. Only ones I own and like are the ones from IW (CoD, CoD2, MW, MW2), and Ive never gave a damn about the others (at least not after playing them once).
Yeah overall at least for next couple CoDs I think they will sell real well still cuz I mean just look at WaW. That is just proof that not enough gamers know whats exactly up with the industry, but you maybe can say that about any kind of media…
dude fuck cod mw 3 (on the pc) if i wanted to watch a bunch of hackers duke it out while my server lags out then changes host after waiting 10 minutes for my party to form……well Id rather kill myself.
Hallelujah Brother Fluffy! Kotick is a fackturd who should go to work in some other industry. As far as the overexposure of this particular story, that’s crap! It’s only being made a big deal of in places like this, EBA. Honestly I don’t think it’s enough. I’ll tell you something; if this was a story twenty-something years ago about how the guy who wrote the code for Ms. Pac-Man got handed a pink slip instead of his bonus check because he wanted to make something other than Pac-Man Jr.,(btw, Pac_Man Jr. tanked . . . hard) it would be plastered all over every networks evening news and people would just stop putting there quarters into Pac-Man machines and put them into Frogger, or something else. This idea that nobody cares and no-one is going to do anything if guys who bust their ass doing something they really love and then get screwed really pisses me off! If the people busting their ass to earn the money to pay for these games actually knew what was going on, they might decide to spend their money differently.