Infinity Ward

Infinity Ward was founded as an independent game studio by Grant Collier, Jason West, and Vince Zampella in 2002, with a publishing agreement with Activision. The studio was formed by several members of 2015, the studio that developed the successful Medal of Honor: Allied Assault for Electronic Arts (EA) in 2002. Dissatisfied with the current contract they had under EA, Collier, West, and Zampella engaged with Activision to help establish Infinity Ward, which became one of the primary studios within Activision for the competing Call of Duty series. Initially, Activision provided Infinity Ward US$1.5 million for 30% stake in the company to start development on the first game Call of Duty, acquiring full ownership in October 2003 after the title was successfully launched. During this period, the studio was about 25 employees including many who followed Collier, West, and Zampella from 2015. Activision allowed Infinity Ward a great deal of freedom in how it developed its titles.

Shortly after this release, Microsoft contacted Activision to seek a Call of Duty title as a launch title for the upcoming Xbox 360 console. Infinity Ward agreed to prepare Call of Duty 2 for release in the last quarter of 2005. Collier said the request would help them lose the stigma of being only a personal computer developer, and so to make sure the console version was on parity, they tripled their staff to about 75 employees. Much of the focus of Infinity Ward's development was improving its game engine to include realistic special effects, such as smoke grenades to hinder sight, or bullets piercing through weak materials. Call of Duty 2 was a major success, having an 85% attach rate to new Xbox 360 console sales, and selling 1.4 million units its first year. At this point, Activision brought in Treyarch, one of their internal studios, to help develop additional Call of Duty games, with Infinity Ward spending the time and effort to improve the game's engine for one game, and Treyarch using the updated engine to create a new title. Treyarch released the next sequel Call of Duty 3 while Infinity Ward itself developed Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which instead of taking place during World War II, was set in a contemporary period with a fictional conflict between superpowers. At the time of Modern Warfare's release, Infinity Ward had more than 100 employees.

2010 employee firings and departures

Following the critical and financially successful release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in 2007, Jason West (president, co-CCO, and CTO) and Vince Zampella (CEO) began contract negotiations with Activision. They promised to deliver Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in 2009, but in exchange asked for extremely large bonuses and creative control of the Call of Duty series. Activision agreed, but added a clause to the contract that should they be fired, the rights to Call of Duty would fall back to Activision.

Following the execution of the contract in 2008, Activision began seeking ways to find reason to fire West and Zampella to trigger the new clause. This in turn led to West and Zampella look to means to make Infinity Ward a studio outside of Activision's control. Events came to a head in February 2010 when Activision hired a law firm to investigate Infinity Ward. On March 1, 2010, West and Zampella were released by Activision for "insubordination", forfeiting the bonuses they had negotiated. The pair went on to form Respawn Entertainment in April 2010 as an independent studio, through working closely with EA on a yet-announced project (revealed in 2013 as Titanfall). Several dozen of Infinity Ward's employees resigned in the following months, many taking up positions at Respawn.

West and Zampella had been replaced on an interim basis by Activision CTO Steve Pearce and head of production Steve Ackrich. By November 2010, Activision had installed new management at Infinity Ward, and Vivendi chairman and CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy stated that Infinity Ward "got over" its problems and are fully reconstructed and that Activision is very happy with the result. The executive went on to say that there will be three studios working on the Call of Duty franchise including the newly formed studio Sledgehammer Games.

Several lawsuits followed in the wake of West and Zampella's departure. The pair themselves initially filed suit against Activision shortly after their release to reclaim "substantial royalty payments" that Activision failed to pay them in the weeks leading up to their firing, estimated to be US$36 million; this figure eventually rose to over US$1 billion by May 2012, based on Activision's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Activision countersued the pair in April 2010, calling its actions to fire them justified and asserting the two were "self-serving schemers". Activision amended its suit in December 2010 to include EA as a defendant, stating that its competitor had worked with West and Zampella to "destabilize, disrupt and... destroy Infinity Ward", and sought US$400 million in damages. Separately, several former and current members of Infinity Ward under the name "Infinity Ward Employee Group" (IWEG) sued Activision for between US$75–125 million for unpaid bonuses for work on Modern Warfare 2 and an additional US$75–500 million in punitive damages. Ultimately by May 2012, Activision had settled with the IWEG for US$42 million, while private settlements were separately reached between Activision and EA, and between Activision, West and Zampella.

2012 departure of Robert Bowling

On March 27, 2012, Robert Bowling resigned as creative strategist of Call of Duty and a lead employee at Infinity Ward. In response, Activision issued a statement thanking Bowling for his service. When questioned about his department, Bowling responded "Too much 'pew pew' not enough new new". Signs of disagreement between Bowling and Infinity Ward arose in an interview in February 2012 when he stated: "I feel like we are in a fucking era where everyone is so focused on subscriber numbers and all that stuff that we need to get back to what I feel like we did so much better in the old days of just plain good will, like stuff like the LAN patch, yeah it is lower priority but let's get it out the fucking door. Let's just do it."

Neversoft merger and further expansion

In May 2014, Neversoft was merged with Infinity Ward to form a single 'super-studio' after both collaborated on the development of Call of Duty: Ghosts. Neversoft studio head Joel Jewett and studio director Scott Pease retired shortly after the completion of the merger. By March 2015, Infinity Ward had over 250 employees.

Infinity Ward used the id Tech 3 engine from Quake III Arena with Ritual Entertainment's ÜberTools enhancements for the first Call of Duty in 2003. For Call of Duty 2, Infinity Ward heavily modified the engine, featuring more powerful visuals and DirectX 9 support, and was known internally as the "IW" game engine. The version that was used for Call of Duty 2 was designated as IW 2.0. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare runs on a highly upgraded version of the engine from Call of Duty 2 called IW 3.0, with features that include true world-dynamic lighting, HDR lighting effects, dynamic shadows and depth of field. The Call of Duty: Black Ops sub-series and the James Bond video game Quantum of Solace were developed by Treyarch using modified versions of Infinity Ward's engine.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, uses an upgraded engine named IW 4.0, which is a generation more advanced than the engine used in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 uses the MW3 engine (IW 5.0), an improved version of IW 4.0. Improvements on the engine allow better streaming technology which allows larger regions for the game while running at a minimum of 60 frames per second, improvements to the audio of the engine have also been made.

Call of Duty: Ghosts features an upgraded next-generation version of the IW 5.0 seen in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 called IW 6.0. IW 6.0 is compatible with next-gen systems such as Xbox One and PlayStation 4 so polygon counts, texture detail and overall graphical fidelity has been increased. IW 6.0 is also compatible with Microsoft Windows, Wii U, PS3 and Xbox 360. The IW 6.0 engine features technology from Pixar, SubD, which increases the level of detail of models as one gets closer to them. Mark Rubin has said about the HDR lighting "We used to paint it in and cover up the cracks, but now it's all real-time". Call of Duty: Ghosts uses Iris Adjust tech which allows the player to experience from a person's point of view how their eyes would react to changes in lighting conditions realistically. Other features include new animation systems, fluid dynamics, interactive smoke, displacement mapping and dynamic multiplayer maps.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare's IW 7.0 features weightlessness system, game physics improvement, improved AI and improved non-player characters behaviors. Infinity Ward collaborated with Raven Software for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered using the then latest version of the engine in 2016.