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The Week in Review news piece summarizes and highlights the most important gaming related news and rumors over the past week. This weekly article will keep you plugged in and in-tune. There was really only one major mover and shaker this week, and that was Activision. As you can probably imagine, several more Infinity Ward employees jumped ship; many of which have decided to join Respawn Entertainment. This mass exodous of employees has essentially shutdown Infinity Ward. An even scarier development for Activision is that Infinity Ward has actually gone ahead and filed suit against the parent company. According to the grievances in the suit, Infinity Ward employees feel that unpaid royalties due to them have been withheld in an attempt to salvage the developer from almost certain death. Naturally, Infinity Ward employees think that this is, in a sense, holding them captive. The suit is seeking to reclaim these withheld royalties as well as seeks punitive damages. Estimates range between $75 to $500 million. That’s a lot of cheddar! In brighter news for Activision, they’ve gone ahead and announced the new name for the next installment in the Call of Duty franchise. It will be called Black Ops, is being developed by Treyarch, and it will launch on November 9, 2010. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Bungie has signed a 10 year exclusive publishing deal with Activision to bring their games to market. Apparently, the hullabaloo with Infinity Ward wasn’t enough to dissuade Bungie from signing the dotted line. Hopefully the studio will be given a lot of freedom; we know they will be given solid financial backing. Thanks so much everyone and we will see you next week! |