Beyond the details we heard in the LA Times report from earlier today, Joystiq has obtained the entire 23 page complaint this afternoon (filed against former Infinity Ward co-heads Jason West and Vince Zampella by Activision), which details the publisher's claims about the duo's insubordination during employment. The claims detailed therein range from refusing to meet with Activision executives, to "engaging in a campaign to portray Activision and its management in a negative light to IW employees in an effort to solicit those employees," to slowing pre-production of Modern Warfare 3 as leverage in ongoing discussions with Activision. The suit even says that West and Zampella "refused to sign standard exit documents representing that they had returned all Activision property, including computer code, and would honor the confidentiality obligations that they have to Activision."

Further, Activision claims that "on numerous occasions and during critical final stages of game development," West and Zampella threatened to stop production on last year's Modern Warfare 2 "in a bad faith effort to gain further leverage in their contractual relations with Activision." And during all this, the publisher claims that the studio heads were engaging in secret conversations "with Activision's direct competitor" (presumably Electronic Arts, though an EA representative refused to confirm that earlier today).
As a result of these alleged actions, Activision's complaint seeks to "recapture certain equity from West and Zampella, and to recover, as a measure of
damages, all compensation and benefits in addition to equity received by them during the period of their disloyalty." In English, that means that Activision is seeking an undisclosed fortune from the defendants, left up to the court to determine, but consisting of money the two earned during their amorphous "period of disloyalty." And there's a ton more in the complaint that we couldn't fit into this measly post, so we'd strongly suggest clicking through its 23 pages in the gallery below. We'll gather up some of the most notable bits and share them after the break.
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/09/activision-countersuit-against-zampella-and-west-seeks-money-bac/#comments

Posted: Apr 10, 2010 3:26 am