14 DAY TRIAL // Activision Blizzard might be eager to limit the damage from the Infinity Ward scandal but it seems that the developer behind the defining videogames in one of the most important franchises for the publisher, Call of Duty, is continuing to lose important personnel.
Todd Alderman, one of the lead designers working at Infinity Ward and an essential part of the multiplayer development team, has changed his linked in profile to reflect his experience, revealing that he actually left the development team last week. Franceso Gigliotti, the main software engineer working at Infinity Ward, also appears to have left the company. Both have been working for Infinity Ward for more than seven years.
About one month ago, Vince Zampella and Jason West, the leaders of Infinity Ward, were summarily fired by Activision after an apparent dispute linked to the Modern Warfare brand and their upcoming projects. Activision has talked about “breaches of contract and insubordination” and is suing the two. They themselves have asked for compensation for abusive behavior. There are rumors that the two developers and their publisher had a falling out once word popped up that they might be in talks with another publisher.
If Infinity Ward continues to hemorrhage people, questions might begin to appear about their ability to actually deliver more Call of Duty and Modern Warfare content matching the quality of the game that generated the most sales in 2009. The company is set to launch another map pack for Modern Warfare 2, initially exclusive on the Xbox 360.
The outing of the first map pack, the Stimulus Package, was hit by problems and, despite them probably being a coincidence, gamers have been asking whether this is because Infinity Ward does not feel like creating more content for Modern Warfare 2 or because most of its developers are eager to move on.