Infinity Ward Exodus Continues, Activision Comments
April 14th, 2010 | Written by Andrew Giese | Topic: Industry News
We reported not too long ago about a possible exodus of employees from Infinity Ward, and now it appears our prophecy has been proved accurate.
Lead Designer Mackey McCandish departed the company on Tuesday and this morning we discovered that four more employees have also jumped ship: lead artist Chris Cherubini, programmer Rayme Vinson, and lead designers Zied Reike and Steve Fukuda.
Where are they all going? We’d wager a guess on Respawn Entertainment, created by departed Infinity Ward heads Zampella and West. While the two are not permitted to recruit from Infinity Ward, there are ways around the no-compete clause in contracts, explained as Penny Arcade breaks down a piece of Joystiq’s recent interview with the two.
Here’s what Activision CEO Bobby Kotick had to say about the split:
Since we terminated the two executives at Infinity Ward, approximately 35 others have resigned and it is likely that a few more people will leave, as well. Many of these people have been recruited by other studios because of how talented they are. We are obviously disappointed about this and we wish we could have convinced some of these incredibly talented people to stay.The decision to terminate the two Infinity Ward executives was not done lightly. It was not done to deprive them of their bonuses, nor was it done without a great deal of deliberation about the consequences.
The background leading up to our decision to separate the two former Infinity Ward executives for breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty is outlined in our cross complaint that we filed in April, which I’m sure many of you have read.
Against this background, we felt we had no choice but to terminate the two Infinity Ward executives. We did this to protect the company’s assets and the interests of our shareholders. I personally considered the two of them friends and their conduct was a compromise of our friendship, which was equally disappointing. Once we began to understand what had occurred, there was no gray area. There was nothing that would have allowed us to retain their services, as talented as they might have been.
This is an example of our commitment to pursuing the difficult right, rather than the easier wrong. Our actions were firmly rooted in our longstanding values of integrity and an expectation that our employees, who signed and acknowledge our code of conduct, will behave with the highest ethical standards.
We have a great team in place at Infinity Ward, which continues to work on downloadable content and the studio’s next unannounced project. We continue to support the culture of excellence that has defined Infinity Ward and we’re already strengthening the studio with additional talent and financial resources.
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Comment by BoJingles on the April 20th, 2011 at 1:57 pm
b
Comment by BoJingles on the April 20th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
treyarch and activision are awful at publishin and for treyarch making games however infinity ward made call of duty i hope the win the lawsuit its their franchise not activisions akll they do is publish thats it they hardly do anything infinity ward is the best the only thing treyarch did good in the last however long was make zombies but graphics still suck