What an unexpected turn of events! The drama involving the creators of one of the biggest franchises in gaming continues as Jason West and Vince Zampella, the fired former lead creators of Modern Warfare 2, have formed a new company, Respawn Entertainment. EA, their formal rival, is backing. The Monday morning news announcing the new company follows a Friday that saw Activision, the mega-publisher that fired Jason West and Vince Zampella from their leadership positions at Modern Warfare development studio Infinity Ward, suing the ousted creators for “misdeeds.” West and Zampella had sued Activison a month prior. But today the two creators are announcing a new company and an exclusive publishing deal with Activision rival Electronic Arts. The new company will make games for the EA Partners label, an arrangement that means it will remain an independent company from EA. West and Zampella’s former studio, Infinity Ward, remains wholly owned by Activision. “Respawn Entertainment marks a fresh start for Jason and me,” Zampella said in a statement. “For the past decade we led a great development team and poured our hearts into creating an epic game franchise. We’re very proud of what we built – and proud that so many millions of fans enjoyed those games. Today we hope to do it all over again — open a new studio, hire a great team, and create brand new games with a new partner, EA.” “We’re excited,” West said. “Now that the team is in control of the games and brands, we can ensure that the fans are treated as well as they deserve.” While West and Zampella’s experience has recently involved military first-person shooters, including EA’s Medal of Honor series, which they worked on prior to handling Call of Duty and Modern Warfare for Activision, they offered no details on the new game. The release indicated only that “the company will focus on creating state-of-the-art gaming experiences for global audiences.” Could this mean that future MW titles, including MW3, is to be made not by Infinity Ward, but by Respwan Entertainment? It’s possible, remember Jason West and Vince Zampella own the Modern Warfare Copyright. Source
i like EAs new logos that are specific for each game. whoever came up with that idea deserves $1000. now imagine the EA logo appearing like the IW one lol xD even if they get sued and have to pay out, the prospect of EA making a big chunk of money back from west and zampella means they win either way.
w00t! The only thing that I don't like about EA is sometimes the servers are down... but hey, I can deal with that! Good decision. Let Activision starve! Mwuaahahahahahaha, Mwuahahahahaha!
This is very good news. Many will say EA is a bad company but they have bin bringing out new and great titles like Dead Space and Mass Effect.
Icwatudidthur! I personally hope that EA makes MW3 100x better than MW2, only thing we can hope for is that it's not too realistic like BC2, sure it's an amazing game, but that's really not the point. I'm hoping for something.. well, something that makes MW3 ENJOYABLE to play. MW2 is NOT enjoyable, whatsoever.
Even though West and Zampella are suing for the Modern Warfare brand, they haven't won yet. EDIT- I never read the last line of the article. Disregard this.
West and Zampella are currently in court of law with Activision trying to decide who has the rights to the Modern Warfare brand. West and Zampella acknowledge that Activision owns the Call of Duty brand, but argues MW is a separate entity that they own; however, Activision believes MW is included in the CoD brand. I personally believe that West and Zampella will be working on some other, new IP, hopefully set during something other than modern times. EA already had Battlefield and soon Medal of Honor to combat CoD. If West and Zampella win, then they have three separate modern first person shooters on the market. If West and Zampella don't win, they most likely make another FPS that would hopefully offer something other than modern technology.
if they don't win, mw3 will be complete ****. I hope a lot of the other good guys from IW come over... And I hope activision slowly dies out...
Not that I can recall. Harmonix willingly sold the GH brand to Activision to go and create Rock Band. Although Activision did go so far as to say that Rock Band was an imitator of GH. Also, several more Infinity Ward Employees are leaving, but none have announced going to work for West and Zampella.
if they win the lawsuit, then we'll have MW3 from EA if they dont it'll be called warfare of modern times 3
It doesn't really matter what the publisher is, the only way they have any effect on the game is pushing too hard on something for no good reason (apparently IW wanted to do a future game, but Activision wanted to combat Battlefield 2...see where that got them? It was a good move), or if they set ridiculous deadlines. From the looks of things, EA will do neither of those, and as such they're not going to "make the game better". Game development is entirely up to the developers. If Respawn makes a good game, it'll be a good game. EA/Activision isn't going to change that, it's just a matter of who gets the $1 billion dollars of profit. YouTube - Developers
activision didnt give iw free reins. at the ed of the day, the developers have to present their ideas to the publishers, and so the publishers get the final say, thats why MW2 was such a let down in its ways
epic win, now a bf mw merger game haha. Plays like Cod but everything blows the **** up and vehicles with more suitable handling perhaps. I'm really glad cause the COD games arn't just great for the fact of what they are but more of how they are made.
thanks for clearing that up. The main thing i'm happy about is where they say they will let Zampella and west have more free rein than what they did working w/ IW.