The death of a game studio

Call of Duty fans everywhere are getting nervous over the fate of Infinity Ward, the brain behind the hugely popular Modern Warfare series as well as several other titles in the CoD franchise. The official story is that Activision fired I.F. over a legal dispute involving unpaid royalties from the Modern Warfare 2 release. Flash to several weeks later, and people are leaving the studio on droves. Is this the end for Infinity Ward?

If that turns out to be so, that would mean no more Modern Warfare titles, and no Call of Duty titles set more recently than the Cold War, because of the exclusive rights I.F. has over anything modern and futuristic. As excited as I am for Call of Duty: Black Ops, it would be awesome if they didn't do to that war what they did to World War II (I.E. crank out game after game after game with the same basic story, albeit a different twist).

This isn't the first mistake Activision has made recently, either. Modern Warfare 2, touted as the most anticipated game in history, came out slightly less than satisfying with a multi-player system filled with bugs and glitches that players take advantage of, as well as the recent map-pack release with only 3 out of the 5 being actual original maps, and porting the other two directly out of the first Modern Warfare. I would say that I predict massive hits to their fanbase, but all one has to do is look around the internet for a minute and one can clearly see extreme hostility towards Activision. I would not be a bit surprised to see Black Ops outsell MW2 simply to spite Activision, regardless if it is a good game or not.

Hold in there Infinity Ward, we'll see you free from Activisions tyrannical grasp yet!

P.S. Black Ops actually looks pretty damn cool, check it out here.