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Activision Hit With $500m Suit From Modern Warfare 2 Devs

Posted by Soulskill on from the pow-right-in-the-kisser dept.

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.'"

4 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  2. Res ipsa loquitur by Rollgunner · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Bringing a lawsuit against a huge corporation for half a billion dollars... That *is* Modern Warfare.

  3. Re:MW3 money? by Lance+Dearnis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  4. Re:Brain Drain by increment1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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."