The drama deepens this week as Activision files a counter-suit to the original suit against Activision by Jason West and Vince Zampella, former heads at Infinity Ward. If you haven’t been following the sequence of events, the short version is that West and Zampella were fired from Inifinity Ward, developer of the wildly successful Call of Duty series and owned by Activision, on charges of "insubordination", to which the former heads responded by suing Activision for royalties "owed" for the recent blockbust title Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
And now Activision has followed up the original suit with their own litigation in an attempt to recover future and past payments as well as compensatory damages. According to Activision, "West and Zampella’s misdeeds formed an unlawful pattern and practice of conduct that was designed to steal the [Infinity Ward] studio, which is one of Activision’s most valuable assets — at the expense of Activision and its shareholders and for their own personal financial gain."
The basic claim is that West and Zampella were meeting with EA prior to being fired in order to broker a deal for the Inifinity Ward studio or the asset of the Call of Duty series, which was a breach of their contracts. Not surprisingly, EA has no comment on this issue.
For more information, check out Game Informer’s post linked below.
