Grab your popcorn. kids, because things just got a whole lot more interesting.
According to G4TV, ex-Infinity Ward founders Jason West and Vince Zampella have filed suit against Activision claiming wrongful termination (among other things) pertaining to their recent ousting. Activision also allegedly gave them the axe before giving them the Modern Warfare 2 royalties they were owed. Not too cool. In the words of their attorney, Robert Schwartz:
“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. 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.”
This doesn’t really come as a surprise, seeing as Activision’s claims seemed transparent from the start. Still, you can’t help but wonder where this is going. At the very least it will probably do some serious damage to Activision’s public image (what little of it is left, anyway). Then again, it could potentially put an end to the occasional publisher treating game developers like dirt.
Either way, this is turning into a Springer-worthy showdown.
[Via: G4]
There is absolutely no way Activision is going to court on this. They’ll settle for an exorbitant amount of money, which West and Zampella will use to fund an independent studio. We’ll never see a lawsuit of this scale when it’s so closely tied to PR.