Infinity Ward: Difference between revisions

Infinity Ward, Inc. is an American

Co-founder Collier left the company in early 2009 to join parent company Activision. In 2010, West and Zampella were fired by Activision for "breaches of contract and insubordination",^[5][6] they soon founded a game studio called Respawn Entertainment. On May 3, 2014, Neversoft was merged into Infinity Ward.^[7]

History

Infinity Ward was founded as an

Following the critical and financially-successful release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in 2007, Jason West (president, co-CCO, and CTO) and Vince Zampella (CEO) began contract negotiations with Activision. They promised to deliver Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in 2009, but in exchanged asked for extremely large bonuses and creative control of the Call of Duty series. Activision agreed, but added a clause to the contract that should they be fired, the rights to Call of Duty would fall back to Activision.^[10]

Following the execution of the contract in 2008, Activision began seeking ways to find reason to fire West and Zampella to trigger the new clause. This in turn led to West and Zampella look to means to make Infinity Ward a studio outside of Activision's control.^[10] Events came to a head in February 2010 when Activision hired a lawfirm to investigate Infinity Ward. On March 1, 2010, West and Zampella were released by Activision for "insubordination", forfeiting the bonuses they had negotiated.^[10] The pair went on to form Respawn Entertainment in April 2010 as an independent studio, through working closely with EA on a yet-announced project. Several dozen of Infinity Ward's employees resigned in the following months, many taking up positions at Respawn.^[11][12] Activision launched their own countersuit against the pair in May 2010, citing that the pair had breached their contract and were colluding with EA in establishing Respawn.^[13][14][10] The lawsuits were ultimately settled out of court, with Activision paying West and Zampella US$42 million.^[15]

West and Zapella had been replaced on an interim basis by Activision CTO Steve Pearce and head of production Steve Ackrich.^[16] By November 2010, Activision had installed new management at Infinity Ward, and Vivendi chairman and CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy stated that Infinity Ward "got over" their problems and are fully reconstructed and that Activision is very happy with the result. The executive went on to say that there will be three studios working on the Call of Duty franchise including the newly formed studio Sledgehammer Games.^[17][18]

Several lawsuits followed in the wake of West and Zampella's departure. The pair themselves initially filed suit against Activision shortly after their release to reclaim "substantial royalty payments" that Activision failed to pay them in the weeks leading up to their firing, estimated to be US$36 million;^{[10][19][20][21]} this figure eventually rose to over US$1 billion by May 2012, based on Activision's SEC filings.^[22] Activision countersued the pair in April 2010, calling their actions to fire them justified and asserting the two were "self-serving schemers".^[23] Activision amended its suit in December 2010 to include EA as a defendant, stating that their competitor had worked with West and Zapella to "destabilize, disrupt and ... destroy Infinity Ward", and saught US$400 million in damages.^[24][25] Separately, several former and current members of Infinity Ward under the name "Infinity Ward Employee Group" (IWEG) sued Activision for between US$75 - 125 million for unpaid bonuses for work on Modern Warfare 2 and an additional US$75−500 million in punitive damages.^[26][27] Ultimately by May 2012, Activision had settled with the IWEG for US$42 million,^[28] while private settlements were separately reached between Activision and EA, and between Activision, West and Zapella.^[29]

Departure of Robert Bowling, 2012

On March 27, 2012 Robert Bowling issued the following statement on his Twitter account: "Today, I resign from my position as Creative Strategist of Call of Duty, as a lead of Infinity Ward, and as an employee of Activision". In response to this, Activision issued the following statement, "We sincerely thank Robert for his many years of service. He's been a trusted and valued member of the Infinity Ward team. We wish him all the best on his decision to pursue future opportunities".^[30] Bowling allegedly left because he was unhappy with the slow evolution of the game, as he responded with "Too much 'pew pew' not enough new new" to a question on the subject.^[31]

Signs of disagreement between Bowling and Infinity Ward arose in a live interview with Machinima when he stated the following: "I feel like we are in a fucking era where everyone is so focused on subscriber numbers and all that stuff that we need to get back to what I feel like we did so much better in the old days of just plain good will, like stuff like the LAN patch, yeah it is lower priority but let's get it out the fucking door. Let's just do it." This could be a contributing factor to his resignation. Another factor could have been from the amount of harsh criticism the fans and players of Modern Warfare 3 gave him when certain aspects of the game, such as bugs and tweaks, appeared.^{[citation needed][32]}

Reception

Infinity Ward's first title, Call of Duty won 90 Game of the Year awards^[33] and 50 Editor's Choice Awards.^[34][35] It also continues to be among the highest-rated games, according to GameRankings.^[36] Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has also enjoyed massive commercial and critical success, selling over 13 million copies from its release in November 2007 through May 2009.^[37]

In 2010, Infinity Ward was ranked third by Develop 100 only running up to developer Nintendo and Bungie for the top 100 developers based on the sales of their games in the UK.^[38]

Infinity Ward's sequel to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, earned over $550 million in sales in its first five days on the market, with $310 million of those sales made in the first 24 hours after the game's release.^[39]

The sequel to Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, sold 6.5 million copies in the US and UK alone and grossed $400 million within 24 hours of going on sale.^[40][41] Despite good sales, the game was criticized for being too similar to its predecessor.^{[by whom?]}

Game engines

All of Infinity Ward's Call of Duty games up until Infinite Warfare (2016) use the id Tech 3 (Quake III Arena) engine.^[42] The first two games used a proprietary license of the engine with the sequel featuring more powerful visuals and DirectX 9 support. Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare runs on a proprietary