Infinity Ward Fires Another Shot at Activision
Infinity Ward and Activision have been engaged in intense legal battles ever since the firing of two top employees back in March. After the firing of Jason West and Vince Zampella, 45 other employees abruptly left Infinity Ward throughout April and May. It turns out, West and Zampella had sued Activision for not paying royalties. Activision quickly counter-sued, claiming their firing was justified. Now, Activision has another lawsuit filed against them.
On April 27th, 38 current and former Infinity Ward employees brought an updated lawsuit against Activision. The group, calling themselves the Infinity Ward Employee Group, is alleging that Activision created a hostile work environment which they referred to as a “police state.” The addendum to the lawsuit claims Activision subjected Infinity Ward employees to secret interrogations, placed guards at the exits to the building, and withheld money that was owed to the staff. Allegedly, Activison withheld 54 million dollars as a sort of ransom to get the employees to work on Modern Warfare 3. The money was to be paid out once the game was released on November 2011.
The lawsuit goes on the claim that Infinity Ward employees met with Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activsion, back in March. At that meeting, Kotick agreed to pay out bonuses at the end of the month, but that never happened. When the same employees met with the CFO of Activision, Thomas Tippl, in April, and asked about the money they were never paid, they were told to “get over it.”
The lawsuit alleges that if West and Zampella were never fired, if the bonus money had been paid out in full, and if Activison had not created such a hostile work environment, the employees would never had resigned from Infinity Ward. This new lawsuit also lowers the amount of money the employees are seeking from Activision. The amount has been lowered from 500 million to 216 million dollars.
There will be a hearing on August 5th to decide if both lawsuits should be consolidated, and the Infinity Ward employees’ lawsuit hearing is currently set for May 23rd of next year. We’ll keep you informed on the situation as it unfolds in the coming months.
10 Responses to “Infinity Ward Fires Another Shot at Activision”
wow pretty heffty lawsuit hope IW wins activision can go suck a nut all i care
Activison – The Hitler state of games!
e.a. vision – heil hitler!
also, since the infinity ward guys quit instead of working on Modern Warfare 3 like Activision wanted…who knows when or if that game will come out
@Josh
#3 is still being made. Activision is just bringing in a bunch of other people from separate studios to finish everything.
Go get ‘em IWEG! And it would be impossible for EA and Activision to get along. It would be like 2 parasites living in the same body, granted EA is a bit more symbiotic atm.
Get over it? Ok first I was just pissed of with them but this? THIS is just disgusting. Get over 54 Million dollers?! Maybe for Activision but they made a game and they deserve a money, If I was working for Infinity Ward I’d be telling Kotick where he can stick Modern Warfare 3.
Honestly I hope he gets kidnapped just so he can go through the torment he’s putting he’s employees through.
Normally I’d say something about how can we necessarily believe one group over the other? But then I realize that some pretty shitty stuff had to happen for 45 people to up and walk out on their jobs. And now they have to wait a full year just to have their case heard. That sucks.
The real culprits are the board of directors at Activision who made Kotick the president and continue to let this stuff go on.
Why? As long as he finds a way to give them tons of money they don’t care, where do you think the 54 Million dollers went? Stright into the bank accounts of those greedy pigs.
HEHhahahhehe hehe. Stick it to em W and Z! thats a load of crap to have people working in that type of enviornment for a F*****ing video game. Thats just ridiculous. Well looks like the news is out and MW3 will be coming out next november, Its gunna have to be shipped to another developer or have people from another developer come in and help finish it off I would assume.
Well it looks like MW3 might finally be the fall out of the beast. Here’s hoping that Black Ops is good. Cheers!