It seems as though there will be no end to the Activision Vs Infinity Ward saga any time soon as rumors have now surfaced that Activision may just close Infinity Ward entirely. Of course, this may not be too surprising considering a good chunk of former IW employees have now resigned from the team and have headed over to Respawn (headed by the previous leaders of IW).
In an investor note written by analyst Mike Hickey, it states that he predicts they’ll close the studio down after they finish development of the second map pack.
“Continued defections from their Infinity Ward studio have created meaningful uncertainty around the future of their Call of Duty: Modern Warfare franchise,” he said in an investor note.
“We expect Infinity Ward studio will be essentially closed after their next map pack release, with development work on Modern Warfare 3 spread between two studios not historically tied to the franchise.”
The only question remains is: Who gets the bonus? If Activision was planning on splitting the bonus across all remaining IW employees, does that mean if they shut the studio down, the bonus will be split between the Activision Execs instead? Probably not — but it would be mildly entertaining to see how that would go down.
Either a small handful of remaining staff will make enough to retire early, or Activision will close it and pocket the cash… which may have been their plan all along.
Infinity Ward is done for.
They made the Call of duties that I loved, Call of Duty 2 (360), and Call of Duty 4, its kinda sucks that a big time studio like that fell because of greed.
So sad to see Call of Duty crash and burn. Oh, well, I hope this teaches Activision a lesson and I hope we get something awesome out of Respawn Entertainment.
@Paranoimia: i doubt they give the bonus to the remaining IW staff
@TRF: hm? what are you speaking of? i love drama like this 😀 especially destroying the CoD franchise…..ahh well, Respawn will probably bring out a new IP thatll somehow get everybody all riled up once again……..ohh you fragheads :\
I mw dies it will mean that other good games will actually get noticed. And activision wont be able to realy on hype alone to sell their game.