News - Activision to shut Infinity Ward

[HEXUS]

After the recent walkouts at IW, Activision is said to be closing it down.

Read more.

[jim]

Expected this for a while now, became inevitable to be honest. The question is, where do they go from here? IW has always been the inspiration for CoD, and Treyarch have been hangers on at best. They'll need some genuine inspiration to haul the series out of the mire.

[Rob_B]

The class lawsuit against Acti by devs owed their millions gets some new ammunition!

[directhex]

This is the danger of being a second party studio, rather than contracting as a third party

[OilSheikh]

Why did these devs walk out? MW is such a fantastic game. Why have they sparked its demise?

[Terbinator]

Why did these devs walk out? MW is such a fantastic game. Why have they sparked its demise?

Because Activision didn't pay up bonuses that IW we're apparently meant to recieve and IW are claiming they were being held to ransom for said bonuses. Basically, Activision think they're the player that's bigger than the club and while it may be true in a sense, they have now lost there second (I'm guessing) 'best' developer because of it.

In other news I suppose you can look forward to quality games coming from Respawn

[jim]

There's been a massive bust up between the two guys that were the brainchild behind CoD - and lead IW - and Activision.

I can't remember the details, but there were a lot of argument over which direction to go in - Activision were desperate to cash in on MW3 which I don't think went down too well, and there was a huge ruckus over bonus payments as well. Activision sacked both of them I think, and then a large proportion of IW's staff left in the subsequent weeks, all moving across to their new developer called Respawn, which has been signed up by EA.

So I suspect they will be releasing a new game in the not too distant future.

[aidanjt]

Yet another reason the 'publisher' business model should hurry up and die.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Why did these devs walk out? MW is such a fantastic game. Why have they sparked its demise?

MW sells well but fantasic game? far from it imho

[j.o.s.h.1408]

There's been a massive bust up between the two guys that were the brainchild behind CoD - and lead IW - and Activision.

I can't remember the details, but there were a lot of argument over which direction to go in - Activision were desperate to cash in on MW3 which I don't think went down too well, and there was a huge ruckus over bonus payments as well. Activision sacked both of them I think, and then a large proportion of IW's staff left in the subsequent weeks, all moving across to their new developer called Respawn, which has been signed up by EA.

So I suspect they will be releasing a new game in the not too distant future.

Maybe Respawn will make EA's medal of honour?

[gtech]

Maybe Respawn will make EA's medal of honour?

doubt it, Dice are already handling the multiplayer side of things.


I can see them all now @ respawn all playing Battlefield Bad company 2, at last a chance to squad up!!!

[jim]

Maybe Respawn will make EA's medal of honour?

I thought that, but I suspect they'd probably want to go off in their own direction to be honest. And it would be a massive kick in the teeth to the MoH team.

To be honest, with their reputation, and EA's advertising budget, I think they'll probably give them free rein to develop some new IP - and all the better for it to be honest. Something new and different is much more interesting than rehashed old stuff.

[crossy]

Maybe Respawn will make EA's medal of honour?

Nope - from the gen at the moment, the next MoH is due "real soon now" (July/August?). But then again, didn't I see somewhere that IW spun off from the original MoH team?

Shame that Respawn couldn't prise the CoD brand from Activision because I'd really like to see the "story" in MW2 finished. I can't help wondering if, when/if they do a MW-type game in the future whether they'll include Capt Price and have him betrayed (again) and killed by evil bosses - just to make the point.

Saying about continuing the CoD "brand" - and I realise that I'm probably in a minority - the CoD "experience" has been going downhill for those of us who aren't major online folks. CoD2's single-player was brilliant, CoD4 (MW1) was very, very good, but I found CoD6 (MW2) a major disappointment. Okay, it's not as "cinematic", but to me at least BFBC2 was just streets ahead for the solo gamer. (Yes, I realise the MW2-mp is first class, but I'm thinking of changing my name to "CannonFodder" )

As to Activision, their technical support was rubbish when I tried to use it (EA's on the other hand was quite helpful), and I'm a little put off by comments like "Activision's mode of operation is - in victory; retribution, in defeat; revenge" - looks like few have got a good word to say for them, so maybe moving out is the best for the (ex-)IW team. Let's be honest - they ain't going to be sitting on the sidelines for long...

[BEANFro Elite]

MW sells well but fantasic game? far from it imho

I can agree with you there but only where Modern Warfare 2 is concerned, was like a story being told by a schizophrenic eight year old, it didn't really make sense as you were playing, there were way too many main characters you played as and it slingshotted you from each one like a Jack Russel Terrier playing frisbee, they killed off pretty much all of the newly introduced characters.

Anyway in short, Call of Duty1 and Modern Warfare 1 are the only good COD games.

From what I remember, Infinity Ward were made up of a lot of the original Medal of Honour developement team, and the reason they left 2015 is probably why they're now leaving Infinity Ward.

CoD was always seen as a more honest look at the war whereas, 2015 were happy to encourage the idea that World War 2 was America's war, lol


Sadly, its gotten to the point where the success of the CoD and the MW brands are such that they'll remain popular regardless of whether IW are developing it or not, so now, any old bozo company can slap "Call of Duty" or "Modern Warfare" on a box, and it'll sell like hotcakes however, it won't be forever.

I'm surprised these publishers still behave in this way given the success of Steam and other similar electronic distribution services available, anyone remember the big arguement that hastened the creation of Steam and the obscurity of Vivendi Universa, are they even still around?