In this BASH, we are devoting the cast to talk about this week’s decapitation of Infinity Ward’s leadership by their owners, Activision.

Monday evening, we all sat stunned in front of our computer screens as G4TV’s Patrick Klepek broke the story of the firing of IW’s President/Game Director Jason West and the CEO Vince Zampella. Shocking news made even more surreal given that IW’s game sales of MW2 have nearly approached one billion dollars.

What gives? Why were these two men fired? What does it mean for gamers and is this good news or bad news for PC gamers?

My special guest on the program, providing his deep insight into this event, is Game Editor for ArsTechnica.com, Ben Kuchera.

Here's a sampling of some of Ben's articles on ArsTechnica's Opposable Thumbs blog:

• Activision announces new Call of Duty titles, lawsuit filed
• Insubordination? Infinity Ward cofounder gone from Activision
• Snowmobiles are for sissies: a review of Bad Company 2

We explore some of the plausible reasons for Zampella and West's dismissal and discuss the probablity of success of their recently filed lawsuit against Activision.

Should PC gamers celebrate the firing or does Activision have even worse in store for us (you can guess the news won't be good on that score).

Does the appointment of a CoD czar to oversee all Call of Duty business units mean more higher quality and more consistent products for the end user or does spell the end of the franchise?

It's a lively discussion and you are free to comment on it, through the BASH forums, click here.

Are you glad to see them go? Vote here.

Update:

Read the court documents filed by West and Zampella against IW here.

I thought CoD4 was yesterday’s game.

The eSports community just seemed to lose interest in it last year, about the time when CoD:WW came out.  There seemed to be a lot of confusion back then. Some people were calling to stay with CoD4, some said to move to CoD2 and a small group even wanted CoD:WW

In competitive circles, CoD4 stayed on low burner for a year, but with the failure of MW2 it is going through what can only be termed renaissance.

What has changed? Why are people re-embracing CoD4?

On the program to discuss the rebirth are:

• Keith Hullenaar (Keithsu/Kzu) from Team Loaded (goloaded.com), fresh from his team’s win at NERV 3.
• Joe Amorosa (Nabore) from Team Legends, who just un-retired himself to take advantage of the new found interest in the game.
• Sam from omnilinkit.com and John from efragtv.com (whose company shoutcasted NERV).