Activision has handed out the bonuses owed to Jason West and Vince Zampella to the remaining members of the Infinity Ward studio, according to Activision blog writer Dan Amrich.
Amrich, a former games journalist who is now under the employ of Activision, created a discussion topic on Facebook for the group "Gamers against Bobby Kotick & Activision" and revealed in the discussion that the bonuses for the two former studio heads have been divided and distributed to the employees at IW that have remained with the company.
"Vince and Jason had very large bonuses; those bonuses are being redistributed to everybody else, to the people who did not allegedly attempt to steal company secrets," wrote Amrich. "Activision is not pocketing that bonus money; it’s still going to the people who work at IW. But you have to work at IW to get it, see?"
He also wrote on how he believes the departures at Infinity Ward are not over just yet.
More people will probably go too, looking for new situations," Amrich wrote. "Maybe they will join Respawn, maybe not. I’m confused, because by leaving, they are giving up their bonus — and the more people that leave, the bigger the bonus gets for the people who stay."
I’d think if you are young and hungry and have a vision for a new game, IW would be a really good place to be right now."
When discussing Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, Amrich wrote that he respected Kotick as "a businessman", but believes that he shouldn’t "shoot from the hip so often."
"I firmly do believe that a lot of what he has said has been willfully misinterpreted, but at the same time, he has to understand that the whole world is listening, not just the people in the banking community that happen to be in the room when he says stuff," he wrote. "So I would like to see him choose his words more carefully and give people another facet to his personality beyond just the businessman."
[Facebook]
