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Activision Alleges EA and Infinity Ward Co-founders Conspired to Sabotage Call of Duty
by Alice O'Connor, Dec 22, 2010 5:10pm PST
The legal battle between Activision and Jason West and Vince Zampella has taken an unusual twist. In new court documents filed this week, the video games giant accuses the pair of conspiring with rival company Electronic Arts to sabotage Infinity Ward as well as fellow Call of Duty series developer Treyarch and the brand.
First, a quick summary of events so far: West and Zampella, who co-founded of Call of Duty creator Infinity Ward before it was bought by Activision, were fired in March under mysterious circumstances; West and Zampella sued for unpaid royalties and brand rights; Activision scoffed. With us so far? Excellent.
IW employees then began leaving the studio in drips and drabs--around 35 eventually left in all; Activision counter-sued, claiming West and Zampella tried to "steal" IW; the pair formed Respawn Entertainment and signed a publishing agreement with EA; some IW veterans joined Respawn; Infinity Ward was restructed. Get it? Got it? Good.
On Tuesday, Activision filed an amendment to its complaint, reported by Joystiq, detailing a whole spread of alleged improprieties. It's claimed that West and Zampella had been in talks with EA for eight months before their firing, plotting together to create a new studio with Activision and Infinity Ward talent. To foster discontent, Activision says, the pair resisted Activision's attempts to pay employees bonuses and incentives. On top of that, they were "already appropriating for themselves approximately 1/3 of the total Infinity Ward bonus pool each quarter."
It's further claimed that West and Zampella intentionally released a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 trailer on the same day as Treyarch released a trailer of their own for a Call of Duty: World at War map pack, to undermine the other developer and the series. Activision has produced supposed text message records of the plan.
"Treyarch released their mp dlc video," an anonymous employee sent to West, who responded "Super nice? We release our video? Crush and destroy with our video." The mysterious person affirmed "We already did. And ... we already did." "Nice," said West.
As West and Zamepella still had years left on their contracts, they rocked the boat by threatening to stop developing Modern Warfare 2, and then hold up Modern Warfare 3, as leverage in negotiations with Activision to found another own studio and work on new games under terms less favourable to the publisher.
EA worked with West and Zampella and their talent agency to plan all this, Activision alleges, with the goal of weakening the Call of Duty franchise and poaching Infinity Ward talent. This included bringing the pair by private jet to a "secret meeting" at EA CEO John Riccitiello's house. However, much of the supporting evidence for these claims is, the defendants insist, confidential and cannot be revealed. Large portions of the legal filing are redacted.
Supposedly, EA had also "sought to extract confidential information from West and Zampella, including information about the Modern Warfare marketing plans and how Electronic Arts could make a 'COD killer.'"
Activision is seeking "at least 400 million dollars" from EA to pay for profits lost due to its inference and for the cost of rebuilding Infinity Ward, as well as "punitive and exemplary damages to punish Electronic Arts and to deter similar conduct in the future."
It also wants back money West and Zempalla had received "during the period of their disloyalty" and to stop them from using confidential information owned by Activision in making their own rival products.
Comments
It's not uncommon to plan ahead for your next contract... which is what West and Zampella were likely doing. If negotiations weren't going well with Activision, it makes sense to talk to the other big publishers to see if they'll offer better terms.
Also, if the loss of these guys is as big as Activision claims, then they should have made concessions to keep them around. As it currently stands, it looks like they saw an opportunity to fire them and keep the royalty payments. Likely short-term thinking on the part of Activision.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.
Nobody but the actual players in this mess know what was being planned. However, the evidence shown so far reveals them to be arrogant, that they hated Treyarch, that Activision had NOT paid them the money they were owed nor paid their employees at IW (despite the fact that they owned IW and should have easily been able to come up with a list of names, one would think, to pay over bonuses), and that they met with EA. Activision's attempts to prove proof of sabotage are rather weak because you can see the txt's about World at War being showed up by MW2 as their dislike for Treyarch (well documented before they were fired) and their arrogant pride in their work (MW was superior to any CoD that came out before and arguably since).
However, there is one thing that I know that happened and I can't help but rely on to suss out the truth of all this. That is, when the chips were down and the big boys who were supposedly holding the royalties back were gone, what happened?
Activision refused to pay the royalties to the IW staffers, attempted to use the promise of said moneys to keep IW staffers in a holding pattern under the threat of "Anyone who leaves is not going to get their agreed-upon bonus" and then a whole host of the original staffers left IW to join Respawn.
If what Activision said was true and these guys were robbing their own employees blind and the only thing keeping Activision from paying these guys their money was the top two refusing to give them names of who should be paid, then why did Activision not pay all of IW its dues right after their departure? And why would so many of these guys that knew the players involved all leave a certain thing at IW to follow the heads of IW to Respawn? Why did they follow them from 2015, Inc?
That's what tells me Activision's not on the up and up. It's not what either party says. It's what happened at IW after the big two left and what Activision did NOT do once what they claim was the impediment to their paying out those bonuses was gone. Combine that with the odd timing of canning these two guys after the success of MW2 was assured and relatively complete...
The burden of proof is on Activision. Too much is going on around the periphery to not think something is amiss.
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