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Posted by superpupervlad 16 hours ago

Vince Zampella, developer of Call of Duty and Battlefield has died(comicbook.com)
131 points | 72 commentspage 2
hamza_q_ 16 hours ago|
Thanks for COD: MW2 (2009), Vince. The game of my childhood. Rest in Peace.
tibbydudeza 14 hours ago||
Call Of Duty II was one of those games I will never forget in my life - it was like reading Lord Of The Rings.
journal 16 hours ago||
"A passenger was ejected, and the driver died after being trapped in the burning vehicle"
toomuchtodo 16 hours ago||
2026 Ferrari 296 GTS

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/video-game-develope...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_296

(shared for context around vehicle power and dynamics likely leading or contributing to the event)

tsunamifury 16 hours ago||
[flagged]
watwut 15 hours ago|||
The article is not describing that car as a "family priced". And you are not describing family car either, you are describing luxury car.

What does that have to do with inflation denial is a mystery.

dragonwriter 15 hours ago|||
> Always funny to see how out of touch journalists describing a new 500k car as if it was priced like a family SUV (six figures, the running costs for most luxury SUVs)

Always funny to see HN commenters treat "most luxury SUVs" as an equivalent class to "family SUVs" while making fun of “out of touch journalists” supposedly equating dissimilar vehicle classes.

__turbobrew__ 16 hours ago|||
Not sure why you are being downvoted. Dude crashed his Ferrari.
lysace 15 hours ago||
Realistic racing sim games have taught me not to want a supercar for daily drives. Way too easy to f up.

Just one such example (1983):

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/06/10/business/corporate-triump...

https://archive.ph/gbrZv

> CORPORATE TRIUMPH, THEN DEATH IN A FERRARI

> The young president of a successful new computer company died Wednesday afternoon in a car crash in California's Silicon Valley, hours after his company had sold its stock to the public for the first time and he had become a multimillionaire.

joshu 13 hours ago||
supercars from 1983 are very different than modern cars. they have traction control now and are much tamer.
randerson 12 hours ago|||
I think this understates just how fast modern performance cars have gotten and how unsuitable they are for public roads.

A Ferrari 296GTB sprints from 0-100mph in 4.7s. The 1983 Lamborghini Countach I had a wall poster of as a kid, took 12.1s (and a relatively leisurely 5.4s to get to 60mph). The Ferrari is pulling well over 1G longitudinally during this time, enough to induce tunnel vision in some people and warp your perception of speed and distance.

Compare someone accelerating at full throttle through that tunnel in the Countach versus the 296. The 296 would reach 2-3x the speed the Lambo did by the time they reach the curve where he crashed. Human brains can't process and react to surprises 3x as fast as they could in 1983. Even if they could, at 2x the speed your braking distance increases 4x. No amount of traction control or electronic nannies can make up for this. Nor can the electronics bypass the laws of physics - I think for many they provide a false sense of security.

And while there have been huge improvements in passive safety too, they are tested at speeds like 40mph, not the 90mph+ it is estimated Vince's car was going. This is why Teslas have the highest crash safety ratings there is, while also have the highest rate of fatal accidents.

Not to take away from the tragedy that is Vince's death. I enjoyed many hours playing MoH and CoD as a youth and this is extremely sad news. But as a car enthusiast, I am using this as a sober reminder of how quickly things can go wrong at speed.

bob1029 3 hours ago|||
> Nor can the electronics bypass the laws of physics

The only equation that really matters here is KE=.5mv^2

The difference in danger between two arbitrary speeds is not linear. It is quadratic.

lysace 12 hours ago|||
If that crash video on X is accurate he was racing on public roads. If so, zero sympathies.
lysace 13 hours ago||||
But of course there is a button to disable it.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/37353/driver-turns-off-tractio...

anonzzzies 13 hours ago|||
I still rather drive (get driven) a modern tank like suv. Or truck/bus conversion. I see these young/hip people spend countless hours in the gym, spending 1000k+/mo on supplements etc to 'live forever' only to wrap themselves around a tree at a young age on some superbike or car.
rob74 3 hours ago||
...or getting run over by a tank like suv with limited vision around the car (it's tank like after all) while cycling.
riazrizvi 16 hours ago||
I‘m in the habit of speeding, I think it’s closely tied to the mental stresses you push yourself into, in sedentary, intellectual work. Thankfully I no longer own a car/motorcycle, and have other physical outlets now, to better balance it all out. I’m only here now myself at 55 through luck.
piva00 2 hours ago|||
It's related to culture, a culture that normalises driving as a non-risky activity while also being very individualistic, a culture that requires you to drive from early age to have access to places, with minimal training and not very strict training requirements to be licenced.

