We’ve posted on the Jason West & Vince Zampella saga a few times before. These are the two guys who headed up Infinity Ward and brought in millions for Activision with the Modern Warfare series only to be unceremoniously booted out the company and sued for illegal dealings with EA.
Well that’s Activision’s point of view at least, the other side is saying that Activision booted them out the door because they were owed over a hundred million dollars in royalties with more to come thanks to the massively successful Modern Warfare series.
Well that case is still going and now a judge in LA has pushed it one step closer to an all out in court brawl by ruling that there are enough facts to justify a court case to look into whether Activision did indeed defraud the two out of $125 000 000.
It’s all pretty sordid really and no side is going to come out of this looking very good but in my humble opinion it’s EA who are likely to lose in the end as their corporate policy at the moment does appear to be very confrontational with EA which leads me to believe they did indeed tap up West and Zampella and while I’m sure Activision will be forced to hand over some of the $125m I expect them to win a fair chunk back in their own personal $400m suit.
I also wonder if Activision are going to try and ambush any marketing plans EA may have for the upcoming Respawn title? Something that EA is already trying to do with the upcoming MW3 title.
Source: CVG
Last Updated: June 20, 2011
