As anyone who follows my Twitter is aware, I spent the better part of Monday night (Tuesday morning on the East Coast) calling everyone I knew who was associated with Activision. Most of them didn’t tell me much of anything. To those people, I apologize for continuously bugging you at all hours of the night. However a few people were willing to give me some information on what was going on at Infinity Ward so long as they were anonymous.

First, the backstory: For those of you who aren’t yet aware, Activision locked down the Infinity Ward offices after a meeting with (former) Infinity Ward bosses Jason West and Vince Zampella. When the story first broke nobody had any Earthly clue why Activision would shitcan the studio co-founders and lock the Infinity Ward offices down like they were trying to quarantine a zombie outbreak, but after several hours of arm twisting I’ve been able to get a few nuggets of information. Note that this is what I have been told by those close to the situation and in no way is meant to be presented as 100% cold hard fact.

1.) Infinity Ward has yet to be paid a single dime in royalties for Modern Warfare 2, which has earned Activision over one billion dollars in revenue. (NOTE: To clarify, everyone who spoke with me mentioned this. Whether or not IW and Activision had an agreement in place for royalty payments is unknown at this time. It’s just curious that everyone brought this up.)

2.) It’s (fairly) common knowledge that Infinity Ward is not owned by Activision, but is under contract with the publisher. (E That was a misunderstanding, on my end, of a statement made to me. I apologize for any confusion.) This Their current contractual obligation expires in October, which could explain why Activision has (allegedly) been looking to dump Modern Warfare 3 off to another developer. The probem with this is that Infinity Ward still technically owns the rights to the Call of Duty franchise (at least partially). Some people close to the situation see Activision’s current actions as a power play to try and bully Infinity Ward into either staying with Activision in one capacity or another (buyout or contract extension) or to at least acquire the Call of Duty name.

(ED NOTE: If the above paragraph makes zero sense, I apologize. It was 4am EDT, I was writing short-hand and half of what was being told went way over my head. The short of it: There’s a contract in place regarding Infinity Ward’s principals that expires in October. Basically IW, while technically owned by Activision, is autonomous in the same way Blizzard is. That’s what the “contract” talk is about. Again, sorry for any confusion.)

3.) Theoretically speaking, after Infinity Ward’s contract expires in October the company is free to rehire both West and Zampella.

But the most interesting fact…

4.) SEC paperwork filed by Activision claims that there were “breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward.” According to a source inside Activision, it is believed that Infinity Ward may have been in discussion with a “rival publisher” about signing a similar publishing agreement that IW currently has with Activision.

When pushed for more specific details, all they would assure me is that it was NOT believed to be Electronic Arts. Whether or not there is any merit to this belief is anyone’s guess.

More information is expected to come out throughout the day as Activision has a lot of explaining to do. We will continue to keep you updated on this increasingly bizarre story, whether news breaks here or elsewhere. Also keep tabs on G4’s Patrick Klepek, who has done a phenomenal job staying on top of the situation.

Activision is dumb. LOL Why would they do this to IW when IMO they made Activision shoot up there. Its nonsense and I doubt IW will re-sign with activision.