Activision Blizzard has announced that the publisher’s newly formed internal studio, Sledgehammer Games, will handle an iteration of the Call of Duty franchise in 2011, taking over the reigns from franchise stalwarts and creators Infinity Ward.
This news arrives on the back of the revelation that Infinity Ward studio heads and co-founders Jason West and Vince Zampella have been let go from their positions after an apparent breach of contract with Activision, in the wake of a worrying period at the developer on Monday that saw strong-arm and intimidation tactics resulting in panicked, “confused” and “freaked out” employees.
Infinity Ward will temporarily be led by Activision CTO Steve Pearce and production head Steve Ackrich, both of whom have backgrounds in Activision Publishing.
Sledgehammer Games, headed up by former EA studio Visceral Games (Dead Space) leadership Glen A. Schofield and Michael Condrey, will work on a 2011 entry to the Call of Duty series (which is said to “extend the franchise into the action-adventure genre”), while Treyarch will continue its collaborative franchise development efforts by releasing 2010’s iteration.
Infinity Ward will continue work on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s two map packs, both of which are due later this year, while Activision claims the studio will remain “central” to the future of the franchise, with rumours that the developer will handle another Call of Duty game in 2011 in addition to Sledgehammer’s game.
Additionally, Activision has set up a business unit to specifically manage the Call of Duty franchise and to promote “various new brand initiatives,” which will be run by Philip Earl, who currently heads up Activision Publishing Asia Pacific.
Through this business unit, Activision will begin to place a heavier focus on “high-margin digital online content,” as well as attempt to create Call of Duty games in a variety of different genres, even alluding to the possibility of a Call of Duty massively multiplayer online game, while Activision Publishing is currently in discussions with a number of select partners “to bring the franchise to Asia, one of the fastest growing regions for online multiplayer games in the world.”
Activision Publishing president Mike Griffith said in a statement:
“2010 will be another important year for the Call of Duty franchise. In addition to continued catalog sales, new downloadable content from Infinity Ward and a new Call of Duty release, we are excited about the opportunity to bring the franchise to new geographies, genres and players.”
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Comments:
Well, i say we all boycott the DLC for MW2 and boycott Activision all together from now on. They let the two founders of Infinity Ward go because they wanted to start a new IP which would probably be another AWARD winning game, just because Activision wants to keep milking Call of Duty for everything it's worth.
And as far as Treyarch's COD, who the hell would want that anyway? Who wants to go battle in Vietnam? I mean isn't that almost exactly like their last one? I mean yes it was WW2, but most of the environments looked like the jungles with Asians running around anyway. Plain and simple, People Want to play Modern Shooters!
I hope Sony picks these guys up and they make the most Epic First Person Shooter ever, PS3 Exclusive of course!!!
The problem with boycotting in this and many other situations is that it hurts innocent parties that are caught up in the mix.
The guys and gals over at Treyarch work just as hard on their Call of Duty games as the people over at Infinity Ward do on theirs. They put the same amount of effort and professional pride into their work as anyone else in the videogame industry does, and to reward them (Treyarch's games and Infinity Ward's DLC) with a boycott, to me, doesn't make sense.
Sure, you might be 'sending a message,' but it has dire consequences.
The truth of the matter is that the majority (well over 50%) of Call of Duty players (or any game playing audience) don't know about the behind-the-scenes happenings at studios and publishers, and would even be hard-pressed to be able to tell you who made the game they hold in their hands when they pick it up at a retailer.
Infinity Ward and Treyarch are meaningless to most players - the Call of Duty brand is what matters, and if the game delivers what they expect it to deliver, plus a little extra every year, then that's probably fine with them, and that brand becomes stronger in their mind every year, rather than Infinity Ward, Treyarch or even Activision.
As long as the brand is strong, it will continue to be bought.
As for Jason West and Vince Zampella... while I wouldn't call this a 'minor' setback for them, they could probably find another job just about anywhere, having stewarded a new brand all the way from 'new kid on the block' competing with Medal of Honor back in the day, to surpassing that series, to creating a multi-billion dollar, multi-million unit selling franchise in the space of under 10 years, which by anyone’s criterion is a major success.
They'll be ok, but I still feel bad it had to go down this way.
Boycotting the DLC will hurt Activision.. Activision is doing nothing but trying to milk games to the point where they're old and boring. They made an agreement that they would let Infinity Ward create a new IP and take a break from Modern Warfare, but with all this success they supposedly backed out and were trying to make Infinity Ward go ahead and start on MW3.
So you just keep on supporting Activision's pockets and them not allowing developers to be creative.
As for me, i'll go on to BFBC2 and then prob check out Medal of Honor when it comes out.. Hoping for a Killzone 3 not too far off.
But I'm done with Call of Duty..