With Infinity Ward's studio heads on the outs with Activision, it was up to Treyarch to take over the Call of Duty series, and according to fan reception, it did exactly that. "The response that I've gotten," Treyarch head Mark Lamia tells us, "is that people are happy with the game." But he says during VGA's red carpet event that it was never about competition among Activision's studios. "We've just got to stay focused on what we want, what we're making and our own creative, and that's really the best way to do your best work."

Now that it's become the Call of Duty heir apparent, what's next for Treyarch? "First thing we're doing," says Lamia, " is we're still working on Black Ops." Lamia promises Treyarch is listening to the community and will be responsive in tuning the game and providing new content. "So everyone who bought and is investing their time in Black Ops, they can expect that that's just how we work." Lamia says Treyarch is in fact "a Call of Duty studio as far as anyone is concerned."

World at War's Zombies mode had a successful life on the iPhone, and we asked if Treyarch was considering trying to replicate that success with Black Ops. Lamia says he trusts developers Ideaworks to do a good job on a sequel if that's what they choose to do, but "it's not a question of can we do it or is it good to do it, it's really about focus. Right now we are just focused on the PC and console skus that were just launched. There's millions of people playing every day, and we're focused on supporting that."