Ousted Infinity Ward founders file suit against Activision


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Former Infinity Ward heads Vince Zampella and Jason West are bringing a lawsuit against Activisionfor breach of contract and other claims, after Activision terminated their employment on March 1. The press release announcing the suit claims that Activision was scheduled to pay "substantial royalty payments," but fired them before the date of the payment.

Instead of thanking, lauding, or just plain paying Jason and Vince for giving Activision the most successful entertainment product ever offered to the public," attorney Robert Schwartz said, "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.

In addition to compensation, the suit seeks to return the contractual rights Zampella and West previously had to the Modern Warfare brand.

Source: http://www.joystiq.c...nst-activision/

So they want their money AND IP back, ooooo dez gonna get ugly!

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/popcorn

Edit: I assume these two are going to do EVERYTHING in their power to disrupt a sequel to MW2 and slander the hell out of the CoD brand to get public awareness up that the "original" team are no longer making the game.

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I knew this was coming (and posted it in the MW2 post the night of the firing). I can't understand the logic behind Activision firing these guys and not paying them. The only way Activision will even break even now is to forge documents like crazy. Thankfully Vince Zampella and Jason West didn't wait too long to file for this lawsuit, because this gives them a lot better chance of getting proper paperwork.

If they win this case, it's quite probable that they will get their IP back as well.

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You should all listen to the beginning of the GiantBombcast podcast this week, those guys know what they're talking about when it comes to this situation and who owns what, and possibly why they were fired/etc.

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/popcorn

Edit: I assume these two are going to do EVERYTHING in their power to disrupt a sequel to MW2 and slander the hell out of the CoD brand to get public awareness up that the "original" team are no longer making the game.

And they deserve to.

Bobby Kotick is running Activision into the ground.

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Bobby Kotick is running Activision into the ground.

Not quite yet, though he's running out of IPs to destroy. He killed Guitar Hero last year, Tony Hawk is dead and CoD will be dead this year or next.

Can't wait to see profits this year. :D

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Please, I hope to god that Infinity Ward win this, they deserve it.

I'm siding with them 100%. If they do win, and we see that the next game from them uses dedicated servers, we will know who made the IWNet decision. :shiftyninja:

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This is great. Activision are the ones who ruined mw2 forcing all this iwnet crap so they could monetize everything. Now they can go make to great games without craptivision.

Bobby Kotick is such a dumb greedy ****

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This is great. Activision are the ones who ruined mw2 forcing all this iwnet crap so they could monetize everything. Now they can go make to great games without craptivision.

Bobby Kotick is such a dumb greedy ****

Was Activision the driving force behind the IWNet disaster with MW2?

The answer to that question will dictate who I side with in this lawsuit. If it was Activsion, then it only adds fuel to the fire. But if it was IW, then I'm glad the two guys in charge got shafted.

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Whoever came up with the iwnet idea deserves to be fired.

+1

...and then beaten with one of the iwnet servers since they dont work anyway

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Not quite yet, though he's running out of IPs to destroy. He killed Guitar Hero last year, Tony Hawk is dead and CoD will be dead this year or next.

Can't wait to see profits this year. :D

Seeing all these names thrown around, is it Activision Blizzard or just Activision involved in all of this? Also, if it's indeed Activision Blizzard, should we be worried for Blizzard's series they have going?

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Wow, just WOW at pages 8 & 10

page 10 especially... interviewed for six hours in a windowless room? what are they terrorists in guantanamo bay with activision just throwin down the patriot act on West and Zampella? Brought other employees to tears? If half of this is true, i hope activision burns for this... way to kill one of my all time fave gaming IP :( been loving CoD since the first one :(

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Yeah I actually never want to play another Activison game again after reading it.

I really hope the whole gaming community comes together and ruins them.

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This is going to be immense.

Anyway, back on topic, Infinity Ward deserve this money and the credit for creating a good game, in my opinion MW2 was a good game, amazing multiplayer and a good and solid single-player, sure, people said it was short but hey, do the sales reflects that people didnt like it and the bottom line is it was a success. The recent news concerning Activision has been disgusting and i hope the company slams into the ground.

Im rooting for them ;)

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I just read the court document, and two things stand out:

1) Was Treyarch going to make a COD'Nam game?

2) Could Activision act like any bigger douc*es?

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That document provided up there... to call this situation disgusting is a huge understatement.

I'm hoping that after this, something can trigger a major restructuring of Activision.

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