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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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Bringing a lawsuit against a huge corporation for half a billion dollars... That *is* Modern Warfare.
The money they're asking for is compensation they were promised for Modern Warfare 2 and never received, not for the MW3 game they don't even want to make.
Their contract specifies (Unsurprisingly) that they have some rights to the Modern Warfare series as a whole. Go back and look at the old papers - the first lawsuit - to see that contract. In other words: What they want, I would expect, is that Activision doesn't get to make more Modern Warfare at all. It's not like Activision came up with it, they're firing the people who did. They might not be able legally to take the Modern Warfare name with them, but if they can't, they'll take the money from it at least. Either way, Activision's actions here are pretty patently and obviously illegal. IANAL, but the California Legal Code in terms of 'you must pay people all owed money within 72 hours of their departure' doesn't require one to interpret. The other stuff may be up in the air, but Activision's definitely ripping them off here.
...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...
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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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.
...So replace those lost programmers with liberal arts majors and start an offshoot "Post-Modern Warfare" series.
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And if we all do that, then you will have nothing to download on BitTorrent since nothing will be released as no-one would be prepared to pay good money for it - your logic is flawed because it depends on honest users like me subsidising your entertainment.
Personally, I don't give a shit about immoral media companies. As a consumer, all I care about is that the stuff I buy is good value for money and doesn't punish me too much as an honest user - that just means I do a lot of research before I do buy anything and never, ever get coerced by advertising to ever feel that I *MUST* buy something.
Consequently, in buying stuff at the cheapest prices I can find and knowing all about it before I buy it, I am rarely disappointed and therefore am prepared to go out and buy more stuff.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The tricky part here, though, is "California". The laws there are such that you have to pay money owed under a legal contract, period. But you can only recover actual damages and interest. Nothing else. Their inclusion of "punitive damages" and the insane amount is just as likely to get the thing thrown out by a judge. Just watch most of those TV court shows - they tend to be filmed in California or New York, both of which almost every other episode have the judge explain to the plaintiff (for the thousandth time) that "pain and damages" and the like aren't recoverable there.
I put the real bill at closer to maybe 50 million, which is still a lot of cash. My guess is that they are hoping to settle out of court since Activision knows they are going to be found guilty of something the second the lawyers go through their emails and documents. Again, California's laws are a PITA to deal with and it has some of the nastiest chain-of-evidence and E-discovery laws. If you hide anything, you're meat. If you destroy anything, you're toast. If you "forgot" to keep the old emails, you essentially lose the case by default. And the guys really do show up with the police in tow if required and haul your entire backups off to get analyzed by firms that are so good at this stuff that nothing short of god-level encryption will save you.
Basic summary - don't do business in California if you plan to screw your partners or employees. You lose every single time. The only question is - how much will Activision have to settle for.
WHen IW was bought IW retained the rights to the CoD name and future titles.
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.
Uhm ... and what is a reasonable punishment as an honest user? It is a kick in the balls? Punch in the face? Having your leg used as a urinal?
To be honest, the only time I'd expect to be punished after having purchased something, would be if I bought an hour with a professional dominatrix. But being punished for buying a game? Well, they can fuck off!
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.
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
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.
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