infinity ward and activision

So the big news this week is the shake-up over at Activision with Infinity Ward. In case you haven't been keeping up, earlier this week the heads of Infinity Ward, Vince Zampella and Jason West, were fired for apparent "insubordination" and "breach of fiduciary duty." Yesterday, the two former Infinity Ward heads filled a lawsuit against Activision for breach of contract, among other claims. Chances are you already know what's going on, so let's move on.

Activision. Electronic Arts. Ubisoft. What do three of the biggest publishers in the world have in common? They are notorious for over-saturating their market and killing off their most successful franchises. Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, Medal of Honor, Prince of Persia, Madden, etc...the list goes on and on. These companies force developers to churn out yearly installments of their most successful games, as well as tons of spin-offs and DLC. Consumers get sick of the same shit over and over again (Madden), or they can't afford to keep up with the massive amount of micro-transactions to keep their games fun (Guitar Hero), or the game quality eventually just suffers from a poor development cycle (Tony Hawk).

EA used to take most of the flak for this behavior when their sports and fps titles were dominating the market. Now that EA has milked most of their franchises dry and sales are slipping, they're no longer the dominating force they seemed to be 5 - 8 years ago. Activision, pardon me, Activision-Blizzard is a fucking powerhouse right now thanks mostly to Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, and World of Warcraft. Blizzard is fine...they've got WoW, they've got Diablo III coming out, and if all else fails, they can finally make a Starcraft sequel. But things aren't looking good on the Activision side of things. The Tony Hawk series is literally a joke at this point, people are finally starting to get burned out on Guitar Hero, and now they've lost Infinity Ward, the developer that FINALLY got the console FPS right (fuck you, Halo) with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. So what does this mean for Activision and the entire CoD franchise?

Well, for the time being, it means absolutely NOTHING. Treyarch is doing this year's installment of Call of Duty, and the map pack DLC for Modern Warfare 2 will still be developed by Infinity Ward for release this year. Next year, on the other hand, will probably see the downfall of CoD as Activision has stated that not only will they continue the main Call of Duty series, but they are going to start making non-FPS Call of Duty titles too, including an action/adventure title slated for 2011.

Basically Activision lost their best developer with IW...the guys who created Call of Duty, made it huge, re-invented it, then made it even bigger. Instead of slowing down and making sure they don't fuck up the series with sequels and offshoots, they are plowing right along sticking to their predictable release schedules. Right now Activision is just trying to push as many Call of Duty games out while the series is popular since they can sell titles based on the name alone. Inevitably, Activision will do what they do best and kill Call of Duty by over-saturating the market. In the mean time, Infinity Ward founders Zampalla and West will no-doubt move on and create a new FPS franchise under the umbrella of another major publisher. So fear not, you'll be back playing a new Infinity Ward title soon enough. Now, let's just hope that Treyarch can deliver a solid follow-up to World at War this fall, before Activision runs CoD into the ground.

-Brian T.

Merkin Bitches

Up until a couple of years ago, I hated first person shooters. I thought they were relatively boring and repetitive. Don’t get me wrong I did enjoy Doom and Wolfenstein 3D on my PC, but I went from those to Halo; but to me Halo sucks and there is no convincing me otherwise. It wasn’t until the first Modern Warfare came out that I really go into FPS’s; and not only did it get me in to FPS’s, it also got me heavy in to online gameplay. Because up until this point my main focus of playing a game relied more on the single-player more than anything, where now I feel it is more balanced between single and multi-player.

So after a couple of months of hearing people say how awesome it was, I finally gave it a shot. At first I was fucking horrible at it. I mean I was complete shit. I continued playing though getting better every day, and I can thank online play for this. I know if I would have only played the campaign I think my feelings would have stayed the same about my hate for shooters. From there I moved on to World at War, and by this time I was just walking all over people. I was killing mother fuckers, sicking dogs on their asses, and just downright making people look like bitches. Between Modern Warfare and World at War I spent countless hours running around merking people for the fun of it. But that was then and this is now, and as of last week we were finally able to move on to the next Call of Duty installment, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Let me just start by saying that Infinity Ward took an already awesome fucking game, and made it fucking more awesome. I have already put in almost 20 hours of gameplay in to this game and I haven’t even owned it for a week. It is fucking intense and I have loved every minute of it so far. The campaign mode is fun to play but it does seem a little short. If I had to compare the two Modern Warfare’s, I would have to say the first is better, but on the other hand though the online play, which was amazing on the first Modern Warfare, is even better on MW2. The maps, the quality of gameplay, and the graphics make this game stand out above all of the rest. The addition of death streaks, new perks, no more martyrdom and juggernaut perks, and the customizable kill streaks help to make the improvements over the first Modern Warfare. But why should I continue to review a game that I am sure most have played already? I’m not, but I just wanted to touch on those few features that helped me enjoy this game that much more. Either way if you have not had the chance to play COD MW2 then let me say that you are missing out. I would highly recommend any of the 4.25 million people who haven’t bought this game yet, to go out and buy it because if you love online gaming or killing people then this game is right up your alley.

This past week I have already seen the announcements for Call of Duty 7. Activision is obviously following suit by having Treyarch develop this title. No details have been released but I think it would be safe to assume that we will be looking at another WWII shooter. What I am anxious to see is what changes we saw in MW2 get carried over to the next installment. I don’t know about you all but I would like to see a Call of Duty set in the Vietnam era. I know it wouldn’t have a happy ending, but it sure would be fun trekking through the jungle killing Vietcong. I am sure everyone has their own opinion on MW2, but is there anyone out there who didn’t like this game. Let us know with some comments. One last note, if any of you think that you can show me up in MW2 I would love to see, because I know I can hand you your ass. Look for brofilone13 on Xbox Live.