Infinity Ward

 is a video game developer founded by former employees of 2015 Incorporated in Encino, California that founded and developed many of the games in the Call of Duty series. Activision has owned Infinity Ward since 2003. Infinity Ward originally consisted of members of 2015 Inc., which developed Medal of Honor: Allied Assault.

Reception
Infinity Ward's first game, Call of Duty, won over 80 Game of the Year awards and 47 Editor's Choice Awards. The sequel, Call of Duty 2 for the Xbox 360 and PC, sold more than one million copies in the United States of America alone and was the first Xbox 360 game to sell 1 million copies in the United States, making it the best selling Xbox 360 game until Gears of War. Call of Duty 3 was not made by Infinity Ward and did not fare nearly as well as the previous two. Infinity Ward released Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare with huge success, selling over 11 million copies, and was hailed as one of the best games of the year receiving many 10/10 awards like its predecessor Call of Duty 2. Call of Duty: World at War, again, was not produced by Infinity Ward. The third most recent Infinity Ward installment, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, was a bigger hit, despite having some controversial material such as "No Russian". Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 broke the record for the fastest time to gather US$1 billion in revenue, at 16 days, beating Avatar, which earned US$1 billion in 17 days. In just the first 5 days of Modern Warfare 3's release, it grossed over US$775 million globally.

Lawsuit
Two former employees of Infinity Ward, Jason West and Vince Zampella were locked up in a lawsuit with Activision over unsettled royalties, which they did not receive for the sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Activision is also suing West and Zampella along with Electronic Arts for $400 million, for certain conspiracies which aimed to detriment Modern Warfare 2. West and Zampella are accused of helping EA with the development of rival game Battlefield: Bad Company 2, which would be a breach of their contracts with Activision. Recently, West and Zampella have added fraud charges against Activision in their counterlawsuit. As of June 2012, Activision settled all lawsuits involving former IW developers including West & Zampella.

After the disputes, a significant amount of employees left Infinity Ward, with some consequently joining, a game company created by West and Zampella.

Controversy

 * For more information, see Wikipedia's article on the controversies surrounding Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Infinity Ward was the focus of much controversy before Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was officially released, when a video showing the mission "No Russian" was released in which the player has the option to kill civilians as an undercover CIA agent posing as a terrorist. The player was, however, given an option to skip the level without being penalized in any term of progress or achievements/trophies.

Infinity Ward was also criticized for certain decisions announced further before the game was leaked, when it was revealed that they had removed support for dedicated servers for the PC version of the game, instead opting to use a matchmaking system similar to the console versions of the games, known as IWNet. This denied PC gamers from being able to mod the game easily, as well as limiting the amount of players in a match. It was also revealed that the developer console and leaning had also been removed.

A user on the Infinity Ward forums discovered that when one attempted to write the words "cunt" or "bitch", it would be censored and replaced with the word "girl", drawing complaints from gamers that this was "sexist". Robert Bowling, Infinity Ward's creative strategist, described it as a "word censor fail", and corrected the mistake the very next day.

Infinity Ward was also accused of being homophobic, when a viral video about grenade spamming in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was uploaded on YouTube. The video called grenade spammers "pussies" and urged players to "Fight Against Grenade Spam", the acronym being "F.A.G.S.".

Major employees

 * Steve Ackrich - Studio Head
 * Mark Rubin - Executive Producer
 * Tina Palacios - Senior Community Manager
 * Candice Capen - Community Coordinator
 * Richard Kriegler - Art Director
 * Julian Luo - Lead Designer
 * Jordan Hirsh - Lead Designer
 * Keith "Ned" Bell - Designer
 * Robert Field - Lead Engineer
 * Simon Cournoyer - Lead Engineer
 * Jeremy Luyties - Senior Designer
 * Mike Denny - Senior Designer
 * Nathan Silvers - Designer
 * Jeff Heath - Environment Artist
 * Jeff Zaring - Senior Designer
 * John Sahas - Senior Designer
 * John Dobbie - Senior Environment Artist
 * Velinda Pelayo - Senior Environment Artist
 * Zach Volker - Lead Animator
 * Jolyon Myers - Senior Designer
 * John Harries - Senior Engineer



Former employees

 * Alexander Roycewicz- Level Designer
 * Andy Dohr - Associate Producer
 * Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling - Creative Strategist
 * Brad Allen - Senior Artist, Concept Artist
 * Brent McLeod - Designer
 * Bruce Ferriz - Animator
 * Carly Gillis - Executive assistant
 * Chad Grenier - Designer
 * Chad Barb - Programmer
 * Charlie Wiederhold - Designer
 * Chris Lambert - Engineer
 * Christopher Cherubini - Lead Artist
 * Christopher Dionne - Designer
 * Drew McCoy - Systems Administrator
 * Earl Hammon - Lead Software Engineer
 * Eric Pierce - Lead Technical Animator/Artist
 * Francesco Gigliotti - Lead Software Engineer
 * Geoffrey Smith - Designer
 * Grant Collier - President of Infinity Ward
 * Jake Keating - Designer
 * Jason McCord - Designer
 * Jason West - CTO of Infinity Ward
 * Jiesang Song - Engineer
 * Joel Emslie - Lead Artist, Concept Artist
 * Joel Gompert - Engineer
 * John Haggerty - Engineer
 * Jon Shiring - Programmer
 * Kristin Christopher - Human Resources/Recruitment
 * Mackey McCandlish - Lead Designer
 * Mario Perez - Motion Capture Artist
 * Mark Grigsby - Lead Animator, voiced SSgt. Griggs (Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare)
 * Mike Seal - Quality Assurance Manager
 * Mohammad Alavi - Designer
 * Paul Messerly - Lead Animator
 * Preston Glenn - Designer
 * Rayme C. Vinson - Engineer
 * Robert Gaines - Lead Visual FX Artist
 * Roger Abrahamsson - Designer
 * Ryan Lastimosa - Artist (Specialized in Weapons)
 * Sean Slayback - Designer
 * Steve Fukuda - Lead Designer, Writer, Additional Writer and Additional Voice Director
 * Todd Alderman - Lead Designer
 * Vince Zampella - CEO of Infinity Ward
 * Zied Rieke - Level Designer

Games made

 * Call of Duty
 * Call of Duty 2
 * Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (ported by Treyarch on Wii with the name Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Reflex Edition)
 * Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
 * Call of Duty: Classic
 * Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
 * Call of Duty: Ghosts

Trivia

 * In their games, most of the American characters' names are named after Infinity Ward staff. Also, many signs and buildings can have the names of employees on them as well.
 * The Infinity Ward logo is an obtainable emblem for the player's multiplayer callsign in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.
 * Every main series installment of Call of Duty game developed by Infinity Ward to date has had a Captain Price in it in some form.
 * Price appears in Call of Duty: Ghosts as a DLC skin for Multiplayer.
 * Call of Duty: Ghosts is the only Infinity Ward game with Price in it to not appear in the game's Single Player campaign.