West, Zampella leave Infinity Ward

Early yesterday it was hard to make much sense about what had been going on at Infinity Ward. Rumors were spreading like wildfire across the Internet, as Vince Zampella and Jason West had left the Infinity Ward offices and bouncer-like security had shown up at the scene. Some claimed that it had been a fight about Infinity Ward not wanting anyone else to do Call of Duty-games, or that Activision had refused to pay out royalties for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The latter rumor has been debunked, though.

Exactly what happened to Vince Zampella and Jason West is still a mystery, since Activision won't comment on internal HR issues. But it is now official that both of them have left Infinity Ward (the first reports, which included Facebook-updates and LinkedIn-profiles, seemed only to confirm that West had left). Sources close to Activision and Infinity Ward have told Gamasutra that yesterday's events were tensions between the two companies that had been brewing for a long time coming to a head.

One theory is that West and Zampella were not very easy to work with and that during the development of Modern Warfare 2, which would go on to break all kinds of sales records when it was released last year, refused to share milestones with Activision. Another theory is that Activision wanted to get out of a contract that only allowed Infinity Ward to make Modern Warfare-games, since they wanted a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 game while Infinity Ward were more interested in finishing their new game based on a new IP.

The only real fact we have is that Activision have filed a report for insubordination against West and Zampella to the SEC and that they are "concluding an internal human resources inquiry into breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward". If that's because of something the former leaders of Infinity Ward have done, or a way for Activision to get out of contracts they've made with Infinity Ward in the past (as some claim), remains to be seen. But it can at least be confirmed that Vince Zampella and Jason West are no longer with the company they once founded.