Activision Seeking $400 Million From West, Zampella…and EA

I remember thinking it must be a big joke all those months ago when reports started coming in that Activision security had turned up at Infinity Ward HQ.  Surely it was just a wind-up?  Well, as we all know, it was very real and led to the dismissal of IW founders Jason West and Vince Zampella.  The pair then launched a lawsuit against Activision, who promptly responded with a countersuit.

Well now Activision has amended that countersuit, adding EA into the mix stating that they “conspired with two former senior Activision executives, West and Zampella (the “executives”) to derail Activision’s Call of Duty franchise, disrupt its Infinity Ward development studio, and inflict serious harm on the company.” Activision are asking for $400 million in:

“Actual and punitive damages from EA and the former executives, including profits Activision would have made but for EA’s interference, costs incurred in rebuilding the affected studio, and damages suffered as a result of delays and disruptions.”

Activision also wants to:

“Recapture compensation previously awarded to its faithless executives, and to prevent Electronic Arts and the former executives from benefiting from their illegal conduct.”

The countersuit details the alleged goings on of EA, West, and Zampella; including meetings and quotes from obtained emails such as “Dunno how to scan secretly ” and “Probably better to just photocopy and fedex” in relation to confidential Activision information.

Activision are also claiming West and Zampella would not co-operate with other Activision studios, stating a scenario (backed by text messages) where Infinity Ward released a Modern Warfare 2 video on the same day as a World at War DLC video.  According to the suit, the text messages between West and an unnamed Infinity Ward employee read as follows:

IW employee – “treyarch released their mp dlc video.”

West -“Super nice? We release our video? Crush and destroy with our video.”

IW employee – “We already did. And . . . we already did”

West -“Nice.”

So the countersuit has now taken a new turn of events, and it will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

Source:  Joystiq