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Activision Hit With $500m Suit From Modern Warfare 2 Devs
Dragoniz3r writes "Activision has been served a lawsuit from 38 plaintiffs, including present and former Infinity Ward employees, demanding up to half a billion dollars. The plaintiffs are seeking compensation for 'unpaid bonuses, royalties, profit-sharing, and future profits from games such as Modern Warfare 3, and punitive damages.'"
I hope the plaintiffs win, and get every stinkin penny.
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Wait, I thought the whole insubordination deal came about because IW didn't want to make MW3? Sounds like they want to have their cake (not make MW3) and eat it too (get the money for it).
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Bringing a lawsuit against a huge corporation for half a billion dollars... That *is* Modern Warfare.
...anyone know how the developers themselves feel about the "no servers/mods" policy with PC Modern Warfare 2? I'm hoping *maybe* that was an Activision decision and *maybe* Respawn's future stuff will have a less lame implementation.
So 12 of the people suing them are still working there?
Awkward...
meep
This does sort of kill any credibility for Activision's claims. They alleged the fired individuals had gone from being model employees to seditious saboteurs, poisoning the dev team and conspiring to quit.
What's far more likely is that Activision treated their devs like crap (surprise surprise) and for most of them, having the heads of IW fired was the final straw. This is further reinforced by the fact that Activision (allegedly) owes them back wages and royalties, something they are obligated by both law and good commercial practice to pay promptly. A large, faceless corporate treating its talent like so many expendable resources to be drained and tossed aside? Shocking...
That does it, I'm not buying anything anymore from Activision, Apple, Microsoft, Ubisoft, as well as any movies produced for the MPAA or music produced for the RIAA. I'm also not buying anything from the immoral companies of Amazon or Walmart, nor am I making any purchases through Paypal because of their unethical business practices. If it doesn't come on bittorent with a crack or a keygen then it isn't worth having (I'll make the exception for Free software and Creative Commons books, music and movies).
They only fired West and Zampella (the rest quit on their own volition) and overall IW doesn't exactly seem like a bunch of model employees, more like a bunch of assholes that weren't being punished because of their contribution to the bottom line (some of the IW guys publicly insulted Activision guys on their forums).
Also Activisiopn alleged that W&Z were in talks with EA over defecting and what do you know? A few days after getting fired they get hired by EA. Sure, that's not evidence but it's pretty suspicious anyway and the investigations might dig up some dirt that shows Activision had a reason to act like it did.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
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Do I have any rights to sue Activision for ruining my potential profits? Can I do anything to have Kotick and crew ousted?
Not to take the side of Activision (I despise them personally.) on this issue, but I could file a lawsuit against them tomorrow for twice as much money for any claims that I could care to come up with. Just because someone files a lawsuit doesn't always mean that it's reasonable or anywhere near an indication of the truth.
My personal belief is that Activision fucked the IW developers out of money owed to them, but I don't know the full story and this could just as easily be a publicity ploy from the former IW employees. I honestly hope that if nothing else they get some of their CoD IP back, if for no other reason than Activision are a bunch of undeserving, money-grubbing pricks; of course that's hardly any basis for a legal opinion and I don't possess an intimate knowledge of the contracts that were signed between the two parties or the local, state, or federal laws which may be applicable in this case.
So while it's certainly popular to jump on Activision (May they burn in hell.) at the moment, it's possible that they're not guilty of anything (Aside from being first class douches.) under the law or that this lawsuit has any merit at all.
MW2 NEEDS dedicated servers. So we can add back some of the little things IWNet took away from us.
Like the ability to Kick cheaters. Or how about being able to play an entire game with out stopping to switch hosts.
The game itself is great but IWNet sucks...
BTW my name ingame is IWNetsucks and its true... Its Damn true
...So replace those lost programmers with liberal arts majors and start an offshoot "Post-Modern Warfare" series.
My webcomic
It seems they don't care to leave their IP in the clutches of Activision, and from a consumer's standpoint, its not a big deal after there have been some 6 Call of Duty games. Publishers should learn their place, as stepping stones.
which constitutes the bulk of the studio's creative and programming....
Hah. Activision hasn't done anything creative since Fighter Bomber was released in 1990. It was good and quite original despite being a flight sim. After that, boring copies of copies. (yes, I know that a lot of people think CIV II is the best game ever. I think it's slimy.)
There's plenty of other companies left who can remake all those same old games we've seen over and over and over again. Sigh. Everything was better in the old days. Time to boot up my Amiga 4000, which has more great and original games than the PC will ever have (since nobody is doing anything new anymore (on the PC/windows at least)).
The contract you refer to was an employment contract, it refers to the responsibilities that the employees would have to fulfill to get paid, which is working on CoD4 and later MWs. It doesn't give them any rights to the series, those belong to Infinity Ward, and Infinity Ward is a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision, which means those belong to Activision.
I don't know about money owed, if Activision owes these people money for what they did, they should pay up. It is unlikely Activision owes these people anything for MW3 though, even if they claim so.
