To Infinity Ward and beyond.

Something dire is taking place at Infinity Ward.

Thanks to Xenodyne, we know about the "bouncer types" showing up around Infinity Ward's headquarters yesterday. It looks like there's much more to the story. The Infinity Ward heads, Vince Zampella and Jason West, have both been fired by Activision.

An SEC report filed yesterday shows proof that Activision has launched an investigation at Infinity Ward, citing "insubordination" and "breaches of contract." Jason West's Linkedin page updated yesterday to show that he no longer works at Infinity Ward, and according to Kotaku, Vince Zampella made a similar change to his Linkedin page earlier today.

Looking at GameInformer's coverage of this event, it seems that Infinity Ward hasn't seen a penny of royalty money from Modern Warfare 2. Is this due to the "breach of contract" that was mentioned in the SEC filing?

Even as I type up this post, the plot thickens. G4 reports that "[t]he future of Infinity Ward might be determined in the next few hours." CEO of Activision Bobby Kotick is, as I type, speaking to the development leads at IW. Most people seem to think the meeting is about the dismissal of Zampella and West, but no concrete information exists yet. Another meeting, addressing the studio as a whole, will take place later today.

Until we know more details, its difficult to say exactly what landed both these men in hot water. I wouldn't worry for the future of the studio, however, due to another interesting article at Kotaku. Infinity Ward's Call of Duty games, together with Guitar Hero and the indomitable beast known as World of Warcraft, provide 68% of their net revenues. It doesn't seem logical for Activision to do much of anything to Infinity Ward. Then again, we don't know the whole story quite yet.

Maybe they walked in on Infinity Ward playing Bad Company 2?