Infinity Ward senior employees up for breach of contract, insubordination [Update]

I'm not sure if this is good or bad: good because maybe we won't be seeing a million shitty MW2 sequels, or bad because a whole studio is being held hostage.

Seriously though, I fail to see why Activision would keep the studio heads and send bouncers to the studio.

this is nothing more than contract negotiations. IW wants this and activision will only give that. either IW threatened to dissolve their agreement because IW was not getting what they wanted and these "bouncer types" are there to make sure that nothing is taken by those that are leaving. for example source code for current and or upcoming games. anything proprietary. Or this activision flexing and letting IW know that they rule the IW universe and they better get in line and shut up. this stuff happens everyday with more companies than one can imagine but this is big news for gamers because IW is a great developer. Im sure nothing big will come of this.

It's a bit odd to say they rule the IW universe, if I remember right the majority of the initial company was composed of developers from the MOH franchise. If they get burned they've proven they're willing to move already. Not the brightest idea honestly.

Sounds like a rumour made-publicity stunt.

quote Northern49

Sounds like a rumour made-publicity stunt.

I agree. Only thing that really makes sense.

sounds like...TERRORISM!

IRL E-Peens. Where's IW's Leeroy Jenkins?

quote Chaotic

quote Northern49

Sounds like a rumour made-publicity stunt.

I agree. Only thing that really makes sense.

No. What the hell kind of publicity stunt would that be?
Quite possibly the studio heads were canned. In potentially violent situations like this, security is standard.

quote Chaotic

quote Northern49

Sounds like a rumour made-publicity stunt.

I agree. Only thing that really makes sense.

Or people being fired? You know that part where they send in security to escort you out of the building with your box of pencils and junk from your desk so you don't steal source code and systems owned by the publisher? Oh that could never be a possibility though right?

quote chautemoc

quote Chaotic

quote Northern49

Sounds like a rumour made-publicity stunt.

I agree. Only thing that really makes sense.

No. What the hell kind of publicity stunt would that be?
Quite possibly the studio heads were canned. In potentially violent situations like this, security is standard.

These things happen. Makes people feel sorry for them or whatever. I'm not sure that's happening here since they'd really gain nothing but whatever.

So you're saying they may or may not have orchestrated a master plan whereby hired goons came to the offices (or maybe they didn't actually show and that was just made up), then collaborated with media to garner publicity and speculation so people would feel bad for them?

It's happened before. A very vague but interesting story that sprouts talk about IW all over the net, then the unveiling of something very large.

quote Northern49

It's happened before. A very vague but interesting story that sprouts talk about IW all over the net, then the unveiling of something very large.

Yep! just not in the way you were expecting at this point with the CCO/CTO being laid off. Total publicity stunt, game companies having their co-founders laid off.

quote VeGiTAX2

quote Northern49

It's happened before. A very vague but interesting story that sprouts talk about IW all over the net, then the unveiling of something very large.

Yep! just not in the way you were expecting at this point with the CCO/CTO being laid off. Total publicity stunt, game companies having their co-founders laid off.

Dude, relax, it was just a theory.

Accuracy is what makes theories hold any weight. So many users are quick to simply dismiss anything as a PR stunt that they lose sight of actual issues in the industry.

Bad theories deserve to be shot full of lead. It helps remind people that maybe they should think a little harder next time instead of going "lulz sure its a pr stunt move along"

No one said COD is being benched, we're just talking about restructuring here. The franchise will be run into the ground until it ends up on the ValuSoft brand and vanishes. Right now this is the publisher and the developer battling over what they're going to be making over the next 2 years. Treyarch is already filling the gap for 2010 with their COD and IW will fill in again after that with their latest release.

The current state is that they're releasing a senior to prove that no one is exempt from Activision's control as publisher. They want more shot calling power over the installments they develop and it seems that no one is going to stand in their way. It's unfortunate for the company and for the public at large as it opens the same "Hero" franchise gateway in the COD world.

Chill out children, its PR, no 500 million dollar game will be benched...especially by the banker known as kotick

One will be, in a sense. The next (IW-developed) CoD may come, but it won't be the same, is the point.

Kotick 2 weeks ago speaking at DICE:

"It took us a lot of time to realize how important it is to have a company that is respectful of the independent cultures of the other companies they work with. And not just respectful but being oriented toward that culture of partnership.

Being able to give the resources whether it is a studio or company, and knowing when to stand back and letting them run with those resources. ...

The thing that you realize is that creative, inspired people really do need to control their destinies. And so if you create a culture that values that independent thought and it fosters independent operation and it lets independent talent control much of their destiny, you'll get great games.

It is not always possible to do... I think we do it better than almost anybody....

