10 Video Games Probably Made Out Of Spite
7. Call Of Duty
Nobody could've ever predicted the unprecedented success of the Call of Duty franchise, which before becoming an unstoppable commercial juggernaut with 2007's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, staked its claim as a more modest competitor to the popular Medal of Honour series.
The original 2003 game was created by new studio Infinity Ward, after co-founder Vince Zampella had worked at 2015, Inc. as co-designer of the universally-acclaimed Medal of Honor: Allied Assault.
With EA trying to absorb 2015, Inc. into EA so that the next game could be developed in-house, Zampella and co-designer Jason West both decided to leave the studio and form their own outfit, Infinity Ward.
Ultimately all 22 original members of Infinity Ward were brought over from the Allied Assault team at 2015 and helped create Call of Duty, which in addition to being a bit of a "f**k you" to EA, in Zampella's own words, was also internally called "the MOH Killer."
As we all know, Call of Duty's surging popularity caused Medal of Honor's decline in the years that followed, and though West and Zampella enjoyed enormous success publishing their new franchise under Activision, that relationship also had its limitations...