Kotick: Infinity Ward founders may never be 'productive or successful' again, feelings are hurt

In an interview withEDGE, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick opened his heart and spoke about the debacle which led to the termination of Infinity Ward founders Vince Zampella and Jason West. According to Kotick, he felt "betrayed," and the duowere just like, so uncool about everything thathe doesn't even want to befriends anymore.

"It shook my belief in two specific people, who were my friends," he said. "The frustrating thing about that is, the stuff that these guys did, I never would have expected them to do. We're a public company, we've got ethics obligations, and the things they did were... I would go to jail if I did them.

"You can't use the company and the company's assets for your own personal benefit, and you can't use the leverage that you might have for personal benefit - you're not allowed to do that! And so we didn't have any choice."

Kotick did not detail the "stuff" they did, but reports are that it was "all just like, you know," and "really, I mean, why would you even do that?"

Since the falling-out, a large portion of Infinity Ward hasjoined the duo at a new, EA-backed studio called Respawn Entertainment - Kotick was prepared for this.But will these allegedly dishonest, unethical, and practically criminal developers ever hitgold again,like they did with the Medal of Honor and CoD series? Tell 'em, Kotick:

"That's one of those really difficult decisions as the CEO of a company, where you step back and say, 'No good is going to come of this. They're going to leave and probably have a really hard time ever being productive or successful ever again, and we're going to lose some talented people, and there's nothing we can do about it.' And there wasn't."

Willing to bet on it?

[Source:CVG]

Sep 27, 2010