Source: Infinity Ward secures Call of Duty developer rights

By Jack Loftus
April 22, 2008 08:03 AM PST
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The death of Activision Underground and the success of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare means Infinity Ward now has exclusive rights to develop the franchise.

Target acquired

UPDATE : Activision fired off a strongly worded denial to Next Generation this morning, saying the info reported below is "erroneous information regarding the CoD franchise." I guess we'll see what happens come time for CoD6 and any CoD spin-offs?

Next Generation is reporting this morning that after a restructuring at Activision, and the insane success of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, developer Infinity Ward has secured sole development rights to the CoD franchise.

Next-Gen learned the news from an ex-Activision Underground employee, who said that Infinity Ward, the developer of CoD4, had recently renegotiated its contract with Activision so that that studio--not Treyarch--would be the sole developer of the popular series.

In 2006, Activision gave Treyarch, an internal studio, the responsibility to develop CoD3 as part of a strategy to maximize its returns on the series. The relationship with both studios meant a CoD game could be released every year.

As Next Generation notes, however, the Infinity Ward win meant someone had to lose, and it wasn't necessarily Treyarch (the studio will still be developing CoD5).

The recently disbanded Activision Underground studio was rumored to be working on a 3rd-person CoD title, but with exclusive rights going to Infinity Ward, that title was likely cut, leaving Underground with no significant titles in development. Hence, the axe.

Activision and Infinity Ward both declined to comment on either news item.

If anyone still thinks game development is easy, consider this story. Not only is the stress of coding, art design and all that a considerable challenge, but in today's cutthroat world you also have to be wary of the business end of things too. That it came from within, as was the case with Activision, Underground and Infinity Ward, should show you just how competitive things can get in this biz.