Activision Strikes Back

In response to the lawsuit filed by Call of Duty: Finest Hour developer Spark Unlimited in August, publisher Activision has launched a countersuit claiming that Spark itself is guilty in all the situations cited. GameSpot has an extremely detailed report on Activision's suit. Essentially, Activision is filing some of same charges Spark filed, and more, including fraud, breach of contract, trade secret misappropriation, trademark infringement, false designation of origin, and false advertising.

The suit goes on to lay the groundwork for the fraud charge, saying [Spark CEO] Allen's "misrepresentations were intended to deceive Activision into believing that Spark possessed the talent, knowledge, skill, and experience necessary to create a similarly successful new WWII video game franchise that could rival Medal of Honor." It continued, "Activision only later discovered that Allen had falsely and greatly exaggerated the role played by the Spark team in the creation, development, and production of Medal of Honor and that he had misrepresented the capabilities of Spark, whose monumental incompetence at its executive levels and inability to avoid doom without Activision's intervention, Allen would himself later concede."