EA Games president Frank Gibeau claims that the company’s deal with Respawn — you know, the hot new company started by former Infinity Ward creators — is a happy little coincidence that’s a result of fortuitous timing. As many of you know, one of the alleged reasons behind Activision’s termination of Jason West and Vince Zampella was that the pair met with EA behind ATVI’s back. That makes the EA/Respawn deal seem awfully…convenient. Gibeau told Gamasutra that it’s all on the up and up:
[The Respawn deal] was something that fell into our laps, after they were terminated and announced they were free and independent, and we went for it. The fact that those guys are doing what they’re doing, we’re very excited.
The fact that we were able to take advantage of an opportunity that came our way and partner with Respawn and create a relationship with them has been spectacular, something that we’re very excited about. It’s a key part of how we’re growing our EA Partners business going forward.
Although I have no proof, I’m not buying Gibeau’s explanation. Perhaps I’m being too cynical and maybe I’m buying into the rumor mill, but I’ve heard too many things from too many smart people to believe that this deal was something that just fell into EA’s lap. Again, that’s just my opinion.
What do you think? Was this deal in the works for months? Or was it all happenstance?
Well, aside from me being a conspiracy nut; YES! It was pre-planned. Duh.
-M
Yeah, they probably negotiated better terms for their IPs. I have to think that devs care about their content and quality where as Kotick only wants half ass sequels put out every year.
Kotick "How long is that game?"
Dev "About 15 hours, we put what we feel is a great story in there"
Kotick "Put the first 4 hours together and prep the 5th hour for expensive DLC"
Dev "?"
Kotick "People are stupid and I take advantage of it. Now we already have the next two sequels ready!!"
@Smartguy
Kotick is fuming in his office right now wondering how the hell you got the transcript from his last meeting…
I think Activision is using EA as a scapegoat for the firings. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't IW get a new IP as part of their contract when ActivisionBlizzard merged? The lawsuits thus far have focused on IW not moving forth with MW3 and even the IW employees have stated prior to all this that they didn't know if they would make MW3 next. This may mean that IW wanted to cash in on their new IP as stated in their new contract and Activision said no. I don't think IW listened and Activision canned them under the very convenient ruse that they were conspiring with their rival EA. EA of course said hell yeah we want you guys back and started making offers as soon as they were fired. (Wouldn't you jump on that opportunity if you were them?)
@Ray
I didn't see this article till this morning, otherwise I'd have left that here yesterday and/or explained myself better last night.