Activision fire people who made them $1 Billion...
 

Oh.. and apparently suing them for "insubordination" and "breach of contract"

UPDATE: Security Appears At Infinity Ward, Studio Heads Missing, Activision Investigating "Insubordination" - G4tv.com

Bobby Kotick is Video Game Satan

Damn.

Although the G4 comments had a great post

I bet Vince Russo is behind this.
Google it.

Dola

Pretty good quote in the update too

UPDATE 12:02 AM: Double Fine's Tim Schafer, who had his own troubles with Activision over the release of Brutal Legend recently commented on Twitter about what's happening between Infinity Ward and Activision.

"Getting mad at Activision for this kind of thing is like getting mad at an ape for throwing feces," said Schafer. "It's just how the beast communicates."

Hrm.. lordscarlet is friends with a guy that works at Infinity Ward ...

Time to do some digging...

Since IW and another company Treyarch alternate development of titles in the series, speculation on various message boards is that IW was essentially not playing nice with franchise assets when directed to share them with Treyarch.

EDIT: Qt3 forums are wondering if this is just a play from Activision to flex power over IW - fire upper management and make the team so scared that the studio is going to be closed that they work their asses off rather than thinking of themselves as valued assets. This apparently dovetails nicely with Activision head Bobby Kotick's stated goal of creating a corporate culture of "skepticism, pessimism, and fear". (That sounded like a joke when it was reported. Then you look at the rest of the shit this guy spews.)

I'm more annoyed by Activision sending a cease and desist to the fan group that has been working on an unofficial King's Quest sequel with Vivendi's permission for years now.

I'm sure Activision has loads of plans for going after the cash cow that is classic Adventure games.

Kotick is a moron, an example of the type of 'leader' I hate. Still, most of gaming industry seems to be small studios innovate, they get bought by a giant firm that sucks out their soul (and most of the profits from the releases), the franchise gets run into the ground by bad decision after another, the small studio is 'fired for incompetence', and the cycle starts anew with some other small company that came up with something clever.

Hmm...

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/108/1083234p1.html

The guy this article is about is the guy that lordscarlet is friends with.

Does Activision own the rights to the old Sierra games?

Yes, they own Sierra... acquired as part of the Activision merger with Vivendi Universal (boo, two companies I generally despise, killing off an old developer that made a few great games).