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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.
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.
Give it a few decades.
Musicians and film artists are just now being able to really succeed free of the grips of their large respective "artist associations". There's still a long way to go, though. It's taken about 50 years for music, 80 years for film.
In 20 years, indie studios in video gaming are starting to get a real grip on the industry. Extrapolate that. So, I say, give it a decade or so. Being at the grips of some big, monolithic evil publisher won't be an issue anymore.
When one says: "They were insubordinate and self-serving schemers who attempted to hijack Activision's assets for their own personal gain"
The other says: "They owed us salary and we tried to get them to pay it"
I don't really have anything to say about the merits of all this. But I thought it might shape your views to know that in a situation like this (assuming the case is in federal court, or a court using something like the federal rules), Activision has to bring any countersuit that arose from the same set of circumstances that form the basis of the plaintiffs' original suit; they won't be allowed to bring it later. So, it may well be that Activision had never really intended to sue the execs, but was forced to bring the counterclaim now to keep its options open.
caritj.org
Any company that makes numerous sequels to games and then names then in such a way that you can't immediately tell what order they came out in (Need for Speed, I'm looking at you) is Evil in my book. Of course I'm the only thing that isn't evil in my book, so maybe that isn't such a useful scale.
In 20 years, indie studios in video gaming are starting to get a real grip on the industry. Extrapolate that. So, I say, give it a decade or so. Being at the grips of some big, monolithic evil publisher won't be an issue anymore.
Good point. Personally, I see the seeds starting now: hardware and tools are powerful enough that even without a budget, you can create a polished game experience. You don't have to code a physics engine by hand, you don't have to be a graphics wizard to create a colorful world with great draw distance, and you don't have to ration your CPU-cycles to have some sort of believable AI and pathfinding.
Since the biggest difference between blockbusters with 50 million dollar budgets and those with 50k budgets will be how many content creators and how many hair-physics creators they employ, there's a good chance that indie developers can actually be very successful. See Portal and Castle Crashers, for example.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I don't know. I can think of at least two big companies doing it right. Namco (I've yet to hear a big complaint about a single one of their larger franchises. They usually take their time putting out a quality game.), and Nintendo (Specifically, the guys working on the Zelda franchise, and, to a lesser extent, the Mario platformers).
Def in bad taste. Sorry.
Disclaimer: I work for Ubisoft.
I disagree with that. Ubisoft cares quite deeply about its game quality, as does EA (recently). EA realised that they had become the bad guys, and took steps to correct that. Activision has actually embraced that aspect of themselves.
Ubisoft has done a lot of wrong recently with its ridiculous DRM, but it's honestly a fairly isolated incident. Overall, they are still trying to improve the quality of their games. EA is doing much the same. And EA has realised that their DRM has done more harm than good, and they remove it shortly after release these days. (both companies have a "Lord of the Flies" corporate structure internally but externally, they do the job. Ubisoft takes the prize though, in that they are extremely reluctant to layoff employees, while EA does it regularly).
Activision on the other hand... will milk a franchise until it dies, layoff employees for extra profit, and has no interest in making a good game.
I do not wish to work for EA. But I REFUSE to work for Activision. I like working for Ubisoft. They really try to make good games.