Activision Countersues Modern Warfare 2 Execs

WrongSizeGlass writes "AP is reporting that Activision has countersued former Infinity Ward executives Jason West and Vince Zampella. Activision claims West and Zampella 'morphed from valued, responsible executives into insubordinate and self-serving schemers who attempted to hijack Activision's assets for their own personal gain and whose actions threatened both the future of the Call of Duty franchise and the future of Activision's (Infinity Ward) studio.'" This follows Activision's firing of the execs earlier this year. Legal documents indicate that this legal dispute has caused delays in the production of Modern Warfare 3. Lawyers for the two fired execs say Activision's claims are ridiculous, citing Modern Warfare 2's overwhelming financial success. Meanwhile, it's rumored that EA is seeing the whole fiasco as an opportunity.

Comments

Weird

[Jerrei]

Self-serving schemers? What, Kotick was afraid of some competition?

Not EA, Anything but EA!

[ColonelSplendid]

Please guys, don't go to EA, that is like going from a semi-evil organization to the ultimate evil organization. Go work for Valve or Bungie or one of the other decent studios out there.

Re:Not EA, Anything but EA!

[Nivlheim]

EA may have been the ultimate evil for some time, but Activision has recently been able to overtake them. By a rather large amount too. The former is now the diet-coke of evil, while the evil-scale has had to be redefined to accomodate the latter.

Re:Punish Activision

[Ephemeriis]

I quit World of Warcraft over this. I've never played Modern Warfare, nor do I care who made it, but it is obvious that Activision wants to milk its franchises until there is nothing left but dessicated corpses, and fuck anyone who stands in their way.

Actually, that seems to be what pretty much everyone is doing these days...

We've got sequels and expansions and spin-offs of anything even remotely successful - on the big screen, in TV, with video games, and with books.

Seems like nobody wants to be creative/original anymore.

Re:Punish Activision

[Ephemeriis]

The problem with many games now-a-days is they're story based. You get invested into a story which adds lots of value to the game.

This is a problem? I always thought stories were a good thing...

FPS game are the only games that can easily be changed/unique because not being held to a story line.

I disagree. The fact that FPS games are more-or-less driven by their mechanics, rather than a storyline, typically makes them less unique.

In Doom I was some generic guy running around and blasting monsters... In Quake I was a different generic guy running around and blasting different monsters with slightly better graphics... In Unreal I was a different generic guy running around and blasting different monsters with even better graphics...

But in Half-Life I was Gordon Freeman attempting to escape from Black Mesa after a resonance cascade tore the facility apart and flooded our world with extra-dimensional nasties.

There's a reason why the crowbar has become a truly iconic weapon... While the nail gun has been all-but forgotten.

Any major FPS game is mostly multiplayer, so just make it fun and it's a winner.

Fun is, of course, subjective...

But let's assume you've got some FPS title that everyone agrees is fun. And you take those exact mechanics and just re-skin everything... Say, take some Call of Duty title and turn it into a sci-fi shooter... Aside from preferring a sci-fi setting to a more realistic one, why would I bother to buy the new game if it's identical to the old one in every way that matters?

RTS/MMORPG/etc are a lot more involved and are more fun when there's a history.

I agree... But that doesn't mean you have to keep rolling out sequels. You can create the history within the game itself. Give your characters some depth and detail... Fill in the blanks in the world... Make me feel like I know the characters, the places, the villains... Give me a history, even if I've never heard of the game before.

They've done it to themselves

[rAiNsT0rm]

I worked in the game industry for about 10 years (PS1-PS2) and I've said it here for years, game companies are putting themselves out of business. The development and production costs have gotten so far out of hand that only "safe" games can be made. Sequels, franchises, licensed crap. No one can afford to take a chance any more, and almost every great game back in the day came from risk. The great games that have had massive support and funding end up having every corner rounded off in the name of wider appeal or time/money constraints. The only games that have managed to be risky and creative are the super small indie games which I think deserve the spotlight these days. It is a steady decline regardless of the profits and numbers. In another few years it is game over and the 1980's crash will come again. Consoles will disappear instead of arcades. It's sad, it's sad to see developers and designers get screwed even more than they already were, but this shake up will knock all of the garbage out of the system and bring it back down to reality and well designed games.