It is incredibly satisfying to see people who got their start in video games in our company go off and have tremendous success in their own right and do their own businesses....

There is definitely a pattern emerging, if you have a company and you want to protect your creative freedom and the integrity of the creative process. If you want to retain your identity and culture, if you want the support of the Mother Ship and the resources of the Mother Ship, we are a really great Mother Ship.

But if you want to sell out and move on, there are definitely other companies to talk to.... Virtually all our studios are still run by their founders. In the founders there is a common characteristic you see in all of them. They are collaborative, driven, capable people with a passion, with the ability to identify, recruit and retain other talented people." yaddda yaddda yadda

I don't work in the game business but I have had a bird's eye seat in this whole debacle at Infinity Ward for the past weeks. Lawyers have been camped in the building, calling employees in one by one and freaking them out. For Christ's sake, these guys and girls should be looking out the window to see if their new Mazerati has arrived, not to see a bunch of lawyers and security guards coming with their thumb screws. When my friend called me tonight and said there were guards stationed at the doors, we both knew what it meant. Sure, Infinity Ward can go on in some shape or fashion, but you don't get the biggest selling media event in world history by ripping the heart out of your creative team. And Activision, no matter how you spin this, that is what you have done. Everyone knows it.

Jason West and Vince are hands down the best game developers in the business. It is probably blasphemy to say that I don't even play video games so I am not speaking to their technical wizardry which is duly praised on every gaming site. I am talking about how they ran their company. Every employee was expected to work at the top of their game at all times. Meetings were not held for the sake of holding meetings. If you needed a reply from Jason you stopped him in the hall, 2 minutes later, you were both clear on the task and back to work. They didn't work weekends or long nights or holidays. They didn't need to, because the 9 hours you were there, you were incredibly productive and happy. Everyone liked each other. There were no office politics. None at all. I heard someone say that it was the only job he ever had where you didn't go to lunch and talk about how much you hated your job. So I don't know what "insubordination" you have cocked up, but you should be ashamed. This team gave you everything they had. It was a triumph. You never even picked up the phone to thank them. My friend never got a call from you, flowers, a card, Maserati, Chrysler. Oh yeah she did get a mass email about two lines long. Sounded like your secretary wrote it. I guess you are real oriented toward that "culture of partnership" - if the partnership gives you everything and your partner nothing. Yes, Bobby, there is definitely a pattern emerging.

Depending the allegations of "breach of contract, insubordination" I would surmise I may be boycotting Activision titles soon. However if they have legitimate arguments and the employees were in the wrong I would re-evaluate my opinion. But at this point they are on the cusp of driving away a fan. Alternatively their current title MW2 isn't very stand-out amongst other well-developed war titles, it is fun but not as addictively fun as the first title, due to their new game-flow and map design ideas, or their weapon progression sets, not sure, but they are definitely lacking and the pr from the first title is all that promoted them to their current kiosk. So by causing negative PR they are hitting the only one stand-out thing they have and that is fan loyalty and interest. Anyone can make a good video game and tweak the sequels in disappointing fashions such as Halo CE and Halo 2, and then create something completely different but still fun with Halo 3, but that doesn't replicate the experience of innovation and excellence as the first title. I. E. You have to keep the cook because trying to fix his recipe makes it a different meal. or It's like hiring picasso to finish michaelangelo's work.

I dont know the ages of a lot of people here on neoseeker but i can give some insight into the so called allegations from activision from my own experience in the corporate world and my recent contract restructuring at my current job.

First and foremost, Vince Zampella and Jason West are KEY EMPLOYEES at activision. Meaning the actions of these key employees could affect the stock price of Activision (ATVI). Now the SEC filing everyone is talking about is something every Publicly traded company does when they report earnings. In most of these filings they have subsections that will discuss the hiring or loss of KEY EMPLOYEES and the "investigations of alleged insubordination and or breach of employment contract." Now everyone that has had to go through any type of corporate contract negotiations will tell you that these terms are put into an employment contract to be used as a security blanket for the company so they can terminate a key employee without having to pay severance and/or whatever agreed to pay out package said employee had in their contract. Now Zampella and or West may have done something for Activision to use these "harsh" corporate terms when it comes to termination or it could just be that Activision just does not want to pay what they owe them. Another thing you need to keep in mind is that it is very difficult for an employer (Activision) to prove the fact that they justly terminated these said key employees for insubordination and breach. When it comes to underlings, when they are terminated for breach or insubordination that is the end of it and its usually b/c they cannot afford the legal battle that ensues. But im sure Zampella and West can afford to take legal action against Activision.
One more point people should think about is, if these two guys didnt do anything to constitute termination for breach and or insubordination, it would be obvious that activision is attaching these terms so that the legal process will start with the hopes of settling with West and Zampella for a sum that would ultimately be less than what their proper payout would of been for a peaceful termination.
Next one would say, the legal fees are going to be so high that it is stupid to start this, why doesnt activision just pay them. Well read that SEC filing. You can find how much Activision pay their legal dept or how much they pay to outsource legal representation. That basically means its money they are already going to spend. In comparison to West and Zampella, that is money that they have to pay out of pocket to pursue the payout that they most likely were not budgeting for. Im sure they were not taking 25% out of each paycheck for the past 12 months to prepare for this. Its a scum move but every smart businessman/woman would do the same thing. Force them to sue us and then settle for less than expected later and tact on the gain to show the board so I can get a larger bonus next year. Hopefully these two will start another studio and crank out some awesome games in the future.

