Vince Zampella Says Call of Duty Exists “Because EA Were Dicks”

In a rare and refreshingly blunt comment, Battlefield boss Vince Zampella has spoken about how Call of Duty came to be and he isn’t exactly pulling punches. According to Zampella, Activision’s best-selling shooter franchise only exists “because EA were dicks.”

Zampella made the remark during a recent interview with GQ, where he reflected on his career spanning over two decades in the first-person shooter space. It’s a strange full-circle moment for him after all, he now oversees Battlefield, EA’s direct rival to the franchise he helped create.

Back in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, Zampella worked at Electronic Arts on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, one of the defining WWII shooters of its time. The game’s success put the development team on the map. But according to Zampella, EA’s treatment of the developers wasn’t exactly warm. When internal tensions and disagreements flared, Zampella and several others decided to leave.

That decision would end up changing gaming history.

The group went on to form Infinity Ward, and soon partnered with Activision to develop something new a first-person shooter that could rival Medal of Honor itself. The result was Call of Duty in 2003, which not only competed with EA’s series but completely eclipsed it in popularity. Within a few years, Call of Duty had become a cultural juggernaut. Medal of Honor, meanwhile, slowly faded from the spotlight.

In his conversation with GQ, Zampella didn’t dwell on corporate details or old contracts. He simply summed up the whole origin story in a single line:

“The only reason that Call of Duty exists is because EA were dicks.”

It’s the kind of raw honesty that feels increasingly rare in an industry filled with rehearsed PR statements. Zampella’s comment isn’t about revenge or bitterness it’s an acknowledgment that creative friction and corporate stubbornness can have massive ripple effects.

What’s particularly interesting is that Zampella now leads Battlefield, a franchise owned by EA the same company that once drove him away. Under his direction, EA has been trying to rebuild Battlefield’s reputation after a string of rocky launches. It’s a poetic twist: the man who helped invent Call of Duty is now in charge of making its biggest competitor great again.

Two decades later, Call of Duty continues to dominate sales charts every year, while Battlefield fights to reclaim its place in the genre. And in the background stands Zampella, a figure whose journey shows just how unpredictable and personal the business of making games can be.