10 Video Game Studios Probably Founded Out Of Spite
1. Respawn Entertainment
All good stories come to an end, and some do so in explosive fashion.
Following the success of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Infinity Ward devs Vince Zampella and Jason West requested a renegotiation in terms with Activision. Aside from some bigger bonuses, they also wanted creative control of the Call of Duty series.
Their bosses signed off on this on the condition that if the two were fired then ownership would revert back to Activision. How they didn’t see this all coming with an agreement like that, we’ll never know.
The partnership exploded in 2010. West and Zampella have said that the company tried their best to make excuses to fire them over that time, one of which included accusing them of conspiring with industry rivals and previous employers Electronic Arts. There were legal battles that were ultimately settled out of court.
The two developers went on to found Respawn Entertainment pretty soon after. 48 members of the Infinity Ward team were either also terminated or resigned following the controversy, 36 of which joined their old colleagues at Respawn.
In June 2013 the team revealed their new IP Titanfall. In the company’s first decade they have worked on original property, within the Star Wars universe and - ironically - developed 2020’s Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond. Because time is just a flat circle.