Infinity Ward

Infinity Ward is a video game developer founded by former employees of 2015 in Encino, California that developed many of the games in the Call of Duty series. They have been owned by Activision since 2003.

History
Infinity Ward's first game, Call of Duty, won over 80 Game of the Year awards and 47 Editor's Choice Awards. The sequel, Call of Duty 2 for the Xbox 360 and PC, sold more than one million copies in the United States of America alone and was the first Xbox 360 game to sell 1 million copies in the United States, making it the best selling Xbox 360 game until Gears of War. Call of Duty 3 was not made by Infinity Ward and did not fare nearly as well as the previous two. Infinity Ward released Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare with huge success, selling over 11 million copies, and was hailed as one of the best games of the year receiving many 10/10 awards like its predecessor Call of Duty 2. Call of Duty: World at War, again, was not produced by Infinity Ward. The most recent game in the series, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, was produced by Infinity Ward and has been a bigger hit, despite having some controversial material.

Dismissal of Jason West and Vince Zampella

 * For more information, see Wikipedia's article on the dismissal of Jason West and Vince Zampella.

On March 1st 2010, it was reported that "two senior employees", Jason West and Vince Zampella, were fired for "breaches of contract and insubordination". Infinity Ward's Creative Strategist, Robert Bowling, has claimed he currently has no information on the matter. Two days later, a press release by law firm O'Melveny & Myers LLP revealed that Jason West and Vince Zampella had filed a lawsuit against Activision in retaliation, seeking “at least $36 million”. The lawsuit claims that Activision are trying to withold paying the bonus payment that West and Zampella are due when they signed an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with Activision back in 2008. It goes on to say that Activision launched an investigation into West and Zampella; not to find any actual wrongdoing, but to manufacture a basis on which to fire them. Any less than their full cooperation with the inquisition would constitue insubordination; which would justify their termination. Activision conducted the investigation in such a way that it would "maximize the inconvenience and anxiety [to] West and Zampella". The lawsuit further claimed that West and Zampella were "interrogated for over six hours in a windowless conference room" and that other Infinity Ward employees were "brought…to tears" by Activision investigators, just so Activision could terminate the two in an attempt to deny them payment. It is also assumed that they were fired because of a contract that gave them the right to deny any call of duty title that took place after the vietnam era, and Kotick had plans of milking the franchise while Zampella and West wanted to protect it.

Controversy

 * For more information, see Wikipedia's article on the controversies surrounding Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Infinity Ward was the focus of much controversy before Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was officially released, when a video showing the mission "No Russian" was released in which the player kills civilians as an undercover CIA agent posing as a terrorist. The level was, however, made skippable.

Infinity Ward was also criticised for certain decisions announced further before the game was leaked, when it was revealed that they had removed support for dedicated servers for the PC version of the game, instead opting to use a matchmaking system similar to the console versions of the games, known as IWNet. This denied PC gamers from being able to mod the game easily, as well as limiting the amount of players in a match. It was also revealed that the developer console (usually activated by pressing the tilde key) had also been removed.

A user on the Infinity Ward forums discovered that when one attempted to write the words "cunt" or "bitch", it would be censored and replaced with the word "girl", drawing complaints from gamers that this was "sexist". Robert Bowling, Infinty Ward's creative strategist, described it as a "word censor fail", and was rectified the very next day.

Infinity Ward was also accused of being homophobic, when a viral video about grenade spamming in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was uploaded on YouTube. The video called grenade spammers "pussies" and urged players to "Fight Against Grenade Spam", the acronym of the latter being "F.A.G.S.".

Major employees

 * Alexander Roycewicz
 * Jesse Stern - Writer - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (has written for NCIS)
 * Joel Emslie - Lead Character Artist
 * Mark Grigsby - Lead Animator - Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, voiced SSgt. Griggs
 * Richard Kriegler - Art Director
 * Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling - Creative Strategist, former Community Manager
 * Todd Alderman - Lead Multiplayer Designer - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Former employees

 * Jason West - Former CTO of Infinity Ward
 * Vince Zampella - Former CEO of Infinity Ward

Games made

 * Call of Duty
 * Call of Duty 2
 * Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
 * Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Trivia

 * Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling (Infinity Ward's creative strategist) was a U.S. Marine for a few years.
 * In their games, most of the American characters' names are named after Infinity Ward staff. For example, Private Roycewicz in "The Bog" is named after Alexander Roycewicz.
 * The Infinity Ward logo can be found spray-painted in several areas in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
 * The Infinity Ward logo is an obtainable emblem for the player's multiplayer callsign in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
 * With Captain Price returning in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, this means that every Call of Duty game developed by Infinity Ward has had a Captain Price in it in some form: the Price from World War II (who appeared in Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2) and the modern Price (who appears in both Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2).
 * In the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare level, "The Coup", a banner at the very beginning can be seen with "Infinity Ward" (إنفنيتي ورد) written on it in Arabic.
 * In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 one of the faces used by the U.S. Rangers is that of Vince Zampella.