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In an interview with the L.A. Times that was posted on Saturday, Thomas Tippl, Activision’s Chief Financial Officer commented on the West and Zampella lawsuit as well as the future of the Call of Duty franchise.
Tippl went on the offensive, aiming to placate fears that Activision is losing control of Infinity Ward and to fight the widespread belief that Activision mistreats its developers.
“If you put yourself in the developer’s shoes, the ability to work on the biggest franchise in the industry and bring your creative project to an audience the size of the Call of Duty franchise is an opportunity many would crave.
“It’s not a secret that Call of Duty has been one of the most successful franchises in the industry. The franchise plays an extremely important role within the overall plans for Activision. A couple of weeks ago, we announced we will get more focused with a dedicated Call of Duty business to rally the best talent of the company against the opportunity that Call of Duty presents for the company. We’ve had multiple studios working with the franchise so we can come up with innovative, new content every year. Nobody should be surprised that we will continue to focus disproportionately against the franchise.
“Today, we have three studios working on Call of Duty. We have Infinity Ward, which made Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Then we have Treyarch, which will be releasing a Call of Duty game in the fall of 2010. Treyarch also developed Call of Duty: World at War and Call of Duty 3. And, most recently, we’ve added Sledgehammer in the Bay Area. We haven’t yet announced the content of their game, but it’s going to be an innovative take that will further broaden the audience for Call of Duty.
“We have interim leadership in place. We have two senior execs currently: Steve Pearce, our chief technology officer, and Steve Ackrich, who is the head of production for the company. We are currently in the process of configuring the new leadership team there. Infinity Ward still has nearly 100 people. They’ve built a deep bench, and the change of guard will provide an opportunity for some of the rising stars to put their own stamp on the Call of Duty franchise. In addition, we will provide them with all the resources internally and recruit talent from the outside.
“We treat our developers extremely well. We have an independent studio model that provides them a lot of creative freedom while we take care of the back office stuff so they can focus on making games. If their games are successful, they are compensated better here than anywhere else. We’ve been paying our talent millions of dollars for their work. Our setup provides a win-win opportunity. We ensure your work will reach a wide audience. Therefore, we have attracted, and we will continue to attract, the top talent in this industry.”
While Tippl iterated that Activision treats its developers extremely well, sources from inside Infinity Ward seem to believe otherwise. Speaking to Kotaku, one source said that the studio was essentially “dead” and another said that while the studio isn’t “dead” he can’t deny that the situation is “shitty.”
It appears that developers at Infinity Ward still haven’t received any royalty payments for Modern Warfare 2 and that the formation of Respawn Entertainment by former Infinity Ward founders Jason West and Vince Zampella has spurred a rash of departures, which runs contradictory to Tippl’s claims that Activision treats its developers “extremely well.” If withholding due earnings and restricting development freedom is an example of treating developers “extremely well,” Activision should take a seat in the corner and wear the dunce’s hat for a while.
This is a company that is critically mismanaging its business because it doesn’t understand its business environment. The most important people to Activision should be the developers beneath them. Beyond the profit margins, Activision should see the importance of fostering open development of new IPs and should be wary of over-saturating the market.
After years of success, Guitar Hero sank under Activision’s guidance as it flooded the market with far too many sequels. Unfortunately, Call of Duty is in danger of suffering through the same effects. Spin off after spin off won’t foster creativity or sales, historically, a glut of games from the same franchise has led to failure.
Beyond over-saturation, Activision must consider who created Call of Duty in the first place. It certainly wasn’t Robert Kotick, their CEO. And it wasn’t Thomas Tippl. It was Infinity Ward. Rather than forcing Infinity Ward to continue producing Call of Duty titles Activision should recognize the value of the team’s creative talents and should believe in their ability to foster a new IP that will be equally successful.
Furthermore, Activision has ignored the importance of gamers to their business. Many of us will be suckers and will continue to purchase Call of Duty titles, but gamers, for the most part, are extremely well-informed on the industry and typically pay attention to reviews and media perspectives on games and gaming studios.
I, for one, haven’t heard gamers clamoring for another Modern Warfare title. In fact, the Internet mostly seems to be flooded with gamers who simply wish that Infinity Ward and Activision had released a bug-free final product in Modern Warfare 2. If Activision paid any attention to the fans, they would realize that three Call of Duty titles aren’t what the market is demanding.
If Activision wants to succeed, in the long run, they will recognize the developers and the fans. It’s chief competitor, Electronic Arts, was, for a long time, the greedy, corporate entity that didn’t care about the quality of its products but rather, focused on the quantity of their products. Then, over the last few years, things at EA changed. They focused on original IPs such as Dead Space, Brutal Legend and Mass Effect. The quality of their sports titles improved markedly with FIFA 10 and NHL 10 claiming the majority of sports game of the year awards while they recently signed West and Zampella’s Respawn Entertainment to a contract that allows the pair to create anything they want.
Developers are gamers and they have passionate projects they want to pursue. Passionate products are good products that attract sales and dedicated fan bases. Mindless clones usually produce a glut of mediocrity and falling sales. Beware Activision: the next Call of Duty will be the beginning of the end of your cash cow.
