The Lawsuit Thickens...

Last week it was reported that Call of Duty: Finest Hour (PS2, Xbox, GCN) developer Spark Unlimited has filed suit against publisher Activision for breach of contract and failure to pay royalties. Now, however, it seems that the situation goes even farther. The full trio of charges laid against Activision comprises breach of contract, fraud and misrepresentation, and breach of an implied contract. Spark claims that it was entitled to develop two more Finest Hour-based games, whereas Activision claims that was never the case. Spark goes on to claim that Activision neglected to supply the developer appropriate funding, while charging the developer millions for the last-minute development of the game's multiplayer mode, which was allegedly never in the game's original specification.

Overall, Spark's complaint contends that "Activision then breached the development agreement by failing to negotiate in good faith over a second and third product, and refused to provide any meaningful bridge funding." "Indeed, Activision simply waited until Call of Duty: Finest Hour was virtually complete and then abandoned its relationship with Spark," reads the complaint.