Why do I love history?  People change.  Human nature does not.

Activision was founded in 1979 when Atari programmers split from Atari, a company whose then-monopoly on Atari 2600 development was used to marginalize employees and promote the brand.  In 2002, twenty-two employees broke from 2015 Inc. (rumored the end-result of disagreements with publisher Electronic Arts) to form Infinity Ward.  Five years later, now-mega-corporate publisher Activision rejected Harmonix’s request to follow Guitar Hero with a band-oriented rhythm game. It culminated in a takeover that placed development under Neversoft.  And under Activision’s orders, the company behind the sequel-scarred Tony Hawk series proceeded to saturate and destroy the rhythm game market.

And after the public receives two contractually-obligated map packs for Modern Warfare 2, you can lay the roses on Infinity Ward’s relationship with Activision.  Kaputt.  Done.

We may not have all the information behind the tense situation between Activision and Infinity Ward, but we do have a conclusion: Activision has announced that the series will now be in the hands of Sledgehammer Games, a studio founded last year by veterans from Electronic Arts. Specifically, Sledgehammer is the brainchild of Glen A. Schofield and Michael Condrey, the head honchos on Dead Space.

It’s as fascinating as it is surreal: A developer founded by those who severed ties with Electronic Arts’ corporate culture has been detached from their child by a corporate culture founded by people attempting to escape a corporate culture.

This course of clusterfucks is currently sketchy, featuring the understatement of the year in “creative differences“, a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that’s probably foreshadowing a trip to Lawsuitville, and a physical response typically reserved for coming down on enemies of the state.  What we do know is that Call of Duty now falls on Treyarch and newly-founded Sledgehammer games, the latter slated to go action-adventure on the franchise in 2011 (presumably to fill Modern Warfare 3’s void).

In November, I said IWNet could be a turning point in game development history, a step in consolidating control over the product.  That assumed Infinity Ward’s talents would be leveraged against consumers looking to fight the power.  After Modern Warfare 2’s release, I stated Activision was prime to burn, a company totally behest to billion-dollar name power.  And even that assumed Infinity Ward would continue as the class of American game development, a company talented enough to stave off outside influence.

Almost fittingly, Activision-Blizzard released their annual fiscal report yesterday.  Three games accounted for sixty-eight percent of their 2009 revenues: The now-irrelevant Guitar Hero, the World of Warcraft whose user base has peaked, and the Call of Duty now separated from the developer responsible for the success.

So now, there’s only question left to ask: Does Blizzard have an opt-out on the ticking time bomb they’ve partnered with?  Bobby Kotick and Activision officially fail to recognize how video games work.  Guitar Hero III was the best selling game in the series because Neversoft was living on the moxy of Harmonix’s accomplishments.  Medal of Honor: Frontline blew up the sales charts because 2015 Inc. convinced people Medal of Honor was worth their time.  Chinese workshops molding established franchises do not win championships.  Talented development teams do.

UPDATE: As rumored, it’s about unpaid royalties.  Infinity Ward’s looking for their cash and the rights to the Modern Warfare property.  In other words, Kobe Bryant just got cut from the Lakers and is now dedicating the rest of his career to making sure that Los Angeles doesn’t win another title on his watch.

Know when you were a kid and your cat died?  And mom explained it went to kitty heaven, where the biggest, most awesomest scratching post awaits?  That’s the game industry.  In a world where The Dark Knight wins fans with anti-heroes and morality redefined, Starcraft II won’t have LAN functionality because Battle.net is so amazing, you wouldn’t want to play the game offline!!1

In a world where the average gamer is 29, your overlords treat you like children.  That’s why I waited to judge the Modern Warfare 2 clusterfuck.  Now I can judge.

On November 3rd, Best Buy hosted a question-and-answer developer chat.  It only took a few thousand keystrokes for Infinity Ward to bury a platform and the consumers that made Call of Duty the biggest gaming event of the year.

Modern Warfare 2 would be capped to nine-versus-nine matches, a pleasant surprise for 100-plus-player clans that rely on sixty-four-player dedicated servers.  The InfinityWard.net matchmaking model uses player hosting, presumably granting hosts a significant latency advantage.  The game will not feature a console (programming prompt) because the company “would like you to play the game the way [they] designed and balanced it.”  The ability to lean, once a critical gameplay tactic, won’t be included because “the game is not balanced for lean.”  There will be no ability to record replays, likely cut in favor of the console development cycle.

And that 196,000-signature petition?  According to an Infinity Ward rep, Robert Bowling (the company’s community manager) signed it four times, so who gives a shit what you think?

The people who work for Infinity Ward (or those who tell them what to say) bought their own Kool-Aid.  Modern Warfare was the epic, fuckstaining, Halo-killing, babypunching opus for video game gun fetishists.  They thought PC gamers would throw up their arms and play it anyway.  No lean?  You’ll get used to it.  No server model?  Look at the pretty matchmaking system!  No console?  It’ll be fine.

And then you look at X-Fire’s daily stats, where 2005’s Call of Duty 2 fights it out with 2007’s Modern Warfare while 2008’s World at War barely registers.  (Yes, I am aware Treyarch developed World at War.)  But I guess if Infinity Ward is to abandon the platform that made them famous, we can at least thank you for the previous installments.  Your once-benevolent fan base will play those instead.

Note: Edited for general flow.  Thanks, Littlesaltz.