Infinity Ward is an American video game developer. It created the video game Call of Duty and
five other installments in the Call of Duty franchise. Vince Zampella and Grant Collier
established Infinity Ward along with Jason West in 2002 after working at 2015, Inc. previously.
All of the 22 original team members of Infinity Ward came from the team that had worked on
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault while at 2015, Inc. Activision helped fund Infinity Ward
in its early days, buying up 30 percent of the company. The studio's first game, World
War II shooter Call of Duty, was released on the PC in 2003. The day after the game
was released, Activision snapped up the rest of Infinity Ward, signing employees to long
term contracts. Infinity Ward went on to make Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare,
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and has recently released
the tenth installment to the Call of Duty series, Call of Duty: Ghosts. Co-founder Collier
has since left the company in early 2009 to join the parent company Activision. In 2010,
West and Zampella were fired by Activision for "breaches of contract and insubordination",
they soon founded a game studio called Respawn Entertainment. On May 3, 2014, Neversoft was
merged into Infinity Ward.
Reception Infinity Ward's first title, Call of Duty
won 90 Game of the Year awards and 50 Editor's Choice Awards. It also continues to be among
the highest-rated games, according to Game Rankings. 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. 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. 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. 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. Despite good sales, the game was criticized for being
too similar to its predecessor. Game engines
All of Infinity Ward's Call of Duty games use the id Tech 3 engine. 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
game engine with features that include true world-dynamic lighting, HDR lighting effects,
dynamic shadows and depth of field. Call of Duty: World at War, Call of Duty: Black Ops
II and the James Bond video game Quantum of Solace were developed by Treyarch using modified
versions of Infinity Ward's engine. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, uses an upgraded
engine dubbed "IW 4.0", which is a generation more advanced than the engine used in Call
of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 uses the MW3 Engine, an improved
version of the IW 4.0 engine. Improvements on the engine allow better streaming technology
which allows larger regions for the game while running at a minimum of 60 frames per second,
improvements to the audio of the engine have also been made.
Games ^ Scores are the average of the GameRankings
aggregate score received for all platforms. 2010 employee firings and departures
Dismissal of senior employees On March 1, 2010, Activision amended its report
with the Securities and Exchange Commission to add notification that two senior employees
of Infinity Ward were being fired due to "breaches of contract and insubordination". This coincided
with Jason West and Vince Zampella editing their profiles on the website LinkedIn to
list Infinity Ward as a former employer as of March 2010. Reportedly, a meeting between
Zampella, West, and Activision staff occurred on March 1, after which neither Zampella nor
West were seen; this was followed by the arrival of security guards at the studio. It was later
confirmed by Activision that West and Zampella had been dismissed, and had been replaced
on an interim basis by Activision CTO Steve Pearce and head of production Steve Ackrich.
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick addressed Infinity Ward studio heads on March 2, 2010 about Zampella
and West's dismissal. A second meeting was held with all of Infinity Ward's employees
on hand. The outcomes of those meetings are currently unknown, but Activision has explained
that Infinity Ward is still "central" to the future of the Call of Duty franchise. Activision
has used a new studio, Sledgehammer Games, to create an "action-adventure" installment
of the Call of Duty franchise. However, Activision halted the production of the action-adventure
game which was reportedly 2–3 months into production and requested Sledgehammer Games
to work side-by-side with Infinity Ward to make Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 instead.
Further departures Following West and Zampella's firings, nearly
half of the remaining Infinity Ward employees resigned. Throughout April and May 2010, 46
employees, among them lead designers and programmers who worked on Modern Warfare 2, abruptly left
Infinity Ward. All of them have so far declined to comment on their reasons for leaving.
Infinity Ward "Fully" Reconstructed 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. Lawsuits
West and Zampella v. Activision Following the initial news of West and Zampella's
departure, it was reported that Infinity Ward has not received royalties from the sales
of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and that the developer may have breached their contract
with Activision by holding meetings with other video game publishers including Electronic
Arts. This was revealed to be the reason behind the firings when West and Zampella filed a
lawsuit against Activision on March 4, 2010 over "substantial royalty payments" that Activision
failed to pay them in the weeks leading up to their firing. According to their attorney
Robert Schwartz, Activision had hired lawyers to investigate West and Zampella on charges
of insubordination and breaches of contract in February, which culminated in their dismissal.