A habit of speeding is created from a lack of consideration, it's an ignorant and dumb thing to do.

switchbak 15 hours ago||||
No, I don’t think that’s it. Almost everyone one I associate with does similar kinds of work, and I don’t see that same willingness to expose them and others to undue risk like that.
mac-attack 19 minutes ago||||
Aren't a disproportionate amount of high schoolers road fatalities? I think it's due to emotional immaturity, nihilism or an inability to tackle problems directly.
sublinear 14 hours ago||||
I agree those desires come from stress and that sedentary work can cause stress, but it's not the only or even primary stressor for many.

Working from home has forced me to be more deliberate with my free time and how I get away. I tend to choose exercise and am rarely in rush to where I'm going anymore.

vasco 15 hours ago|||
[flagged]
riazrizvi 15 hours ago||
I too used to believe reductive statements about the human condition like this, made some kind of valid point.
vasco 13 hours ago||
You justified reckless driving because you have a desk job.
darubedarob 5 minutes ago||
He justified reckless driving by having a stressfull society that grinds you to paste during the day. And experiencing "danger" recalibrates that stress sensor stuck at 11. Thats why the project management crowd consistsof paragliders, riverrafters, pilots,rock-climbers and wingsuit flyers ir race car drivers. The danger is the one thing resetting body cortisol levels. Trying to educate that away is a foolish miss understanding of the human condition.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_hormone

One can only redirect the behaviour.

gguncth 7 hours ago||
“has died” is one way of saying “crashed his Ferrari at a high rate of speed, killing his passenger as well as himself.”
bitwize 15 hours ago||
I was like whoa, he was on BOTH the tentpole military-simulator-aspirant FPS franchises? That's like George Lucas being called over to work on Star Trek.

The world lost a titan. No pun intended.

tapoxi 12 hours ago||
He also produced Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, the best game in that series. Call of Duty and Infinity Ward were born from that game.
tibbydudeza 14 hours ago||
Indeed.
lofaszvanitt 9 hours ago||
They started at Electronic Arts with MOH. They left EA and went to Activision. Under Infinity Ward they created MW2, which is maybe the only digestible COD game ever made. They got bored with ATVI by doing COD day and night. At the time the rumor was they wanted to make scifi games, but ATVI forbade them. So they formed Respawn and went back to EA. TitanFall 1-2 were just terrible games, and EA also botched the marketing (like they usually do when they didn't want a franchise to grow wings). And seemingly they were doing Battlefield at EA lately.
cmehdy 5 hours ago||
Titanfall 2 is a fantastic game with perhaps the best single player FPS campaign for fast FPS games, and a skill ceiling that's incredibly high in multiplayer which is still alive to this day. Did you mean to say "terrific" instead of terrible?
Popeyes 3 hours ago||
The 'and also' indicates that he means terrible, and this person has no taste.
lofaszvanitt 1 hour ago||
You have no taste. TF2 had such a bland, emptyheaded story and a weightless mech experience that it literally hurts anyone above 110 IQ.
ErneX 4 hours ago|||
Titanfall 2 was excellent.
EtienneK 4 hours ago||
Titanfall 2 is a masterpiece. You have no idea what you are talking about.
lofaszvanitt 1 hour ago||
Maybe the multiplayer, but I'm talkin about the single player campaign, which was godawful.
EtienneK 45 minutes ago||
This is crazy talk. The single player campaign is considered as one of the best in FPS games ever.
ErneX 30 minutes ago||
Exactly.
firesteelrain 16 hours ago||
Wow! So sad, what a terrible way to go.
tsunamifury 16 hours ago||
[flagged]
klardotsh 15 hours ago||
Nothing in TFA or the NBC article linked by TFA provides enough information to conclude reckless homicide. All that is confirmed is a car leaving a roadway, crashing, and catching fire. What's your source for concluding reckless homicide?
Polycryptus 15 hours ago|||
There is video of the accident floating around. I recommend against going looking for it...
tsunamifury 12 hours ago||||
Video of the crash as he was stunting for the camera and killed himself and his passenger in the process.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CatastrophicFailure/comments/1ptc7c...

