A single hiring decision in the early 2000s nearly rewrote video game history. According to Sledgehammer Games co-founder Michael Condrey, EA's choice of a PC developer for the James Bond game 007 Nightfire came within striking distance of preventing the Call of Duty franchise from ever existing.
The pivot point came around 2001 or 2002, when EA was searching for a studio to port Nightfire from consoles to PC. Among the candidates was 2015, Inc., an Oklahoma-based developer that had just finished Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, a critical and commercial triumph published by EA itself. The studio's founders, Vince Zampella and Jason West, pitched their services directly. "They wanted the game," Condrey recalled in an interview with documentary producer Cade Onder.
EA had other plans. The company awarded the PC port to Gearbox Software instead. That decision proved disastrous. Gearbox's version of Nightfire became infamous as one of gaming's worst ports, earning neither critical nor commercial respect.
The rejection stung 2015, Inc. at a moment when the studio needed work. Rather than fade into obscurity, Zampella and West pursued a partnership with Activision that led directly to the creation of Infinity Ward and, consequently, the birth of the Call of Duty series. The franchise would eventually become one of gaming's most dominant properties.
"Had we hired Vince and Jason and 2015 to do James Bond PC, who knows what?" Condrey mused. "That's a weird moment."
The irony deepens. Condrey eventually left EA following his work on Dead Space. In 2009, he co-founded Sledgehammer Games with former colleague Glen Schofield. Years later, Sledgehammer partnered with Infinity Ward to develop 2011's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, bringing the two studios together in the franchise that might never have existed without that fateful 007 miscalculation.
Condrey framed it as a meditation on creative and business serendipity. "It's kind of a funny story of just all the creative decisions and business decisions that led to them starting Call of Duty and, of course, us joining with them on MW3," he said.
The story also highlights how EA's own strategic misstep cascaded through the industry. The publisher brought Medal of Honor in-house after Allied Assault's success, cutting ties with 2015, Inc. at precisely the moment when that studio was seeking its next big opportunity. A different call on the Nightfire port might have kept them within EA's orbit and altered the trajectory of both the James Bond games and the modern shooter landscape.
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