Créer (et détruire) la plus grosse licence d'Occident

Rare, a small team of English developers isolated in the countryside, rebuilt a dev kit without Nintendo's permission by disassembling and studying the NES until they understood how it worked.

The studio developed a test game for NES and flew to Kyoto to show their work to Nintendo, who discovered it was 100% illegal but technically impressive.

Nintendo decided to trust Rare despite the illegality, marking the beginning of a special relationship between the Western studio and the Japanese publisher.

• Donkey Country on Super NES, one of the best-selling platformers of all time. • GoldenEye 007 on Nintendo 64, which revolutionized the FPS on console.

Martin Hollis, a young Rare employee, convinced his bosses to make an FPS on Nintendo 64 instead of a James Bond platformer, inspired by the success of id Software's Doom.

• Creation of a dual-controller setup to use two joysticks simultaneously. • Revolutionary gameplay design focused on immersion rather than mouse-driven twitchiness.

Shiny bullets, detailed sound effects, exaggerated cinematic enemies, levels based on James Bond films rather than monotonous brown corridors.

GoldenEye sold millions and became the best-selling game in Nintendo 64 history, bringing the FPS to the mainstream console audience.

Steven Spielberg, watching his son Max play GoldenEye, recognized the immersion and cinematic potential of the modern FPS and decided to create a World War II war game.

Dreamworks Interactive, Spielberg's video game division, developed Medal of Honor as an adaptation of his film Saving Private Ryan, with cinematographic orchestration inspired by John Williams.

The opening mission features an allied character named Jacques who dies in an explosion, creating one of the first truly memorable cinematic moments in video games for players.

Medal of Honor validated the market for realistic war FPS games and became the ancestor of all realistic war games in the years that followed.

id Software, refusing to develop Medal of Honor for PC, recommends EA to the small studio 2015 Inc lost in Oklahoma, ignored by everyone and with no reputation.

• Despite a minimal budget, 2015 demonstrates remarkable cinematic mastery. • Innovations like smooth camera transitions, scene transitions, managing environments with limited resources.

The game destroys all existing competitors with its aggressive tutorial, spectacular vehicle missions, sniper sections, and continuous narrative immersion.

EA takes the success and the developers from 2015, abandoning the original studio while keeping the creators to develop sequels, despite 2015's complete dominance over the series.

Bobby Kotick and Activision recruit the 2015 team to create Call of Duty, offering real opportunity and resources to these talented developers ignored by the rest of the world.

The studio co-founded with Activision and led by Jason West and Vince Zampella quickly becomes the flagship of the new franchise, determined to eclipse Medal of Honor.

Call of Duty 1 surpasses Medal of Honor Rising Sun in reviews and sales, establishing Infinity Ward's staging superiority and relegating the Dreamworks series to obsolescence.

The studio understands that staging is all the more impactful when the player feels at the center of events, using this philosophy to create unforgettable moments.

Microsoft asks Infinity Ward to develop Call of Duty 2 as a launch title for the Xbox 360, recognizing the studio's cinematic potential.

• Team sent to Microsoft to understand the 360. • Deliberate risk-taking to push the console to its limits. • Intensive work at 18 hours a day to meet deadlines.

Real-time smoke grenades, open-ended levels offering tactical choice, auto-regenerating health system inspired by Halo, all never seen on console before.

85% of Xbox 360 buyers at launch purchased Call of Duty 2, eclipsing Perfect Dark Zero and Quake 4, establishing Infinity Ward as the undisputed masters of console FPS.

Seeing the enormous sales figures, Bobby Kotick forces Treyarch to quickly develop Call of Duty 3 to capitalize on the success, without waiting for Infinity Ward.

Call of Duty 3 turns out mediocre, but sales explode to 7 million thanks to the reputation built by Infinity Ward, creating immense resentment among the creators.

The studio, furious at seeing its reputation exploited by an inferior game, becomes determined to prove its uniqueness and value, refusing to stay in the shadows.

Infinity Ward secretly decides to create a brand within the brand, a license tied inseparably to their studio and impossible to steal, named Modern Warfare.

Infinity Ward abandons World War II for contemporary warfare, replacing the Saving Private Ryan inspiration with Black Hawk Down featuring nuclear disasters and night operations.

• Killstreaks: consecutive kills without dying unlock progressive rewards. • Kill cam: replay of your final moments before death. • Progression: continuous weapon acquisition and upgrades encouraging replay.

A Normandy beach landing scene without firing for 5 minutes, the most memorable moment in all FPS games, proving Infinity Ward perfectly understood interactive cinema.

Modern Warfare sells 15 million copies, creating its own player category and establishing that the game is not just a hit but a generational cultural phenomenon.

Infinity Ward forces Bobby Kotick to accept an extraordinary contract guaranteeing perpetual royalties, control of the Modern Warfare brand, and the right to a new futuristic license.

