Activision's newly hired community man Dan Amrich took to a Facebook forum recently to spell out the bonus situation for the remaining employees at troubled Modern Warfare 2 developer Infinity Ward. Develop spotted Amrich's information-laden responses, which echo and expand on claims made by Activision in its suit against former IW heads Vince Zampella and Jason West (we've clipped the pieces of the lawsuit pertaining to the bonuses and dropped them after the break for you).

Specifically, Amrich says that employees who have left IW will not be receiving a cut of West and Zampella's now forfeited bonuses -- bonuses for Modern Warfare 2 were never paid, apparently. "Vince and Jason had very large bonuses; those bonuses are being redistributed to everybody else, to the people who did not allegedly attempt to steal company secrets," Amrich explains. "Activision is not pocketing that bonus money; it's still going to the people who work at IW. But you have to work at IW to get it, see? I don't want to see talented people screwed out of a paycheck any more than you do."

Although it's unclear whether the remaining IW employees have received their personal bonuses for MW2 just yet, Activision's lawsuit claims that Zampella and West "allocated to themselves approximately 1/3 of the total bonus pool for the Call of Duty franchise bonuses, which included the first Modern Warfare game." Further, it contends that "West and Zampella were demanding an even larger share of the bonus pool for Modern Warfare 2." Amrich reaffirms that the unpaid bonus to the duo is intended to be split up among the remaining employees at IW -- a claim also made by the lawsuit, which reads: "When Activision prevails in this matter, it intends to reallocate any share of the Modern Warfare 2 bonus pool that might otherwise have been payable to West and Zampella to those employees responsible for the success of the game who remain employees of the company."

That said, it could very well be some time before we see the resolution of the legal dispute between Zampella / West and Activision. Regardless of the perceived situation at IW, Amrich admits that "more people will probably go," though he believes "If you are young and hungry and have a vision for a new game, IW would be a really good place to be right now ... I suspect some of them are already employed at IW, just waiting for their shot." And we suspect that Amrich's not entirely off-base with that guess.

Posted: Apr 23, 2010 12:44 am