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Report: Infinity Ward Loses More Staff
by Kris Graft [PC, Console/PC]
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April 13, 2010
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In the wake of the firings of Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella, additional staffers have left the embattled Activision-owned Modern Warfare studio, including a pair of high-level six- and eight-year veterans, according to new reports.
Programmer Jon Shiring confirmed to IGN and through his Twitter account that he left the studio yesterday. "After almost 6 years at Infinity Ward, I resigned today. I'm incredibly proud of everything we accomplished and I'm going to miss everyone," he wrote on Twitter.
According to what appears to be the Twitter account of Mackey McCandlish, one of the lead designers on November 2009's $1.5 billion-dollar-generating Modern Warfare 2, McCandlish has reportedly left the company after more than eight years.
Senior animator Bruce Ferriz also told IGN that he left Infinity Ward and is now with Big Red Button Entertainment, a Santa Monica startup that has not yet publicly announced its game projects. Ferriz was with Infinity Ward for over a year.
News of the departures comes after former Infinity Ward heads West and Zampella formally announced their new studio, Respawn Entertainment, which is in an exclusive publishing and distribution agreement with Activision rival Electronic Arts. None of the former Infinity Ward staffers have publicly said whether they would follow their old bosses to their new venture.
Infinity Ward lead designer Todd Alderman and lead software engineer Francesco Gigliotti also made public their departures earlier this month.
Activision's corporate office brushed off concerns about departing Infinity Ward staff, telling Gamasutra on Monday, "We look forward to continuing to work with Infinity Ward’s deep bench of proven talent on exciting new projects."
The publisher fired West and Zampella in March this year, alleging "insubordination." The pair subsequently sued Activision for $36 million, and Activision last week filed a countersuit against the two heads, which called West and Zampella "schemers."
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Heck, the new studio is probably salivating at the idea of hiring away all the good talent and sticking Activision with the leftovers.
What game development studio's gonna fill my civilian-slaughtering needs now???!? Ahhhh!!!