Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, used a financial conference call today to discuss the firing of Jason West and Vincent Zampella, saying he had no choice but to fire them.

“The decision to remove the Infinity ward executives was not taken lightly, and was not done to deprive them of their bonuses,” quotes Eurogamer. He goes on to say that he saw no other solution but to fire them: “Once you begin to understand what has occured, there was no grey area. There was no way to retain their services, as talented as they might have been.”

Kotick also mentions that he considered West & Zampella friends, and that their behavior was a betrayal of that friendship, and that he is upset about the all the people that have left Infinity Ward so far, but that he still has confidence in the remaining team, and the unannounced project they are working on. (My expert opinion: It will have either “Call”, “Duty” or both in the title.)

According to Cynical Smirk’s updated list, 39 out of 101 employees have left or been fired from Infinity Ward so far, and more are expected.

Blizzard have just dated their highly anticipated RTS, aiming for a summer release. Starcraft II: The Wings of Liberty will be released to the masses at July 27th. Blizzard is notorious for pushing releases back again and again until it’s completely polished, but they don’t often shy away once they have nailed a date down like this.

This is significantly ahead of the of the usual wave of releases that occurrs later in the year, and with good reason. StarCraft II is a release that’s banking almost 100% on the “hardcore” crowd, and much less on Best Buy customers needing a Christmas gift for their teenage son.

The “Wings of Liberty” subtitle means that this release has the Terran campaign, with campaigns for the other two races to come at an unknown later date, but I would estimate we wont see the next one for at least 2011. Don’t worry though, there is still a complete multiplayer component with all three races.

I have posted up my first impression of the multiplayer beta, and will continue to do so until the game comes out, and maybe even after.

Catch the press release after the cut.

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Blizzard has just released comprehensive details for the raid dungeon that will feature in World of Warcraft’s 3.3 content patch, Icecrown Citadel, which will see adventurers finally take the fight to the Lich King himself!

Check out the screenshots and full details below.

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I remember quite vividly when Guitar Hero first burst onto the scenes here in the UK. I’d never seen it before, and it was launching here sometime after it had already become hugely popular in the US – so I’d heard all about it on gaming message boards, with the US hardcore raving about the new, revolutionary rhythm game.

At first I found it fiendishly difficult, but after some time I’d worked my way up to hard and then even expert – and I was having amazing fun. I was in love from there, and I’ve been with the rhythm genre for many years since.

In recent years my allegiance has switched to EA, MTV and Harmonix’s Rock Band franchise – but perhaps a collection of the tracks I love most from the first three Guitar Hero titles is enough to draw me back?

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Modern Warfare 2 is shaping up to be both bigger and longer than its predecessor, Call of Duty 4. Though all Infinity Ward cares about is making the game the best game ever.

“It’s really hard to say, because it’s not done yet, it’s not balanced yet,” Infinity Ward’s Mark Rubin said at E3.

“We don’t go into it saying we need to build a 20-hour experience or a ten-hours experience. We say, ‘What’s the best fucking experience we can possibly deliver?’

Rubin added that the game’s levels will be “bigger”, but if that has to do with length of play of map size remains to be seen.

No matter how big it ends up actually being, it’ll still sell like proverbial hotcakes.

Activision has just dated the release of Guitar Hero 5 for September 1. This happened through the game’s official site.

This release date puts GH5 head-to-head with Harmonix’ The Beatles: Rock Band, which is being released on September 9. What will you drop your money on?

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This one is messy. Apparently, Valve recently filed a suit against Activision Blizzard, claiming it has failed to cut a check for $2,391,932 in unpaid royalties.

An agreement was reached by the two companies April 6 regarding the original dispute, and while the amount given was less than what Valve felt was due, both companies agreed to the final figure.

Activision now claims that Valve was overpaid $424,136 by the company over the years, and cut the firm a check for $1,967,796 instead of the amount agreed upon.

Valve claims that since the firm failed to bring this information up, Activision is now in direct violation of the legal order and are taking them back to court. And now, Activision has refused to pay the extra amount and said that if brought back into court, it will countersue.

Read the rest on GamePolitics, and let us know then the headaches start incoming from trying to wrap your head around this industry politics.

