With the firing of Infinity Ward CEO Jason West and Infinity Ward President Vince Zampella, will we ever see another Modern Warfare game as good as the first two?
Video games news outlets were all a twitter about the strange machinations going on at Infinity Ward, the Activision owned developer responsible for Modern Warfare. A quick summary of what went down:
- Late Monday night, rumors come out that bouncer-types showed up unannounced at the Infinity Ward offices, unnamed staffer states Infinity Ward staff is “freaked out”. Two senior employees not seen since they had a meeting with Activision big shots [Kotaku]
- Tuesday morning, it is confirmed that President Jason West and CEO Vince Zampella are no longer with Infinity Ward, and that they were let go for “insubordination” (Did they not properly execute a Code Red?) [Wired]
- In an official press release, Activision announces that Treyarch will release another COD title this year, Infinity Ward is working on two downloadable map packs for Modern Warfare 2, and a third studio, Sledgehammer Games, is working on a Call of Duty ACTION ADVENTURE game [Giant Bomb]
Now, we don’t usually report news here on Leveling Down, but this story is so crazy and has me freaked out in multiple ways. Here’s why…
My Fears as a Stockholder
I bought a small amount of Activision/Blizzard stock a while back after the market crashed, figuring I could own stock in a company whose products I enjoyed. I knew Activision was all about the bottom line, but I figured that might be good as an investment. Since then, Activision stock has remained modest, and the company has been making more and more ridiculous decisions involving bleeding their popular franchises dry.
Consider this: 5 Hero titles were released last year, Starcraft has been split up into three games (though Blizzard says that’s a game design decision), and now they are expanding the Call of Duty franchise into the action/adventure genre? With financial interest in the company, I just totally disagree with these decisions. I understand that popular franchises make the most money, but the fact of the matter is that World of Warcraft is responsible for most of Activision’s financial success. If Call of Duty goes down the tubes with the loss of talent at Infinity Ward (or if the dismissals lead to bad morale), or if World of Warcraft finally falls out of vogue (the ban in China definitely affects the bottom line), then Activision is in trouble. They already let go a lot of people at Neversoft and Red Octane, the companies most involved in the Guitar Hero franchise. The Infinity Ward dismissals are the last in a line of questionable business decisions in my view.
I’ve tried to remain patient, but I’m about ready to jettison my stock. I already feel like I’ve sold a part of my soul owning the stock in the first place, and these goings ons make me feel even more uncomfortable. At this point, I’m hoping Starcraft II gives the stock a little boost this summer so I can get rid of it without taking a bath.
My Fears as a Gamer
I don’t really own that many shares, so it’s my fears as a gamer that I’m most concerned about. It seems to me that Activision feels like its developers are replaceable, and they care way more about the “name” of the game then the actual quality of it. They obviously assumed that Guitar Hero would sell forever, regardless of quality, although they did admit they made a mistake not pursuing Harmonix way back when. Since Activision picked up Guitar Hero, the quality of the product has definitely gone down.
Now, the founders of Infinity Ward are gone, yet Activision seems to believe that won’t hurt their bottom line! First of all, I can’t imagine what it would feel like working there. How can that not effect the quality of the games Infinity Ward makes? Secondly, Activision is obviously continuing its policy of emphasizing quantity over quality. It’s already severely diluted the Guitar Hero franchise, and I fear Call of Duty is going to suffer the same fate. Part of me is saying that Call of Duty had a great run, and I should just be glad I got to experience it. Think of that! What an absolute mess!
I think Activision’s bottom line will eventually suffer for this, and deservedly. You can’t treat your talent just like cattle. Unless something comes out stating that the Infinity Ward guys did something egregious, I’m siding with them on this one. I’ve tried to defend Activision in my head in the past, but I’m running out of excuses to make for them. If it swims like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…
i’m no fan of game publishers, and dislike Activision more than the rest of them, but part of me still wants to play devil’s advocate here on this issue and defend Activision. While Activision has done a lot of ridiculous things that are upsetting to gamers, perhaps we need to see what the heck actually happened before condemning one side or another.
Activision claims to dismiss the two Infinity Ward heads due to “breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward.” To me, that sounds like both West and Zampella were doing things that were perhaps questionable in the eyes of their former employer. Lest we all forget, Activision flat-out bought and owns Infinity Ward. They were both Activision employees.
My speculation is that the studio heads were so enamored by how well Modern Warfare 2 did and felt like Activision wasn’t treating them with the respect they felt their studio deserved. Thus, West and Zampella may have started shopping around and talking to other publishers in case they were thinking about jumping ship or something. In any case, while we may detest Activision’s role in the gaming industry, if two employees at Activision are acting in an unethical way for their employer, then perhaps they do deserve to be let go.
I can understand both sides in this story. Activision wants to protect their interests, while the Infinity Ward heads may have been annoyed that they were primarily responsible for putting together a game that made over a billion dollars and yet Activision gets to keep most of it.
This is all my speculation, of course. Instead of quickly denouncing Activision again because it’s so easy to hate on them, perhaps we should also consider the possibility that Activision was forced to let them go after the Infinity Ward heads were doing something that was considered ethically questionable in the eyes of their employer.
Regardless of which side is right or wrong, we gamers lose.