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New Call of Duty Titles Announced, Fired Devs Sue For Name

Posted by Soulskill on from the modern-legal-warfare dept.

eldavojohn writes "Activision has announced new Call of Duty titles while fired Infinity Ward Developer leads Jason West and Vince Zampella sue them for the rights to the name. According to Activision, 'The company intends to expand the Call of Duty brand with the same focus seen in its Blizzard Entertainment business unit. This will include a focus on high-margin digital online content and further[ing] the brand as the leading action entertainment franchise in new geographies, new genres and with new digital business models.' Ars opines that Activision is set to over-saturate the market with tons of CoD titles similar to how it expertly brought down Guitar Hero."

4 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. It's all about control by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In their countersue Jason West and Vince Zampella claim that they have the right for "creative authority and approval for any "Modern Warfare" titles set in the post-Vietnam era, near future, or distant future".

    Is it coincidence that Activision is announcing the development of several COD games at the same time?

    What I suspect happened is that Activision just started developing these games without consulting Jason West and Vince Zampella, and then went to talk to them thinking they could just force them to do what they wanted.
    When they refused, they got fired.

  2. EA bounty? by wct · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Interesting quote from Vince Zampella's profile on LinkedIn:

    "...Rumor in the industry is that EA placed a million-dollar bounty for snapping up any IW studio lead, like Vince. Just the fact that the rumor is out there should speak volumes about how badly people want Vince working on their products"

    Jesse Heinig, Production Coordinator, Infinity Ward
    reported to Vince at Infinity Ward

  3. Mother Fluckers. by Pojut · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Fuck you, Activision. Modern Warfare was awesome. Modern Warfare 2 was ok. At this point, the series has no where to go but downhill. Why kill it like this?

    Fuck you, Activision. Fuck you for becomming the new EA. Fuck you for treating your employees like shit. Fuck you for diluting the gaming industry and making it all about the money even more than it already was.

    Fuck you.

    --
    Living With a Nerd
  4. WTF? by Radish03 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    According to Activision, 'The company intends to expand the Call of Duty brand with the same focus seen in its Blizzard Entertainment business unit.'

    What? Blizzard has put out seven titles (four of which are expansions) in the last decade. Activision has put out nine titles in the Guitar/Whatever Hero line in just the last three years (not counting portable titles), and it sounds like they have similar plans for the Call of Duty line. I think what they mean to say is "We think we can turn Call of Duty into a subscription based FPS that prints money for us like World of Warcraft. And if we farm out five more shovelware titles in the same line, they'll sell based on brand recognition alone."