12 Apr

While the legal conflict between Activision and two former senior employees of Infinity Ward rages on, Jason West and Vince Zampella have found a new studio under the name of Respawn Entertainment. West and Zampella are currently the only confirmed employees of Respawn Entertainment, and they fulfil the roles of President and General Manager respectively.

This news was announced earlier today by Electronic Arts, who also proudly stated that the company has acquired the exclusive publishing and distribution rights to all future games developed by Respawn Entertainment. Under the agreement with EA, the Respawn Entertainment leadership team remain owners of any intellectual property that is developed by the company. The specific terms of the agreement between Respawn and EA were not disclosed.

Last week, two other senior Infinity Ward employees left the organization as well. It is currently unclear if Todd Alderman (former Lead Designer) and Francesco Gigliotti (former Lead Software Engineer) will join the ranks of Respawn Entertainment.

Last month, West and Zampella were fired by Activision on charges of insubordination. This triggered a legal conflict between the parties, with the creative rights to future instalments in the Call of Duty-series in the post-Vietnam era amongst the stakes.

7 thoughts on “Former IW Heads Form New Studio, Exclusive Rights Go to EA”

  1. Well… who didn’t see this coming? I love the name and logo! Very fitting, haha. Look forward to seeing what they make.

    1. Yeah… that’s not really the logo 😉 Their site isn’t up yet, http://www.respawn.com. Figured I couldn’t go with the EA Banner, the Activision vs. Infinity Ward one, and I couldn’t find a decent picture of West & Zampella to make a new one… so I just put that up.

      Wouldn’t want people to get confused though, so I’ll try to find something else. Hang on :)

        1. I really liked it as well, though I would love to take credit for it, I must admit that I got it off the first page of Google Images 😉 That’s pretty much how I make all my images 😛

          Given the talent that this studio is going to attract, I’m pretty sure they’ll figure out an even awesomer logo though!

      1. HAHA! I think I’d do pretty well to; we have a bunch of recorded proof of me calling all kinds of unlikely stuff. Though admittedly anyone could have guessed this one.

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