Infinity Ward & Activision

[Eraser]

Mat Linnett posted about this in the Modern Warfare 2 thread but things are progressing and it turns out Activision are even bigger cunts than they already were. So to not let the MW2 and the Activision/IW thing run through each other I'd make a seperate thread.

Things started when two studio heads of Infinity Ward were sacked. Both IW and Activision were tight lipped about what was going on. The easy conclusion was that Activision wanted IW to make another gazillion dollar earning COD:MW game and IW wanted to work on new IP.

Now rumours appear that Activision has been holding back royalties from IW:

The emerging spat between Activision and the heads of Infinity Ward may have been caused by unpaid royalties.

Website BingeGamer (via VG247) was told by a collection of unnamed sources that not a single penny of the $1bn generated by MW2 has been seen by Infinity Ward.

The report also states that the "insubordination" IW bosses Jason West and Frank Zampella appear to have been sacked for was caused by secret discussions with rival publishers.

In the meantime Activision has confirmed that it has sacked the two IW bigshots but they've also announced that they're going to utterly rape the entire Call of Duty franchise. Treyach's new Call of Duty game won't be the only one appearing:

Activision has announced plans to expand the Call of Duty series into new genres, regions and digital formats [...].

"The company is also for the first time announcing that a new game in the Call of Duty series is expected to be released in 2011 and that Sledgehammer Games, a newly formed, wholly owned studio, is in development on a Call of Duty game that will extend the franchise into the action-adventure genre."

In order to organise these ventures, Activision is forming a new business unit to bring together "various new brand initiatives with focused, dedicated resources around the world", and specifically promises a Blizzard-style "focus" on the brand, before promising "high-margin digital online content", "new geographies" (including Asia), "new genres", and "new digital business models".

So prepare to be blunty pummeled to death with Call of Duty this, Call of Duty that, Call of Duty we want your money and Call of Duty we want even more money

[MKJ]

you act like it hasnt been milked to death already.

[Doombrain]

call of duty: x-factor

[GONNAFISTYA]

Activision has announced plans to expand the Call of Duty series into new genres, regions and digital formats [...].

"The company is also for the first time announcing that a new game in the Call of Duty series is expected to be released in 2011 and that Sledgehammer Games, a newly formed, wholly owned studio, is in development on a Call of Duty game that will extend the franchise into the action-adventure genre."

In order to organise these ventures, Activision is forming a new business unit to bring together "various new brand initiatives with focused, dedicated resources around the world", and specifically promises a Blizzard-style "focus" on the brand, before promising "high-margin digital online content", "new geographies" (including Asia), "new genres", and "new digital business models".

See...this is why capitalism will always self-destruct and why it's not to be trusted to "lead us to the promised land"...even if "trickle down" was true (which it's not).

To clarify: Now that Activision has earned $1 Billion from this franchise, it now thinks it'll keep making $1 Billion every year from the franchise and - as has already been commented - will milk the IP to the point of market saturation. Then what'll happen is that eventually Activision won't make the expected $1 Billion and will end up promptly closing the "new business unit that will bring together various brand initiatives" and will no doubt end up closing several of its "wholly owned subsidiaries/studios" and thereby sending the whole industry into yet another wild tailspin where consumers are bored and not buying games as much as they used to, people in the industry are losing jobs due to lower sales volume and the rich motherfuckers at the top of Activision's foodchain continue raking in millions upon millions of dollars. And at the end of it all...nobody's really benefited except a few cunts.

Capitalism is indeed great...but only if you're in the top 3%. Everyone else gets put through the ringer.

[Foo]

Why do we care so much about the very latest, greatest retail games?

Not having a dig, I genuinely feel like I missed the meeting where we established the reason for jumping on the endless retail bandwagon when it comes to PC games...

I guess a bunch of us are working in the industry now, so there's always that angle.

[Eraser]

Eh, what exactly are you talking about Foo?

[o'dium]

Sucks, really badly... Activision pretty much just shot themselves in the foot and don't even know it because of how big headed they have become. Hope everything works out for IW.

[Foo]

Eh, what exactly are you talking about Foo?

