The biggest news this week has been the trouble between Activision and Infinity Ward. People have been fired, lawsuits have been brought and it’s generally just an ugly mess. But one of the commonest things I’ve heard is that this is some nefarious scheme on Activision’s part, orchestrated by the Grand High Wizard Bobby Kotick.

I have just one thing to say to that: Nonsense.

Gaming is a business, and Activision is pretty much the biggest fish in the pond.  One does not get that big by being stupid, so for Activision to risk so much negative publicity – and there’s no way it didn’t foresee the outcry from gamers – there must be a pretty good reason for its actions.  Given how much money Modern Warfare 2 must have just made for Activision, firing the studios heads so you don’t have to pay them does not sound like a smart business move, and moreover, doesn’t really make a lot of sense in the long term, but gamers are so quick to assume that Activision is the bad guy, that it doesn’t enter their heads for a second that it might be in the right this time.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not especially keen on Activision’s business model, and I wish it approached game-making with a little more care for the art of it, but the fact that the company wants to make money does not automatically mean that everything it does is an act of moustache twirling villainy. It may transpire that Activision is indeed the bad guy in this picture and that Zampella and West are – as they assert – owed millions of dollars, but personally, I’d like to know all the facts before I jump to conclusions.

EDIT: It occurs to me that I don’t really care all that much who screwed over who; I don’t buy many Activision games and I buy even fewer Infinity Ward games, I’m just very bored of gamers who refuse to see the gaming industry for what it is, an industry. This whole fight is about a multi-million dollar company, and the multi-billion dollar company that technically owns them.  We’re not talking about some guys in their bedroom and the Evil Corp, and I wish gamers would stop treating it we are.