Abandon Ship

Holy crap, have you seen this? Infinity Ward employees are jumping ship like it's the Titanic. What the hell is going on here? They were setting the world on fire just this past November. Man, I hope this comes back to bite Activision in the ass. I'm trying not to jump on the evil empire band wagons anymore, but it's hard not hate Activision at this point. As you can see from the above image, peoples don't much care for Bobby Kotick. He deserves it, too.

Anyway, there is going to have to be some backlash after all of this. I kind of feel bad for Treyarch because they might get stuck fending for themselves with the Call of Duty franchise, and I doubt they hack it for too long. You know who's lickin' their chops right now? Bungie. The Reach beta comes out soon, and it's right on the heels of an overpriced map pack and a colossal falling-out at their biggest rival. This is also setting EA up pretty nicely. Medal of Honor, which is straight-ripping Call of Duty, comes out this summer, and the two IW execs who are in a epic lawsuit of he-said-she-said with Activision have formed their own studio which is working with EA Partners (which puts them under the same roof as Valve). Hell, even Epic has decided that now is the time to announce Gears of War 3 (which has an April 2011 release date; making room for a beta test, this time?). This is going to be interesting to watch unfold.

--Chilly P

p.s. Just for the record, I've been saying this for a while now.

p.p.s. Some background info on Infinity Ward that sheds some more light on the situation.