Call of Duty Developers Jump Ship; Activision Now Slapped With $500M USD Suit

From DailyTech: Infinity Ward, a unit of Activision (acquired by the company in 2003), struck solid gold with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The game enjoyed a more lucrative debut then any movie, music, or video game release in history, selling $310M USD worth of units in a mere 24 hours. As of March, over 14 million copies have been sold worldwide, indicating that the game raked in over $700M USD.

Following that success, though, the studio has been slowly falling apart from the inside. In March, Activision fired Jason West (Infinity Ward president, game director, co-CCO, and CTO) and Vince Zampella (CEO and co-founder of Infinity Ward) for "breaches of contract and insubordination".

West and Zampella accused Activision of an "Orwellian" and "pre-ordained" campaign to try to "manufacture a basis to fire" the studio's founders. The pair filed suit, claiming Activision owes them $36M USD in unpaid royalties.

The pair launched a new company, Respawn Entertainment, which signed a distribution deal with Electronic Arts, their formal rival. Since, 26 of Infinity Ward's 80 COD:MW2-era employees have left the company on their own volition, with many joining the ranks at Respawn, angry at Activision's treatment of West and Zampella.

Now a decimated Infinity Ward has been smacked with a suit by the "Infinity Ward Employee Group" -- a collection of about half the employees who worked on COD:MW2 -- seeking half a billion dollars, alleging breach of contract and unpaid royalties.

View: Article @ Source Site