Devil went down to Bungie

In a press release issued this morning, Activision announced that they have signed a ten year deal with development studio Bungie. Under this new deal, Activision will receive "exclusive, worldwide rights to publish and distribute all future Bungie games based on the new intellectual property on multiple platforms and devices." Bungie is best known for it's ongoing Xbox exclusive franchise Halo. So does this mean Halo is coming to the PS3?

Under the terms released so far, it seems as only new properties from this point will be released via Activision, so existing franchises such as Halo will not be included with the deal. What is interesting is how Activision states it's a "partnership to bring Bungie's next big action game universe to market." So will Bungie be leaving the Halo universe for good and start a brand new franchise?

While Bungie will remain an independent developer and retain all rights to their intellectual property, this is a major boon to Activision that has recently more or less lost their prized in house development studio Infinity Ward. Will Acitivision continue it's domination of the FPS market with the combined force of Call of Duty and an as yet unannounced Bungie project? Only time will tell.

With new MW2 map pack announcement, it all becomes painfully clear...

Fresh off our show about Activision, the company gives us another reason to dislike them. When Infinity Ward announced the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 would not support private servers and wouldn't be releasing the development tools to the player created content community there was an outcry. These are both things that have been staples of the PC first person community and have been responsible for games living long lives beyond their console based siblings. One of the biggest factors that Activision and Infinity Ward sited for this changes was fairplay. The new IW.net was promoted as a place where people could play without worry of cheaters and hacks. Unfortunately, the game itself has many issues that can be exploited without the aid of additional programs, leading to what can be equated to state-supported cheating. So with the general failure of nearly every goal that IW.net set forth the most cynical of us are now having our point reinforced daily.

Activision, feeling my job as a video game industry muckraker and general loud mouth is too easy, announced it's first map pack for Modern Warfare 2 today. G4tv.com reported today that the new map pack, which includes 3 new maps and 2 recycled maps from the original Modern Warfare, will be released at a price of $15. That's right folks, the same thing that Valve and other companies often give you for free, Activision is charging you for. But not only charging, charging you 1/4th of the game's original value. A game who's multi-player has been fundamentally broken since day one.  It seems that the move to 100% IW.net was nothing more than a ploy to require all content come directly from Activision, and of course, at a price.

Maybe it's just the person I am, but I would think a map pack like this could be a "Thank you for making this the best selling game of all time" or "We're sorry the game has been broken and exploited." These maps could have been an olive branch for Activision to it's customers in a time that they really need it. I'm not sure if they read what people are saying, but the gaming community isn't really happy with them right now. But instead, of fostering goodwill with the very people that keep them in business, they decided to twist the knife and gouge for a few more dollars.

It seems that Activision is hell bent on alienating the fans and developers of one of the most popular franchises of all time. Just remember though, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has tanks, destructible environments and is releasing some free maps shortly. Not saying you should stop playing Call of Duty games and jump onto Battlefield, I'm just saying...

Episode 58: Activision all acts the fool

In this episode, Ali Baker makes her Kneel Before Pod debut as a guest host while joining Ryan and Carl as they discuss recent shake ups at Infinity Ward. Is this the nail in the Activision coffin, or will they be able to stay afloat with that sweet, sweet Blizzard money? Listen and find out what we really think of Bobby Kotick...

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Activision and Infinity Ward update

Yesterday we brought you a story about Activision shaking up it's development house Infinity Ward and their plans to make Call of Duty into more or less it's own company. Well the drama isn't over yet. Just like in a Call of Duty game, there's always a twist.

Just moments ago, G4tv.com broke a story that Infinity Ward's former CTO Jason West and president Vince Zampella have filed a lawsuit against the software giant Activision. In statements released today, the two are claiming that Activision is terminating their contracts mere weeks before they were to receive royalty payments for their record breaking game Modern Warfare 2.

"We were shocked by Activision's decision to terminate our contract," said West in today's release. "We poured our heart and soul into that company, building not only a world class development studio, but assembling a team we've been proud to work with for nearly a decade. We think the work we've done speaks for itself."

