When it comes to Activision’s two major Call of Duty developers, there is at this point two prevailing perceptions: Infinity Ward has been crippled by the loss of former bosses Jason West and Vince Zampella (and another some odd 30 defectors following that), and Treyarch has always been the “b-team,” producing weaker entries in-between Infinty Ward’s games. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, unsurprisingly, disagrees with both suggestions.
“We’re in the video game business. If we can’t replace twenty-five people, that would say something pretty disappointing about us as a company,” Kotick said to Joystiq about the Infinity Ward losses. “There’s at least 60 or 70, super-talented, amazingly capable people who are there. They shouldn’t have to suffer for the bad actions of a couple of guys.”
Of course, those who left Infinity Ward would probably contend Kotick’s description of “bad actions,” but then that’s what their current lawsuit is for. And as for the suggestion that Treyarch is in some way an inferior second-string developer, Kotick points out that they were even more responsible for some of Modern Warfare 2’s success than many people know.
