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?

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]

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.