CrashToOverride: No, I did precise calculations and got millions as an answer, of course it is a exaggeration. But it is true though.
And Devs are just as important to Publishers and vice versa. The Developers deserve the majority of the credit anyways, they are the ones doing the actual work. And Infinity Ward has made Activision some major money, and to Console Games MW2 IS the second coming of Jesus, just look at the sales and the ongoing sales. Activision should of sucked it up and paid them the money, now they probably lost over a quarter or more of their revenue in the future.
Then you have the counter-argument: Yeah, IW make lots of money for Activision. But they create a hostile working environment, make the heads of Activision look worse (everyone blames Kotick for the no dedicated servers thing, not IW), and are apparently going to continue to ask for money regardless of a contract.
Let's say you have a hen that lays golden eggs. You can sell each egg for 500 dollars. But you need to pay 450 dollars in vet bills every day AND need to provide special housing so that the roosters don't mate with it. Is it really worth the hassle?
Same thing here. Activision likely felt that the heads of IW weren't worth the hassle, so they wanted to get rid of them. But they DID keep the people who actually "made" the game.
And on the topic of who does the "actual work", is extensive work on the MP5's magazine model more or less work than maintaining the message board? Or writing the storyboards for the commercials? Or writing the press releases?
