FizzyIzze said:
I missed out on the whole internet outcry about Infinity Ward "back in the day" and can't seem to find any reliable sources covering exactly what happened. Can anyone here give me some links to impartial information? I don't exactly trust Wikipedia.
To be honest the Wiki page covers the basics fairly well, but a brief bullet point history would be:
<spoiler= Call of Basics: Modern Text Wall>
*When Activision set up Infinity Ward with ex-EA staffer from the Medal of Honor series, their pay included cash bonuses for games released on time and connected to sales figures. Apparently this had no upper cap and extended to all of IW's staff.
*Call of Duty 1-2 (plus spinoffs and 3) come out to good sales and steady growth, all is well. At some point IW pitched Modern Warfare to Activision and got it greenlit despite Activision's resistance to moving away from the dominant WW2 genre.
*Modern Warfare is released, not only is it a critical darling, it becomes 2007's top selling game and goes onto sell thirteen million plus copies (more than Halo 3, also more than every CoD up to that point combined). The exact pay bill is not reported, but from Activision legal filings it can be guessed at having been north of $100 million.
* Infinity Ward's high ups sign long term contracts with Activision in 2008, including a plan for a new IP to be developed by Infinity Ward (what we now call Titanfall). Around this point Activision (allegedly) begins looking for ways to avoid paying the full agreed bonuses on Modern Warfare 2 and also begins private surveillance of a number of IW staff, this is only alleged because Activision never took the case to court, it was in the evidence filed.
* Modern Warfare 2 comes out, sell a lot more than Modern Warfare, breaks records.
*Activision Fires West and Zampella with the no warning, has them escorted from IW's offices, cites 'insurbordination' and 'compromise of our friendship' as reasons (really).
*It steadily becomes apparent the Activision will not be paying the bonuses it is contractually obliged to, lawsuits begin.
*By May 2010 46 of IW's 100-ish permanent staff have left the company, collectively they sue Activision for $500million whilst West and Zampella file a Separate suit. Activision makes a number of public statements that none of the staff who leave will get a penny out of them, regardless of what their contracts up to that point said. They also publicly call West and Zampella 'self-serving schemers,' just to be extra classy they also file counter suits against West, Zampella and all the ex IW staff.
*EA picks up West, Zampella and most of the IW refugees in April 2010, forms Respawn, work begins on Titanfall (which Activision never greenlit in the end). Activision add EA to their counter suits, claiming EA planned the whole thing.
*May 2011, Activision pays ex IW staff $42million in an effort to settle one suit. The money is taken, but the suit continues.
*Activision's suit against EA is thrown out of court when Activision fails to provide any evidence.
*May 2012, West and Zampella's suit almost makes court. In the week leading up to the trial Activision start claiming everything against them from theft to not signing contracts to straight up personal attacks, it rapidly becomes clear that Activision's defense is based mostly on name calling and the fact that West and Zampella talked to and had dinner with John Riccitiello a couple of times (they worked with Riccitiello at EA previously). It also becomes apparent that in the months before MW2 was released Activision was running a dirty tricks campaign with the specific aim of removing West and Zampella, a number of emails between Activision high ups confirm it (google them, they're hilarious). It also becomes apparent that Activision had no intention of honoring the contracts signed in 2008 or paying the agreed bonuses, for reasons never explained (presumably cost).
*Junes 1st 2012, the first day of the trial. It's abruptly announced that all parties have agreed to settle and all suits are dropped. The exact details aren't known but more than one source has said that West and Zampella 'couldn't stop smiling' during the announcement, so it's pretty safe to assume it was expensive for Activision.
Also, read this: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/05/24/respawn-39-s-west-and-zampella-sound-off-on-upcoming-activision-lawsuit.aspx
Activision's side of the story can be found with some Google-fu, although a lot of the news pages of the time have been deleted now. It's safe to say IW hasn't been quite the same since all this began, they've gone from developing entirely in house to having extra on hand at all times, a merger like this seemed inevitable at the time it began.