@streetcarp81 GamesIndustry.biz seems to be indicating that Activision already has people doing damage control.

"Cowen and Company analyst Doug Creutz has issued a note to investors playing down the significance to the publisher and knock-on effects for the Call of Duty franchise."

I'm sure they're out to prevent quite a few things with this shake-up, I just wish I knew what. If the company still hasn't been issued the full royalty checks for the game that really is a huge chunk missing from them. I had to wonder if the tension really was that high were Zampella and West possibly entertaining the idea of using their bonus to form a new startup? That's pretty much scrapped now though if they're looking to settle with a fraction of that original number.

Interesting what over a billion dollars of profit will do to the publisher that owns the game studio.

Also interesting to see Activision travel the full circle: before many of you were born, Activision was started by a bunch of disgruntled employees of Atari, who were screwed out of royalties. The maker of Space Invaders was paid about $20,000 for programming the game, while the product grossed many millions of bucks.

I suppose its just the nature of business that once a certain [large] amount of money gets involved, employees will not feel that profits are shared fairly..?

Prediction: The people who got let go are going to form their own studio and make one kick ass game.

*optimistic*

Do videogame developers ever feel fulfilled???

quote THM

Do videogame developers ever feel fulfilled???

When they produce a respectable result and get paid for their invested time and effort they generally do. It's how companies like id keep rolling along for years without a game release.

@Chinagirl,

I dont know...the level of innovation or lack there of in MW2 doesnt make me optimistic on their "new game" They basically made a product out of complacency and I didnt find it to be an amazing game. enjoyable but not great worthy

Yes, but who really cares about innovation when the public sure as hell has shown to not care. I suppose portal's innovation paid off, though, but not nearly to the same extent.

I just read an article on yahoo finance and it's very interesting towards the end. Now for us fans of IW are upset about the news today but I'm sure that if the remaining team keeps making games, we will still play them. But I have a very strong feeling that IW will no longer exist in the coming months as we know it. Activision have made it clear that Call of Duty will become the next mega franchise for them. Turning it into a guitar hero clone in terms of pushing out game after game with very little innovation until they can milk it dry. This fact is very important to the stock holders of ATVI. Now if the main cog in the COD wheel (IW) won't play along with this plan, ATVI need to do whatever is necessary to make it happen. So now as it goes IW r shaken up but ATVI needs IW in place because they know the sales that are necessary to maintain the level of profits the stockholders r used to cannot be obtained w/o IW. The majority of the stockholders don't know much about game development so this is where gamers will know first that the franchise of cod is over. It's been widely spectulated since the departure of west and zampella that ATVI is trying very hard to keep the rest of the staff in place. But key analysts expect the majority if not all the current staff from leaving the company. If this is th case, I will never buy a cod game again. We need to be aware of the fact that MW2 may very well be the last cod game made by the true IW team. And if that is the case, how f'ing stupid r ATVI. U don't bite the hand that feeds u. But when u don't understand the biz to begin with how can u apply biz principles that r incompatable with this type of biz? It's easy, u assume u r always right, and if your wrong in the end u take your large bonus and laugh at what u ruined in the process. Anyway here is the article. And I'm actually suprised that this happened so fast but when something is this successful and the company running it is headed by somone that knows nothing of gaming culture this is the outcome. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Infinity-Ward-execs-leave-apf-208157435.html?x=0&.v=4

No paragraphs, didn't read.

At least they still have treyarch for the time being.The next CoD to come out will be good but any after that not made by treyarch are doubtful.

This was in the plan all long , and ofcourse it happened on the time of BC2 release I didn't even realized it's out.

Treyarch don't match up to IW games imo, there's just a clear difference in the quality of the single player campaigns to me. That said I did enjoy COD5 online and will probably get back to playing it seeing as MW2 online is annoying the crap out of me