Remember, if you come up with something in the employ of a company, it belongs to them. MW belongs to Infinity Ward and Infinity Ward belongs to Activision.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I love this sort of claim and counter claim the only people who stand to benefit are the lawyers, whats the betting that bonus' etc turn out to be discretionary and require you to still be working for the company at the time it is paid. (and my formaer employers even required you not to be working a notice period always caused a nice flood of resignations post payment) Certainly that is the norm in the uk for most big companies to have clauses in the contracts. The only people who stand to be better off under the whole thing are yet again the lawyers who have enacted the suit.
if today is a good day to die, it must be pretty bad
They all just randomly decided to quit in a down economy and forgo bonus money + the bonus money owed the two lead devs? Yes, every dev that quits, the bonuses for the remaining ones pile higher. And they're still leaving. Granted, they might believe that Activision are too rotten to pay anyone at this point, but if that's the argument you're relying on..
Nothing at all.
What's far more likely is that Activision treated their devs like crap (surprise surprise) and for most of them, having the heads of IW fired was the final straw.
This is ironic because Activision (the original Activision) was founded expressly to treat developers better. To quote from Wikipedia:
"Before the formation of Activision, software for video game consoles were published exclusively by makers of the systems for which the games were designed. For example, Atari was the only publisher of games for the Atari 2600. This was particularly galling to the developers of the games, as they received no financial rewards for games that sold well, and did not receive credit for their games. This caused several programmers to resign from their jobs. Activision became the first third-party game publisher for game consoles."
That was before Bobby Kotick bought the company name and sacked everyone there from the original Activision.
activision loses the game, customers lose the game. this means infinitywards is plotting for the subsequent class action suit filed by purchasers of the game (thanks to the lack of dedicated servers) or they plan to use this for leverage, no?
Stick it to the man!
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
No, insider info, and they can't be forced out, very sneaky way of always being kep in the loop so to speak.
Insider> (makes eyes at receptionist) Hi Janet, you look lovely today, as always...
Receptionist> Thanks Frank, i got some new nail polish....looks great
Insider>Yeah, that will be great for your board meeting later and impress Jim with....(smiles)
Receptionist>No Jim wont be there to see it , hes busy trying to find a lawyer to counter sue and put some
of these ex employees in their place....hes thinking of.....
you get the picture.
Nostalgia and dated (xb360) or confusing (ps3) console hardware holding back PC Gaming (Crysis is still the most graphically advanced game on the market) aside, there are some seriously inspired games out there for the PC. There's no need to dig out your pocket calculator to play 'let's write words on the screen in numbers' just yet. Athough I would concede the point that they're all rather too forgiving. Perhaps Star Control III will save us all?
Isn't the cake always a lie?
Seriously, when did game development become so lucrative? I know that Atari used to pay their devs and coders slave wages, and that has changed (EA excluded, perhaps), but when did the little guy start making $13M? I'll be lucky to see half of that in my lifetime.
If I'm missing something important from the article, please quote it. The site is blocked by my employer's Websense firewall.
Block Reason: The Websense category "Games" is filtered.
I'd begin by tactically inserting into Activision Headquarters, mow down about 5 execs with my SCAR-H Grenade Launcher. Call in a Predator Missile and get a Triple Kill... Call in a Harrier Strike, which would take out about 4 or 5 more... then I would rape away with my AC-130. Then I would demand my royalties
I would say all of those people leaving really makes it sound like it was Activision that was mostly to blame for all this.
Well they lost their biggest money making team of developers, hopefully they will treat their employees better in the future.
But I am happy that such a good team of developers are now working for hopefully less evil companies/company.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Don't believe everything you read on teh wikipedia
The fact that they can screw with and abuse people so hard that they actually WANT to go work for EA, speaks volumes about how dedicated Activision must be to sucking every last cent of work out of their employees.
Not really, MW is a franchise at the stage where it just needs a skeleton team to keep churning out sequels that will sell on name alone.
Yes, every dev that quits, the bonuses for the execs and upper management pile higher.
FTFY.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Tom: "Sorry, under the advice of my attorney I cannot answer this question in any way other than 'Sorry, under the advice of my attorney I cannot answer this question in any way other than "it may or may not be nice"'".
Activision claimed that the bonus pool for Infinity Ward will remain the same and whoever stays will get more money. Not saying it will happen.
Athough I would concede the point that they're all rather too forgiving.
Spelunky would like to clear something up regarding this statement.
= they loste the best people they have, the people that made their greatest hit. No matter if they win this lawsuit, they lose anyway when it comes to future production. Talent should be nurtured, it's weird that big corporations fail to realize this somehow, actvision, microsoft to name but a few ...
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
I should have clarified, my comment was targeted more at AAA titles and player's expectations to be pampered instead of challenged.
Focusing on the FPS genre, games tend to have adopted the checkpoint system every 50 metres (Dead Space, Mass Effect 2) which rarely leads to any genuinely difficult encounters. Compare this to the original AvP which only allowed you to save a couple of times per mission... Combined with sometimes random encounters with foes, that was a scary game to play as a Marine.