The Internet was lit up yesterday - in certain quarters, at least - by the chatter surrounding goings on at game developer Infinity Ward.

The company you would imagine should be riding on something of a high, having being responsible for last winter's Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, a game that has brought in over $1bn in revenue and counting. And yet March 1st, you suspect, will be a day long remembered in Infinity Ward circles.

Reports initially suggested that security staff had arrived at the firm's offices. As it turned out, the staff were there at the orders of Activision, which had basically locked down the offices of Infinity Ward. This followed a meeting on March 1st with IW chiefs Vince Zampella and Jason West, the meeting at which it seemed the pair had been fired (West certainly has, given a subsequent Facebook posting he made). The timing of their dismissal coincided with Activision publishing its annual report, and in there contained the following:

"The Company is concluding an internal human resources inquiry into breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward. This matter is expected to involve the departure of key personnel and litigation."

Activision has thus far stayed mum on the situation apart from that, although the excellent Binge Gamer has been reporting things. It seems that Infinity Ward's current deal with Activision expires in October, and that Activision's move may be related to that, and to protecting the Call Of Duty franchise (which Infinity Ward appears to own a chunk of). Infinity Ward was already reported to not be working on Modern Warfare 3, and it might be that that was at Activision's behest. We're clearly filling in a few gaps with guesswork here, but it's quite an extraordinary situation that's developed. We can't think of too many other situations where the heads of a studio specifically have been fired just months after delivering such a massive hit - it'd be akin to Fox giving James Cameron his marching orders from working with them again, surely?

We'd expect more details to eek out over the coming days, but for a terrific round-up of the story thus far, you can read the Binge Gamer report here.

UPDATE:

It's been confirmed that West and Zampella are no longer with Infinity Ward. Activision has also issued the following statement:

"The company intends to expand the Call of Duty brand with the same focus seen in its Blizzard Entertainment business unit. This will include a focus on high-margin digital online content and further the brand as the leading action entertainment franchise in new geographies, new genres and with new digital business models."

Make of all that what you will...