Evil Avatar - Respawn Entertainment's West and Zampella Discuss Upcoming Activision Lawsuit

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Respawn Entertainment's West and Zampella Discuss Upcoming Activision Lawsuit

http://i.imgur.com/Lu9Vj.jpg

Game Informer has an interview with Respawn Entertainment's Jason West, Vince Zampella and their lawyer Robert Schwartz, where they discuss their upcoming lawsuit with Activision.

Quote:

Why don't we start with how this rift began? Could you sum it up in terms of why Activision is going after you in the suit? What does it entail?

Jason West: I've never really been clear on that one. I'm not sure what they're claiming. I know they are suing for a billion dollars and they haven't specified if they want it from EA or from me. [Editor's Note: Activision and EA settled this suit the following day, agreeing "to put this matter behind them."]

Vince Zampella: They say that Modern Warfare 3 would have been a much better game and would have made 700 million more dollars for them and they want us to pay that.

West: We deprived them of our services by being fired and therefore we owe them money.

Robert Schwartz: They have an expert. I don't know if this guy is going to ever see the inside of a courtroom, but he is going to testify that he did an analysis of all of their games and came to the conclusion that these guys and the 40 who left made better games for less money than anybody else at Activision. If they had not been fired, Modern Warfare 3 would have done somewhere between $2.8 and $3.3 billion in gross revenues. He vetted it through [Activision Blizzard COO] Tom Tippl and someone else in the chief financial office. He says, "Well, that's what the game would have done, here's what it did do. So here's all the profit that Activision lost because they didn't have those services." And - oh, by the way - Sledgehammer would have been available to do Fog of War and that would have made more profits, but they couldn't because they had to fill in for the Infinity Ward team.

The Respawn management seems to be on a PR trip regarding the law suit, judging from all the news popping up on the net. Eurogamer.net today has a great article on the issue, too, including the contract signed between Activision & Infinity Ward management back in 2009.

I'm interested in how this issue will turn out, from what I saw so far it looks like Activision gave them a dream contract, then later noticed "oops what have we done." Note: if you have a billion $ developer working for you, be grateful instead of a greedy sh*t. Also, you don't own people.

Also interesting how much of the cake will go to the whole development team (not just the management). I recall two lead designers from the Quake modding scene, I assume there are prob more with similar roots working there.

It's clearly a one sided argument. Just like any dispute, if they can get their story told to mommy of how bad johnny was, then Johnny is the bad boy.

I'm amazed at the number of posts people put up, blindly accepting their version.

But, if they want the sympathy card and the pity party, they can have it. Activision had specific terms in their contract that were broken. EA wants this as quiet as possible. They did entice the developers and should be found a culprit with the knowledge of said contracts they enforce as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judas (Post 2123952)

I'm amazed at the number of posts people put up, blindly accepting their version.

[...] Activision had specific terms in their contract that were broken.

Orly.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...d-out-of-court