I have spent most of the day in somewhat of a catatonic state and the hell away from Twitter. That's where I first found out about the insane goings-on at Infinity Ward.

What? You haven't heard?

Quickie Summary: Activision fired Jason West and Vince Zampella, top execs at Infinity Ward.

The news has finally just been made official (from AP News):

NEW YORK — Activision says Jason West and Vince Zampella, executives at "Call of Duty" developer Infinity Ward, are no longer with the company.

Zampella had served as CEO at Infinity Ward and West as chief technology officer, among other titles.

Activision Blizzard Inc. said Tuesday it plans to form a new business unit focused on the "Call of Duty" franchise. It says the unit will focus on online content and expanding the brand.

The shake-up comes a day after Activision said it was looking into breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward.

Activision did not name West and Zampella in Monday's regulatory filing. But the filing said the company expects the "departure of key personnel" as a result.

 

Here are a few links that might help explain the reason behind all this:

This first link belongs to the G4 staffer who broke the story: Link

The second link contains the most plausible reason for the release: Link

I can tell you that Activision's brilliantly executed brown-shirt-esque putsch over at Infinity Ward HQ last night is working like magic at keeping the rest of their employees completely subordinate. In fact, from what I can glean from speaking to  Activision employees, they are keeping their heads so low today they'd win a limbo contest at an all-dwarf resort.

For sure the Activision PR department was working overtime:

Today, ironically the release date for BFBC2 (a game that was set to give CoD a run for its money...errr, our money, I mean), Activision also announced that they would finally provide some structure to their CoD universe. Personally, I always felt that CoD was an inefficient and uneven little franchise. Games were developed by two separate groups (Infinity Ward and Treyarch) who seldom interacted on alternating years. Seldom interacted? That's rich. What I meant to say was...two groups that at best tolerated each other, with the odd bit of loathing thrown in.

Given the strong push from EA to retake the FPS crown this year, it is unsurprising that Activision has decided to attempt to reorganize the process by creating a CoD Czar, who would be responsible for overseeing the game as a whole. IW, which always fancied itself as lead developer, undoubtedly would bristle at such a notion. It is not a surprise to see the bristling come to the results we saw last night.

Oh...and the name of the new Czar? Philip Earl is his name, according to an Activision statement. Earl runs Activision's Asia Pacific region.

Replacing Zampella and West are Steve Pearce (new CTO) and Steve Ackrich who will be the head of production on an interim basis.

For a publisher that only understands the bottom line, it is perhaps symbolic that Activision fell thirteen cents today, (1.2%) to end up at $10.81 at 4 p.m. 

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