14 DAY TRIAL // Depending on the headcount one takes into consideration, Infinity Ward, the developer of the best seller of 2009 Modern Warfare 2, lost between 28 and 34 employees since its leaders, Vince Zampella and Jason West, were ousted by publisher and intellectual property owner Activision.
Some of them have grouped to fire a lawsuit against their former overlords, alleging that these still owe them quite a bit of money and that they were abusively treated. And it seems all the people leaving might spell the end of Infinity Ward as a development studio.
In an investor note, Mike Hickey, who is an analyst of the videogames market working with Janco Partners, said that “Continued defections from their Infinity Ward studio have created meaningful uncertainty around the future of their Call of Duty: Modern Warfare franchise,” adding that “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.”
Even before the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Activision and Infinity Ward announced that there would be two map packs outed for the game, initially exclusively on the Xbox 360 home console from Microsoft. The first of them arrived on April 1 and the second will probably come at some point during the summer season, with new multiplayer maps and maybe a fresh game mode.
The Stimulus Package managed to sell 1 million units in its first day and 2.5 during the initial week on sale, resulting in quite a bit of money for Activision. It's unclear whether the publisher is interested in keeping Infinity Ward alive in order to continue using the name when promoting Call of Duty and Infinity Ward or whether they will simply shift development duties to other teams.