Zampella added, "After all we have given to Activision, we shouldn't have to sue to get paid."

In today's release, the former heads of Infinity Ward also stated that the reasons suplied by Activision for the duo's termination were completely false. Robert Schwartz, the lawyer representing West and Zampella, went on to say "last month Activision hired lawyers to conduct a pretextual 'investigation' into unstated and unsubstantiated charges of 'insubordination' and 'breach of fiduciary duty,' which then became the grounds for their termination on Monday, March 1st."

To top this all off, West and Zampella are also claiming that in their contracts with Activision that they were given creative control over the Modern Warfare brand. If this is correct, it is possible that Activision could no longer produce Modern Warfare titles and that West and Zampella would be able to approach another publisher with the franchise.

Stay tuned folks, because this is apparently going to last longer than a CoD single player campaign.

Activision announces it's new "Lightning in a Bottle" division.

If you follow gaming news, you might have heard what has been going on the past 24 hours or so. Initial reports from Infinity Ward staff via G4tv.com was that private security showed up unannounced at their office. When IW employees asked the "bouncer" looking guys why they were there, they were told they couldn't give any information. At that point, we also hear that IW's president Jason West and CEO Vince Zampella had a meeting earlier in the day with Activision. A meeting, after which, they never returned to their offices from. Late last night, both men more or less announced they were no longer employed by Activision through multiple social networking sites. Today, it was announced that Activision's CEO Bobby Kotick would be meeting first with the remaining leadership of Infinity Ward and then would address the remaining staff behind closed doors.

With Activision's recent cut backs in development staff and their track history of a lack of respect for the artistic process, there were some pretty wild theories flying around the internet as to what is actually going on.  In the end, the truth really isn't that shocking for anyone that has been paying attention.

In a press release that Activision issued today, it became clear that they think Call of Duty is more than just a franchise, it's a brand. It is stated in the release that "The plans include the formation of a dedicated business unit that will bring together its various new brand initiatives" and "The company intends to expand the Call of Duty brand with the same focus seen in its Blizzard(R) Entertainment business unit." But what does this mean?

This means that Activision isn't just happy with the nearly annual installments of Call of Duty as a First Person Shooter and you're going to see the name "Call of Duty" slapped on a lot of stuff over the next couple years. To illustrate this, Activision also announced their plans to release an action-adventure (i.e. Not FPS) Call of Duty title by Sledgehammer Games in 2011. Sledgehammer is "a newly formed, wholly owned studio" as Activision is quick to point out in their release. With the reference to Blizzard's business unit and their stated desire to expand into more Asian markets, it's seeming that rumors of a Call of Duty MMO are more and more likely to be true though nothing was announced today.

It was also stated that Call of Duty's b-team Treyarch, are still at Activision. For the past few years, Treyarch has been the developer that has produced Call of Duty titles to be released during the down time of Infinity Ward's development cycle. According to the press release, Treyarch's latest Call of Duty game is set for a fall 2010 release.

Now that only leaves Infinity Ward, you know the people that created the series and who's Call of Duty titles out perform any CoD title developed by other houses. Well, all the release says about them is they're working on map packs. I think it's safe to say that with the removal of IW's leadership, the new in house developers and new corporate structure, that Infinity Ward has been shown the door creatively with all decisions in the franchise being made by former executives from Nestle.

It is unclear if Infinity Ward's former president and CEO were released due to creative differences, compensation disputes or maybe something more sinister. One unconfirmed report is that the official reason for their dismissal was due to insubordination and breach of contract. No specifics were given as their termination was not even addressed in today's press release.

So now Activision has put it's cards on the table and months of hinting and speculation can be put to rest. Though it now leaves us with even more questions. The most important being will this pay off for Activision or will this be the end of the golden age for the Call of Duty franchise? Only time will tell.

**Update March 3rd 2010** Former Infinity Ward heads file lawsuit against Activision