It's interesting to see all of the coverage and reaction from the Infinity Ward/Activision fallout. Most people are siding with the Infinity Ward guys for various reasons and while that's their choice let's be clear on one thing:
This has no impact Activision's ability to sell future Call of Duty:Modern Warfare games
Put down your pitchforks and let me explain why. The mass exodus of talent from Infinity Ward is a big deal in the hardcore gaming community but the average gamer doesn't really care. All they care about is that a new game with the words Call of Duty is going to be on store shelves and they are going to buy it no matter what. The Madden and Guitar Hero franchises are proof that people will line up for a name no matter what. I'm not disparaging those brands at all but people are going to buy what they know.
I have a feeling that when all the dust settles the folks at Activision are going to end up with the Modern Warfare brand and thus the full control of the Call of Duty franchise. In exchange for this they'll probably let the Infinity Ward founders out of part if not all of their non-compete agreement which will allow them to bring all the former IW staffers to Respawn Entertainment. This is a nice win-win for both sides and should allow for both companies to go their separate ways. Honestly I would expect this to happen right before or right after the next round of
Modern Warfare 2 DLC hits.
Activision will then take who ever is left at Infinity Ward and merge them with Treyarch or one of another studio so they can continue to crank out Modern Warfare games. Sure they might not be the same but most people aren't going to notice anyway. Sure there will be a small population of people who boycott the game but the games are still going to sell very, very well.
I'm sure you're thinking now about how the Medal of Honor series died after the mass migration to Infinity Wars but at that point did EA have another team cranking out solid MOH games? I don't think so and honestly Treyarch did some great work with their last game.
The Respawn guys will go on and create their own kick-ass FPS franchise which we'll also buy in numbers because EA will bill the game as being from the people who brought you
Modern Warfare 2. Maybe the games will compete against each other but I'm guessing EA will probably find a good safe time to release the game to make sure it doesn't get lost in the shuffle. In a way gamers do end up winning in the long run as we'll hopefully get a solid new IP once the drama settles down.
