After the president and co-founder of Call of Duty’s development studio were fired yesterday, Activision has created a new business unit to handle the hotly successful first-person shooter franchise.
Earlier this week, Activision decided to kick out two of the top officers at Infinity Ward, president Jason West and CEO Vince Zampella. The news hit the Internet yesterday, as there was an SEC filing against the Infinity Ward bosses for “contract breaches” and “insubordination”. Hours later, Activision sent out a press release confirming that the individuals were no longer employed at Activision.
In the same release, the publisher said it decided to create a dedicated business unit for Call of Duty to “bring together [Activision’s] various new brand initiatives with focused, dedicated resources around the world.”
The new unit will reportedly ensure that one new Call of Duty title is released every year. Future titles will be created by the newly-formed Sledgehammer Games studio.
The Call of Duty franchise is one of the most profitable in the industry. The most recent installment, Modern Warfare 2, sold six million units in its launch month last November, outselling all of the other top-10 games that month, combined.
