As reported at MCV (and in greater detail at The Hollywood Reporter), the Modern Warfare debacle – which began with a mass exodus of staff from Infinity Ward, and resulted in the creation of Respawn Entertainment – is far from over. Jason West and Vincent Zampella have won the right to take their dispute with Activision to court; but it doesn’t quite end there.
West and Zampella claim that Activision wrongfully terminated their contracts early last year, and that this cost them 125 million dollars in lost royalties; and also that Activision reneged on their promise to allow the pair “the right to creative authority and autonomy and escalating royalty payments on future games”. Not best pleased about this, Activision are attempting to countersue West, Zampella, and their new publisher EA – accusing them all of being frightful rotters who set out to “hijack Activision’s assets”. Part of the counterclaim is that EA attempted to poach West and Zampella while they were still under contract for Activision.
Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle had already ruled in March that Activision had sufficient claims against EA; and last Tuesday, ruled that West and Zampella had sufficient claims against Activision. Barring some kind of out of court settlement (as was eventually the case when EA and Activision had a similar tiff over the rights to Double Fine’s Brutal Legend), the case should reach trial by the beginning of 2012 at the latest.
Personally, I think the only way to settle this dispute is to hand proceedings over to Pheonix Wright and Miles Edgeworth.