Here it is people, the hotly anticipated World of Warcraft 3.1 patch has finally gone live after months of testing! With it comes numerous content additions, including Dual Specs, the new Ulduar raid, and Argent Tournament, and the usually spread of class changes that come with every major patch.

Check out the trailer below to catch up on the story so far in the World of Warcraft, then hit the Read More link for the official patch notes. Warning, they’re long!

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Esteemed World of Warcraft blogger Daniel “BigRedKitty” Howell announced on his blog today his intentions to finally break away from World of Warcraft. He is taking time away from the game and his famous blog to, in his own words “rededicate [himself] to [his] family.”

As a World of Warcraft fan who also played Dan’s favourite class, the Hunter, I wish him the best for the future. His contribution to the game and the fans over the years has been the stuff of geeky legends, and his humorous and unique presentation style was truly distinctive.

Exploring the many corners of Azeroth is an experience that over 12 million of us find engrossing and entertaining. It’s a game so vast in its popularity and reach that it’s become a culture of its own.

But Dan’s words are honest ones that everyone should consider; if that balance of responsible and fun (and this goes for more than just WoW) ever gets thrown off balance, it’s time to take a step back and focus on the things that matter.

Good luck BRK.

As completely unexpected as it is that an important company employee would say that their own game is looking good, Thomas Tippl, CFO of Activision, has gone and done it anyway. He says that the sequel to the painfully good and popular Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare ‘looks incredible’.

Speaking at the Wedbush Morgan Securities annual meeting, he said “Last year we had probably beaten most expert expectations by growing the Call of Duty franchise over the tremendous success that was the first iteration of Modern Warfare,”

“For 2009, Modern Warfare is coming back, we expect it will be the most anticipated game of the year. Perhaps the number one game of the year despite the fact that it’s only going to launch in the holiday season.

“There is no doubt in my mind that it will again raise the bar for the shooter genre.The game is looking incredible and Infinity Ward, the studio that is developing it, is just doing an unbelievable job.”

There you have it, the Activision employee, who we assume is totally ctrustworthy, says that Modern Warfare looks incredible. Go figure.

Talking to Reuters recently, Activision boss Bobby Kotick discussed his belief that that the global economic situations means that console-maker need to get their prices down if they want to see stronger hardware sales.

“The price on platforms today has still not gotten down to mass-market price points and I think when you’re in the economic circumstances that the world has found itself in, there really is a difference between a $199 game system and a $299 game system,” he said.

“We’re just scratching the surface of opportunity as a publisher in Europe. There’s a lot more that we can do,” he said.

A valid point? Most definitely. Cheaper prices can only push more units. Ac

Recent decisions by the Australian classification boards has degreed that, until they receive an age rating from the board itself, the majority of MMOs available to buy in the country can’t be legally sold.

Up until now, MMO were exempt from requiring a legal age rating due to their lack of single-player content, but the law has since changed to include multilayer only titles.

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Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard has confirmed their latest rhythm game in development.
Called DJ Hero, it will ship with a plastic deck, and is due for release later this year.

“We have this product called DJ Hero coming out later this year, which is a turntable that you actually can play competitively and spin discs and mix songs,” said Kotick in this video.

Nothing was said about formats, but we’ll keep you posted.

The World of Warcraft 3.0.8 patch went live today; the first major game patch since Wrath of the Lich King back in November. The main focus of the patch is class balancing (read: nerfing) and major bug fixes.

You’ll have to wait until 3.1 if you want the good stuff.

If you enjoy reading pages and pages of WoW lingo, or love analysing every single change in the game, hit the jump for the full list of patch notes.

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The worlds most popular MMO, World of Warcraft has now reached a userbase of 11.5 million says Blizzard, sale of the game have been fuelled by the new Wrath of The Lich King release, which shifted over 4million copies in it’s first month.

“We’re pleased to welcome the new and returning players who have helped World of Warcraft reach these new milestones, and we appreciate the enthusiasm and support that the game’s global community has continued to show,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard.

Only two months ago, Blizzard was saying that there was a fanbase of  11 million, 500,000 new people have subscribed.

Soon everyone will be playing the game.