I'm not even drunk or nuffin. Just having a general rant about how much of a stir Modern Warfare 2 caused. I thought was generic shyt.

[r3t]

I remember how amazed everyone was when Id chose EA to publish Rage, and then partnered with Bethesda. I think they foresaw something...

[scared?]

thanks for the update of old eraserhead...

[Doombrain]

Sucks, really badly... Activision pretty much just shot themselves in the foot and don't even know it because of how big headed they have become. Hope everything works out for IW.

I look forward to the news article of Activision going into receivership. Or you could not have a clue about business and constantly talk out of your ass.

[Mat Linnett]

While I don't think o'dium was considering this, what is actually quite interesting is that the figures reveal that the vast majority of ActiBlizzard's revenue comes from just 3 IPs: Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Guitar Hero. If people do start abandoning just one of these titles, it puts a severe dent in the company.
So o'dium may be right, he just didn't know why.

The other thing to consider is that after these guys left EA to form Infinity Ward, how much did you hear about their old company, 2015?
And look at how EA's profits took a dive once people began getting bored of purely aesthetic annual updates of their sports titles.
They're still recovering from it now, and are finding it hard to leverage new IP, but at least they're trying.

Edit: An interesting fact that I read about Blizzard today is that 98% of their profits last year came from World of Warcraft. I'm sure that will change with the release of StarCraft 2, but that's gotta be scary if you're a shareholder. One IP keeping the company afloat? Bonkers.

[MKJ]

they recently fired a bunch of neversoft guys (guitar hero devs) and the entire club that made guitar hero van halen.

they also said they regretted not talking to HMX about continuing the GH franchise, basically admitting fault.

[Mat Linnett]

Yeah, and I seem to remember seeing some figures recently proving that music rhythm games are now on the downward slope of the bell curve in regards profitability. So Activision could find themselves in seriously deep water in the next couple of years.

[brisk]

Edit: An interesting fact that I read about Blizzard today is that 98% of their profits last year came from World of Warcraft

Blizzard haven't released anything else since 2004 though

this

[Mat Linnett]

Hence the bit about this changing with the release of Starcraft 2...

[seremtan]

call of duty in brand-rape-to-death shock-horror

never saw that coming

[bitWISE]

Before WoW totally dies there will be: http://www.blizzardnewmmo.com/

[Chupacabra]

And at the end of it all...nobody's really benefited except a few cunts.

agreed.

also, directors' goal is to maximize shareholder value. unfortunately, too many people get short sighted and it goes downhill.

[Eraser]

Edit: An interesting fact that I read about Blizzard today is that 98% of their profits last year came from World of Warcraft. I'm sure that will change with the release of StarCraft 2, but that's gotta be scary if you're a shareholder. One IP keeping the company afloat? Bonkers.

Apparantly they're very much aware of this themselves.

[U4EA]

IMO it's no coincidence that WoW has been veering in a "casual/social" direction for the past 3 years. It's very accessible [nub friendly] nowadays and the social aspect of it is undeniable. A large portion of the time, it's basically just a glorified chat room. I don't think the MMO genre will die, it will just dumb down a lot as time goes on.

[Eraser]

Aha, the IW bosses are striking back.

Jason West and Vince Zampella, the Infinity Ward studio heads fired by Activision earlier this week, are to sue the publisher for wrongful dismissal, unpaid royalties and the right to control "Modern Warfare-branded games".

They've issued a strongly-worded statement via their lawyers responding to Activision's claims of "insubordination".

[m4shke]

Call of Duty: Modern Courtroom

[bitWISE]

Edit: An interesting fact that I read about Blizzard today is that 98% of their profits last year came from World of Warcraft. I'm sure that will change with the release of StarCraft 2, but that's gotta be scary if you're a shareholder. One IP keeping the company afloat? Bonkers.

Apparantly they're very much aware of this themselves.

I don't understand how Farmville and TapTapRevolution are going to destroy the video game industry. They are two completely different things and anyone only buying the former never cared about the latter to begin with.

[Don Carlos]

I hope they win and take their staff away with them and start a new ownage project that fucking destroys Activision. They should also make themsevles a publisher of their own material (like id were)

Very sad to see a (previously) awesome publisher get fucked up like this