West and Zampella's lawsuit was filed to force Activision to compensate West and Zampella
for the unpaid royalties, and to secure contractual rights over the Modern Warfare branch of the
Call of Duty franchise, among other things. If their lawsuit is successful, West and Zampella
could retain the power to halt the development and release of any future games and downloadable
content in the Modern Warfare setting. On April 9, 2010 a countersuit was filed by
Activision stating their actions in firing Zampella and West were justified, calling
the two "self-serving schemers". Zampella and West's attorney responded to the countersuit
the same day saying the publisher's claims are "false and outrageous". The trial date
for this case was revealed on July 9, 2010 to be scheduled for May 23, 2011 but was rescheduled
for December 14, 2011. It was then rescheduled again for March 29, 2012, and further rescheduled
for June 1st. On March 31, 2012, the two parties agreed to a confidential settlement. The countersuit
mentioned that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was in development; it was released on November
8, 2011. Infinity Ward Employee Group v. Activision
On April 27, 2010, 38 current and former employees of Infinity Ward brought a lawsuit against
Activision. Calling themselves the "Infinity Ward Employee Group", the plaintiffs seek
between $75 million and $125 million in compensatory damages from Activision for unpaid
bonuses for work on Modern Warfare 2. The lawsuit alleges that Activision withheld compensation
from the plaintiffs in order to force them to stay with the studio and develop Modern
Warfare 3. In addition, the plaintiffs are also seeking between $75 million and $500 million
in punitive damages. The trial date for this case was revealed on July 9, 2010 to be scheduled
for May 23, 2011. Activision issued a check for $42 million although an Infinity Ward
Employee Group lawyer, Bruce Isaacs, stated that "although it is a meaningful payment
it is only a small portion of what we are seeking in litigation".
Lawsuits against EA, West, and Zampella Activision amended its lawsuit against West
and Zampella to join Electronic Arts as a defendant on the grounds that EA began a conspiracy
with West and Zampella. In the complaint, Activision accused Electronic Arts of intentionally
interfering with contracts, engaging in unfair competition, and aiding and abetting breaches
of fiduciary duty by West and Zampella. The complaint also alleged that West and Zampella
refused to sign standard exit documents representing that they had returned all Activision property,
including computer code. Activision alleged West and Zampella were "motivated by envy
and personal greed" and intentionally released game trailers for Modern Warfare 2 the same
day Treyarch posted promotional videos for downloadable content for Call of Duty: World
at War. The article also showed a transcript of text message between West and an unnamed
Infinity Ward employee. In January 2011, the court will rule on Activision's petition to
join EA as a defendant. The trial date between Jason West and Vince Zampella vs. Activision
was set for June 14, 2011 at the Central Civil West Courthouse at 9:00 am, case number SC107041.
However several delays pushed the court hearing to the May 29, 2012. Due to problems assembling
a jury pool the date was pushed back even further to June 1, 2012, with 22 days to reach
a conclusion. The public trial did not go through, and instead a private settlement
was made. Respawn Entertainment
On April 12, 2010 the LA Times reported that West and Zampella were forming a new independent
gaming studio known as Respawn Entertainment. They are seeking funding from EA through the
EA Partners Program. West and Zampella will incorporate the rights to all intellectual
property produced by them in the future. As of July 10, 2010, 38 of the 46 Infinity Ward
employees who resigned from that studio following the firings of West and Zampella revealed
through their LinkedIn and Facebook profiles that they had signed on with Respawn Entertainment.
Respawn's first project, Titanfall, was released in March 2014.
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". 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.
Signs of disagreement between Bowling and Infinity Ward arose in a live interview with
Machinima when he is quoted as saying 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 occurred such as bugs and tweaks.
The community was in such an uproar for treatment on Modern Warfare 3 and the players targeted
Bowling since he was the employee who was communicating with the public most of the
time. On June 1, 2012 Robert Bowling announced the
development of Human Element, the first project of his newly formed developer, Robotoki.
References
External links Infinity Ward web site
Call of Duty web site Activision web site
Respawn Entertainment web site Infinity Ward's channel on YouTube