2010 April, 11th

Liliana Dumitru-Steffens

Jason West (Infinity Ward president, game director, co-CCO, and CTO) and Vince Zampella (CEO and co-founder of Infinity Ward) are among the developers of the original “Call of Duty” games. In 2003, Infinity Ward was acquired by Activision Blizzard Inc (ATVI.O) and the two became automatically its employees. In recent news, we learned that Activision fired the two for “breaches of contract and insubordination.”

In response, West and Zampella filed a lawsuit against Activision, seeking $36 million in royalty payments and damages. At their turn, Activision countersued, charging the two with attempting to “hijack” the company’s assets and threatening the future of its blockbuster “Call of Duty” video game franchise. (Reuters)

A game of power, no doubt, where Activision is trying to protect future developmental of the “Call of Duty” series. Note that, among other accusations, Activision implies that West and Zampella have negotiated with competitors while still under contract, and called the two “insubordinate and self-serving schemers.”

It’s hard to guess what really happened, but one thing is sure: without West and Zampella “Call of Duty” will see other developments in the future, and probably not for the best. With their lawsuit, West and Zampella are trying to to secure contractual rights over the Modern Warfare branch of the Call of Duty franchise, and if they win, they could retain the power to halt the development and release of any future games in the Modern Warfare setting.

In the light of the counter accusations, West and Zampella need to win both trials, to clear up their names. If they don’t, the matter could affect all future employments (nobody likes “self-serving schemers”). Rumors that the two could be switching to EA Games are already being proliferated, based on the fact that the two were the lead producers of one of the first Medal of Honour games.

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About the Author

Liliana Dumitru-Steffens is public relations consultant for Pamil Visions PR. She writes for Everything PR since January 2009. Previously she worked for My-tronic GmbH and Unilever Romania. Email Liliana at lsteffens [at] pamil-visions [dot] net.

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