Four More Quit Infinity Ward; At Least 17 Out
- Mohammad Alavi - Senior Designer
- Chad Grenier - Senior Designer
- Chris Lambert - Programmer
- Jason McCord - Designer
Late last night, news broke that seven former Infinity Ward members have rejoined ousted studio heads Jason West and Vince Zampella at Respawn Entertainment, the duo's new studio signed with Electronic Arts' Partners program.
You can bet resignations will continue to happen and it's likely that many more will join Respawn.
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spinx2
replylol, and eventualy the least talented dudes will get all the royalties... because they are the only ones left... GG activision...
the studio is dead... the heart of that studio is gone...-
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So what you are saying is the lead animator is the best animator, and the lead level designer is the best level designer, and the lead programmer is the best programmer?
What happens then when they hire say a senior programmer that is better than the old lead programmer? Do they then fire the old lead programmer and promote the guy who is better at programming? Or do they just demote him and hope it works out?
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go cry to your mommy.
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You don't think it is possible that often times leads are picked for their ability to manage a larger factor than skill? Do you think it is a good idea to take your best say level designer and have him stop making levels and instead be a lead to manage people and be in meetings all day? Is that a better use of a talented level designer than making levels?
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shit man, stop making sense
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Usually when a company situation gets shitty, the best talent is the first out the door. The worst talent is happy to have a job.
Granted there's anomalies, like if the best talent is so highly paid that they can't get that much anywhere else and don't feel up to taking a pay cut - those are the guys on the boat until it hits the bottom of the ocean.-
I'm the best employee my company has in this entire city. They asked why I was leaving? "Because you took advantage of me, and I know what I'm worth." They thought I was being cocky. 3 days ago they called and asked me to come in for a meeting to discuss my possibility of returning. Once bitten, twice shy.
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As long as they're producing money hats this will never happen.
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Correct. In the eyes of the shareholders and Vivendi, everything's just peachy since they're making record-breaking profits.
Which probably means there may truly be a "Call of Duty: Van Halen", metaphorically speaking. With most of the lead talent departed, they're bringing in people all over the place, and the finished product won't be the same. And by Activision's leapfrog schedule, they have 2 years to make Modern Warfare 3 (and Activision's already whining in their legal complaint that these departures are putting that title behind schedule). Maybe giving up on the PC platform might be a good way to conserve engineering expertise to concentrate on the 360 / PS3 versions and hit the release date, but then they would have made IWNet for one game (or maybe two...).
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But mass exoduses from game developers usually means bad shit's afoot and they want to get out while the getting's good.
Cases in point:
Aug 30, 2006
3D Realms Sees Major Employee Departures, Fate of DNF in Question?
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/43655
May 06, 2009
Duke Nukem Developer 3D Realms Shuts Down
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/58519
Dec 06, 2006
Ritual Sees Departures, Appoints New Studio Director
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/44922
Jan 24, 2007
MumboJumbo Acquires Ritual Entertainment
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/45466
(Ritual's trademarked games all went away and two years later all Ritual employees had left)-
Oh yeah, how could I forget this one
Flagship Denies Staff Exodus, Admits Hellgate Needed "A Couple More Months in the Oven"
Jun 11, 2008
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/53102
Report: Flagship Studio Closes, Loses All IP
Jul 12, 2008
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/53581-
Plus who can forget
Ion [Storm] Employee Departures
Aug 02, 1999
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/738
Ion Storm predates tagging so I can't hunt down the article where the Dallas office was shut down but yeah, this was a pretty big sign
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Gray_(game_designer)
This page has been deleted. No secondary sources; notability unclear.
So sad to see Ritual torn apart like that. I didn't know that the whole IP base was dismantled by 2009.
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Good. I hope the bleeding continues and a shareholder uprising kicks Kotick and everyone around him out the door. There's no reason things should have gotten to this point. Still, kungfusquirrel's post needs a mention. It's easier for the top talent to move around: http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=22764647#itemanchor_22764647
Money and creative freedom. Activision had plenty of the former and the bounty IW delivered with MW2 should have earned them as much of the latter as they wanted. Kotick could have easily carved off 100 or 200 mil from the billion+ MW2 cash pile and kept all the IW staff financially satisfied leaving creative freedom as the sole sticking point.
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