AlexandrB 15 hours ago|||
None of the reporting even specifies who was driving.
owlninja 15 hours ago|||
If this is up to date he seemed more of a McLaren person:

https://exclusivecarregistry.com/collection/zampella-collect...

thinkingtoilet 15 hours ago||
The article makes no mention of reckless driving. Perhaps you should wait for facts before making such statements.
650REDHAIR 14 hours ago||
There are videos.

He was driving recklessly.

tsunamifury 16 hours ago||
[flagged]
bhouston 15 hours ago||
A lot of high end cars get wrecked because (1) their owners want to drive them fast to test out what they paid for, and (2) their owners are not trained to drive high performance cars and (3) their owners drive them on public roads where there are a lot of hazards.

It isn't that different than the non-significant number of rich people that die in private aviation crashes (those that fly themselves, I think private jets are a lot safer.)

bayarearefugee 15 hours ago|||
Sometimes it is (4) their owners let a friend drive the car and the friend is not remotely equipped to handle the car at the speeds involved.

Not saying that's what happened here (I haven't seen any reporting on who was driving vs who was the passenger) but it is at least part of the reason Paul Walker is dead.

Of course, the owners themselves even if they are skilled drivers, shouldn't be driving outside of legal limits on public roads.

If you have an exotic sports car worth half a million dollars and you want to go crazy with it then rent a track, you can afford it.

DennisP 15 hours ago||
And a track day can cost just a few hundred bucks. It's not like you have to rent a whole track just for yourself.
DennisP 15 hours ago||||
Yep. I started looking into sports cars recently, and the general consensus among enthusiasts seems to be that for public roads, if you're not going to drive at reckless speeds then you'll have more fun driving a slow car fast than driving a fast car slow. Fun handling with modest horsepower is the way to go, you can have a great time without exceeding normal road speeds.
__turbobrew__ 13 hours ago||
That is why people love miatas.
tsunamifury 15 hours ago|||
The fact that you can’t tell the difference between a driver and a passengers responsibility is shocking to me.
junon 15 hours ago||
You've yet to provide a source for this. That's why the criticisms of your claims.
tsunamifury 12 hours ago||
Video of him stunting, killing himself and his passenger. Purely his fault and reckless and purposeful behavior.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CatastrophicFailure/comments/1ptc7c...

E39M5S62 9 hours ago||
Looks like the post was neutered, but this is another source. The speed of the car was well in excess of what the road conditions could tolerate. Horrible crash, but the fault can be placed squarely on the driver of the car.

https://www.indiatimes.com/trending/what-happened-to-vince-z...

AlexandrB 15 hours ago|||
Is there reporting that actually lists him as the driver? Because I can't find any.
gesis 15 hours ago||
The news report linked in the article has this to say:

> The driver, Zampella, was trapped in the ensuing car fire, the CHP said. He died at the scene and the passenger died at a hospital, authorities told NBC4 Investigates. Details about the passenger's identity were not immediately available.

switchbak 15 hours ago||
Provide a source and real evidence for your claim or STFU. This is extremely disrespectful to someone’s memory if they are not guilty of the things you flippantly accuse them of.
swarnie 6 hours ago||
> The single-car crash was reported at about 12:45 p.m. on the scenic road north of Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Mountains. The southbound Ferrari veered off the road just after exiting a tunnel, hit a concrete barrier and a passenger was ejected, the California Highway Patrol said.

> The driver, Zampella, was trapped in the ensuing car fire, the CHP said. He died at the scene and the passenger died at a hospital

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/video-game-develope...

ta9000 6 hours ago|
Asshole lost control of his Ferrari at a high rate of speed and killed a passenger and could have killed others. No RIP needed or extended.

We’re all lucky he didn’t kill a family.

https://youtu.be/T_dweFZDm7s

EtienneK 4 hours ago|
Nothing in that clip indicates he was driving recklessly. They even end it by saying the cause is still unknown.
asdff 4 hours ago|||
It is pretty obvious the cause, they are just doing their investigation. There is a video of it out there. I will describe it for sensitive people who might not want to actually see it. The car was going probably 100 mph out of a tunnel and understeered into a jersey barrier. The passenger was ejected still in the seat and the car caught fire a few seconds after impact. Bystanders managed to pull the passenger away from the wreck, then the video cut off.
ta9000 4 hours ago|||
Did you see the speed he was going on a public road? LA drivers are tired of these assholes driving recklessly. It’s gotten incredibly dangerous to drive especially at night after COVID.