Respawn: Developer's love of IP "critical for success"

Ex-Infinity Ward developers Jason West and Vince Zampella have said that for a game to be a real success it's crucial that the development team behind the title loves the project it's working on.

The comments come as the pair revealed today a new studio, Respawn Entertainment, which has inked a distribution and marketing deal with EA Partners for its first and future games.

West and Zampella were sacked from Activision's Infinity Ward team last month, and are engaged in a bitter legal dispute with their former employers, a row that centers on creative ownership of games and the leadership of the talent that produced the $3 billion Call of Duty franchise.

"At Respawn we believe that the more invested the team are and the more ownership they have over [IP] the more dedicated they are to it," said Zampella in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

"When you let the team control the brand they love the game shines through and the fans can see it, so we think it's critical for success," added West.

EA Partners is funding the start-up, and although the pair are cagey on exactly how large they would like the team to be, they hope Respawn can handle the development of the biggest of blockbuster games.

"It's too early to pick that now, we don't know what the project is that we're going to work on yet," offered Zampella. "The goal is to hire a core team, figure out what we want to do, what the project will be and go from there."

"This is a reset from us, building everything from scratch from the ground up," added West. "For us it's about putting in place the best process, the best teams, getting the best technology and doing the right thing."

Keen to get back to the business of creating games, West and Zampella claim they haven't finalised Respawn's first project, but they do hope that they can engage and incorporate the community as soon as possible.

"We want to involve the community as early as possible so as soon as we get the team together and we have ideas we want to start to see what the gaming community would like to see us do," detailed West. "We know the fan community wants new and fresh experiences, they don't want retreads."

While Respawn gathers a team, EA Partners has said that it's happy to provide a haven for the West and Zampella to work. And when the time is right, it will use its distribution and local knowledge to help market the games to the dedicated fans.

"We were just trying to provide some level of sanctuary for these guys so they could get back to doing what they love the most, which is making the games," offered EA Partners general manager David DeMartini.

"We've got a fantastic team worldwide that does a great job of promoting titles once the idea has been formulated. We'll take that on as it comes, we've got a long track record of a huge amount of success and pushing great games out. The core of all of these things is that it all starts with a great game and a great entertainment experience that delights people. That's what these guys specialise in and that's what we expect out of the partnership."

The full interview with West, Zampella and DeMartini, can be read here.