Ex-Infinity Ward Duo Sue Activision for Royalties
Might there be no further Modern Warfare games without the two former Infinity Ward heads?
Earlier this week, intense events occurred between Call of Duty: Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward and publisher Activision Blizzard.
Infinity Ward senior employees Jason West and Vince Zampella were dismissed of their roles at the company – a move that Activision foresaw would bring about legal action. The publisher was right, as the pair today filed suit against Activision Blizzard for allegedly withholding royalty payments.
"Activision has refused to honor the terms of its agreements and is intentionally flouting the fundamental public policy of this State (California) that employers must pay their employees what they have rightfully earned," said attorney Robert Schwartz, of law firm O'Melveny & Myers. "Instead of thanking, lauding, or just plain paying Jason and Vince for giving Activision the most successful entertainment product ever offered to the public, last month Activision hired lawyers to conduct a pretextual 'investigation' into unstated and unsubstantiated charges of 'insubordination' and 'breach of fiduciary duty,' which then became the grounds for their termination on Monday, March 1st."
The two former Infinity Ward employees had some words of their own too.
"We were shocked by Activision's decision to terminate our contract," Jason West said. "We poured our heart and soul into that company, building not only a world class development studio, but assembling a team we've been proud to work with for nearly a decade. We think the work we've done speaks for itself."
"After all we have given to Activision, we shouldn't have to sue to get paid," Zampella added.
Kotaku points out that, in addition to the royalties the pair feel that they are owed, West and Zampella are also after the contractual rights that the two claim where granted to them by Activision for control of Modern Warfare-branded games. Whether this means that West and Zampella own the Modern Warfare IP, or that no game with the brand can be made without consent or input of the two is currently unclear (but definitely interesting).
Nevertheless, Activision has already made it public that it plans to carry on the Call of Duty franchise with Treyarch and newly formed Sledgehammer studios. Interestingly, it did not detail any new Modern Warfare game in the pipeline.
Stay tuned for more.
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Quoting Harver MacKay (IIRC) - "Don't fall in love with a corporation as they don't love you back" and "If you make decisions with your heart you end up with heart disease".
Perhaps they were fired because the failed to properly provide for their PC fan base (The fan base that built the title's popularity).
BC2 and future Battlefield games = king. Bye bye CoD.
BC2 and future Battlefield games = king. Bye bye CoD.
YES.
I really hope they win the rights to the CoD franchise, if only to screw over Activision.
I would feel for them more had the story line of MW2 not been rip-offs of popular action movies in the 90's.
Modern Warfare 2 what is that? Oh is it that game that shunned the platform (PC) that made them famous? Who knows.
For those blaming IW for limiting the PC platform, i believe its activisions fault.
Typo - the quote reference is Harvey Mackay. I was getting a lot of 404 errors when trying to post.
For those blaming IW for limiting the PC platform, i believe its activisions fault.
I hope the judge favors West and Zampella. F-Bomb to Activision, with both middle fingers.
What? Treyarch is gonna make all future COD games?
NOooooooooooooo
Whatever, I hate IW anyway for backstabbing PC gamers in MW2.
I hope Zampella and West get every penny they deserve. Sickens me to think the architects behind one of the worlds most successful game franchises can be treated in this way. Wether you like CoD or not, its transformed FPS gaming. Activision will live to regret this grave error.
Shame Activision will just buy out the US courts though isnt it realy?
Great. Good on you you stupid f*cks (activision). Now every Call of Duty game will be made by Treyarch and will just fail. No one can ever match or continue to lead from Modern Warfare 1 & 2 other than IW. F*ck activision for officially ending all that was good about Call of Duty. You had the best series ever and then you just blew you fail all over it. GG fagots.
I agree. I always assumed Activision was the one behind a lot of the limiting of MW2.
I still think Activision canned them to stop from paying them royalties...
This is just more evidence that Activision was behind the PC port of MW2 than they would allow IW to say.
Its really annoying, coz when COD 1 came out IW got bought out by Activision, that is stupid to be owned by someone. They should had published it themselves.
No good ever comes out of companies merging into huge behemoths. Activision used to be a good company. They've managed to make two huge PR/corporate blunders in less than a week. They must be desperate to outdo EA's legacy as a POS corporation.
Call of Duty is still an unimaginitive shooter with poor optimization. 16 hour linear single player + mediocre multi-player is all Call of Duty ever was. Same applies to Unreal Tournament and Battlefield.
Best shooter by far have been ones based on the half-life engine. Absolutely creative and expansive gameplay. Also a good weighted feel. I could really care less about developers who shovel out non-stop shit sequels. They should atleast make the sequels better then the last.
Treyarch ? This is definitely the end of a dying franchise
Fu@K These Rich ass CEO's trying to get more money out of a company. Their job is to make great games not to take credit for making them after they get paid to do it.
um for one master they arnt ceo's there lead developers... and the money they are ode is what they are sewing for nothing else... and i agree with the fact that its av fault for the crappy pc port. otherwise why would there methods have changed so much from 123 and then 5 was so dramatically different