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 section 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 is trying to withhold 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 constitute 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.

One month after the dismissal of the studio heads, Lead Designer Todd Alderman and Lead Software Engineer Francesco Gigliotti both resigned from the company, though the reasons behind their decisions is unknown. Currently, 26 employees are confirmed to have left IW since.

West and Zampella have since founded Respawn Entertainment, which now has a publishing deal with Activision's rival, Electronic Arts. It has been confirmed that many former Infinity Ward employees, including Todd Alderman and Mark Grigsby, have joined West and Zampella at the new studio. It is speculated that most, if not all, former IW employees will join Respawn Entertainment.

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 has the option to kill civilians as an undercover CIA agent posing as a terrorist. The level was, however, made skippable.

Infinity Ward was also criticized 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, Infinity Ward's creative strategist, described it as a "word censor fail", and corrected the mistake 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.". EA/DICE later parodied this video with their own, explaining how players can't get easy kills in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 by grenade spamming, like they can in "some other games" (referring to Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare). This is then changed to "F.R.A.G.S" - Friends Really Against Grenade Spam - in a trailer for Battlefield: Bad Company 2. The trailer stars CC Sabathia - Star pitcher for the Yankees baseball team.

Major employees

 * Alexander Roycewicz
 * Jesse Stern - Writer - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (has written for NCIS)
 * Richard Kriegler - Art Director
 * Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling - Creative Strategist, former Community Manager

Former employees

 * Brad Allen - Artist, Concept Artist
 * Brent McLeod - Designer
 * Bruce Ferriz - Animator
 * Carly Gillis - Executive assistant
 * Chad Grenier - Designer
 * Chad Barb - Designer
 * Charlie Wiederhold - Designer
 * Chris Cherubini - Lead Artist
 * Chris Lambert - Engineer
 * Christopher Cherubini - Lead Artist
 * Christopher Dionne - Designer
 * Drew McCoy - Systems Administrator
 * Earl Hammon - Lead Software Engineer
 * Francesco Gigliotti - Lead Software Engineer
 * Grant Collier - President of Infinity Ward
 * Jake Keating - Designer
 * Jason McCord - Designer
 * Jason West - CTO of Infinity Ward
 * Jiesang Song - Engineer
 * Joel Emslie - Lead Artist, Concept Artist
 * Joel Gompert - Engineer
 * John Haggerty - Engineer
 * Jon Shiring - Programmer
 * Keith "Ned" Bell - Designer
 * Kristin Cotterell - Human Resources/Recruitment
 * Mackey McCandlish - Lead Designer
 * Mark Grigsby - Lead Animator, voiced SSgt. Griggs (Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare)
 * Mike Seal - Quality Assurance Manager
 * Mohammad Alavi - Designer
 * Paul Messerly - Lead Animator
 * Preston Glenn - Designer
 * Rayme C. Vinson - Engineer
 * Robert Field - Lead Engineer
 * Robert Gaines - Lead Artist
 * Roger Abrahamsson - Designer
 * Ryan Lastimosa - Artist (Specialized in Weapons)
 * Sean Slayback - Designer
 * Steve Fukuda - Lead Designer, Writer, Additional Writer and Additional Voice Director
 * Todd Alderman - Lead Designer
 * Vince Zampella - CEO of Infinity Ward
 * Zied Rieke - Level Designer

Games made

 * Call of Duty
 * Call of Duty 2
 * Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
 * Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
 * Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (in development)

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.
 * 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 appears in Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2, and the modern Price appears in 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.