Bobby adds an ultimate condition: the contract exists only if Jason West and Vince Zampella remain at the studio's head, seeking to minimize defection risks.

Bobby secretly contacts EA to prepare West and Zampella's departure just months after signing, planning from the start to invalidate the contract.

Activision launches Operation Icebreaker, attempting illegal access to West and Zampella's emails via Microsoft, private cybersecurity, and false fire alarms at Infinity Ward.

Infinity Ward creates a game where everything surpasses its predecessor, with epic campaign including the Oval Office, rescue helicopters, and massive green smoke during bombardment.

• 15 killstreaks instead of 3, including the nuke annihilating the entire map. • Multiplayer environments of a beauty surpassing even the campaign. • Revolutionary physics with bullets ricocheting off surfaces.

The game accidentally creates the perfect content for YouTube, with clips of spectacular kills, nuke challenges, and impossible shots dominating the emerging platform.

Modern Warfare 2 sells 30 million copies, doubling the previous record and establishing Call of Duty as the greatest video game franchise of all time with 400 million copies sold.

Bobby Kotick immediately fires Jason West and Vince Zampella after Modern Warfare 2's launch, triggering the contract clause that nullifies all of Infinity Ward's benefits.

50 of Infinity Ward's 100 employees resign within a month, including all senior staff, team leads, and experienced people, emptying the floor where Call of Duty was created.

• West and Zampella sue Activision for contract fraud. • Discovery that Bobby had planned the firing from the start via Operation Icebreaker. • Revelation that West and Zampella were already exploring EA as an alternative.

The lawsuit ends with a confidentiality agreement, Activision paying millions so the creators accept defeat and renounce Modern Warfare royalties.

Treyarch creates Modern Warfare 3 quickly to capitalize on the hype left by Modern Warfare 2, but the game suffers from the absence of the original creators.

Critics and players immediately recognize that Modern Warfare 3 is essentially Modern Warfare 2 recycled, marking the beginning of the idea that Call of Duty copies its formula every year.

Despite inferior quality, MW3 outsells MW2 thanks to the reputation of previous entries, while the real Modern Warfare 3 from Infinity Ward sells less due to market saturation.

It wasn't Bobby's cost-cutting strategy, but rather the absence of the only people who kept pushing the bar higher with each installment.

Treyarch capitalizes on the void left by Infinity Ward to develop Black Ops, showing it knows how to craft good campaigns and create memorable experiences.

• Zombie mode launched as an inside joke based on an animation of a flaming Nazi. • Pitched to an Activision executive on a couch who approves out of curiosity. • Becomes a full mode with DLC maps and continuous development.

Players discover hidden secrets in zombie maps, creating a complex story with phones, wall inscriptions, and lore that Treyarch continuously develops.

Zombie mode creates a second societal phenomenon, with YouTubers finding secrets for hours and creating videos reaching millions of views.

West and Zampella found Respawn Entertainment with their former Infinity Ward colleagues, determined to create a new franchise that will eclipse Call of Duty as they once did with Medal of Honor.

Inspired by ten years of perfecting gunplay in Call of Duty, they decide to perfect movement, creating a revolutionary mobility system with wall-running, jumping, and jetpacks.

• Simply traversing a map becomes fun and technical. • Created playgrounds of ramps and walls for movement. • Titans added to deepen gameplay without losing the game's essence.

Titanfall 2 is considered potentially the best FPS ever made, with revolutionary innovations in movement and gameplay, but launched against overwhelming competition.

Bobby Kotick, having inside information about Titanfall 2 through his networks, anticipates the threat and orders Sledge Hammer to create Advanced Warfare with jetpacks and grappling hooks.

Call of Duty gets jetpacks and wall-running, but without the depth of Titanfall's revolutionary movement system, creating a superficial and less elegant version.

• Three consecutive futuristic Call of Duty titles (Advanced Warfare, Black Ops 3, Infinite Warfare). • Saturating the futuristic market eliminating Titanfall's appeal. • Exploiting Call of Duty's massive fan base.

Infinite Warfare becomes YouTube's most disliked trailer and loses 10 million players, while Titanfall 2 sells only 4 million despite superior quality, never getting a Titanfall 3.

YouTubers and critics blamed Infinity Ward for Call of Duty's stagnation, unaware that the creators had left in 2009 and that successive teams were simply copying the formula.

• Call of Duty stagnates commercially and creatively after 2009. • Players complain that all games look alike. • No major innovation, just copies of proven formulas.

Bobby Kotick won financially by keeping Call of Duty number one and eliminating competition, but he lost the opportunity for a decade of innovative and excellent FPS games.

If Infinity Ward and Bobby had managed to coexist, the FPS genre would likely have been far more interesting and innovative instead of stagnating under Call of Duty's commercial dominance.