Infinity Ward founders join Electronic Arts

Jason West and Vince Zampella, of Call of Duty (CoD) acclaim have announced that they have signed on with Electronic Arts and are recruiting for their new studio, Respawn Entertainment. The creative director and software designer for Infinity ward have also resigned this month, in a move that may impair Activision ability to continue developing its top franchise. In addition, CEO Kotick has reorganized Activision in such a way that he and senior management will be able to become "more involved" i.e. interfere more. For instance, previous CFO Thomas Tippl is now 'guiding' Blizzard president Morheim.

I feel some concern over these proceedings but I feel that there is no need to be unduly worried. Activision still has its fine Treyarch studios that have been developing every other CoD game. Since the next CoD game, rumored to be CoD Black Ops, was slated to be developed by Treyarch anyway, this should leave Activision with sufficient time to reorganize in order to make up for the loss of West and Zampella. In addition, even if it does end up destroying its CoD franchise, it is likely that they have sufficient amounts of other intellectual properties to make up for the loss. Currently, Starcraft 2 is about to roll of the shelves and Cataclysm will be released this year along with the next CoD game. Activision will also be buying back $1bn worth of stock this year.

Ultimately it is only the test of time that will reveal the success of all these proceedings. But in the meantime, I think that Activision-Blizzard has a good chance at maintaining its profit margins and its growth.