Activision Talks Independent Games Competition on Industry Gamers interviews Activision's Laird Malamed about Activision's Indie Games Competition. This topic spurred discussion of Activision's developer relations in light of the exodus of Infinity Ward developers following the firings of Vince Zampella and Jason West. Activision's Senior Vice President of Development comments on the situation: "I think that our record overall speaks for itself. We’ve had an independent game development culture since Raven, our first external studio that came on board; they joined in 1997 and we had a 10-year anniversary with them back in 2007. Bobby Kotick talked about how the model came out of that acquisition when working with Raven, and letting people run their own shops. We have a dozen or so developers operate on that principle," he said. "On the same token, I look at the deal we just did with Bungie in Seattle, and that to me is evidence that we are doing stuff right. They feel comfortable in trusting us to produce their products with them. That’s a pretty big catch; that’s a triple-A team, and that’s really our goal to have triple-A teams."