This is gonna be awesome when they make the political-thriller-court room drama movie! Who should play Bobby Kotick? I'm leaning for Warick Davis

Things are not looking good for Activision at all. I see major court losses in the future.

Haha, this is getting interesting. I think its safe to assume this is the end of infinity ward and possibly modern warfare 3.

Now if there were only a way to turn news like this into a video game.

(just so its not taken out of context, im not celebrating there demise, but merely there liberation from activision).

"I think its safe to assume this is the end of infinity ward and possibly modern warfare 3." IW? Maybe. MW3? Pfft, no. Atvi recognizes that MW (and CoD) is a strong brand, and so long as they own the rights, they're not going to let it just die.

Take that Activision!

When Kotick takes the fun out of making video games, the devs come right back and take the fun out of him making money.

I read this from an LA Times article on this story... "[The lawsuit] goes on to allege that Activision representatives told Infinity Ward employees that if West and Zampella had not been fired, the employees would have received bonuses approximately 2.5 times higher than what they were paid on March 26."

@ Brian Canary - Hawesome!

The potential fallout from this is how publishers structure royalty and/or compensation contracts with developers in the future...and I don't necessarily mean for the better.

I've never read as many HR issues about a game company then the Activison/Infinity Ward drama. Have the producers of Law and Order contacting them yet about an episode?

I would say the more likely potential fallout from this is publishers learning to pay what is due. Activision thought they were being real slick in trying to minimise their payments and control their staff but it turns out that justice may be served. Rewording contracts in a legalistic way would not protect activision from this type of lawsuit because most contract law as I understand it is disputable in the spirit of the agreement.

i wonder if Activision is regretting its decision yet, or if screwing over and disrespecting its empoyees is still worth it.

@Dave EA seemly learned, no? I hope that Activision learn too...

But, Activision was created when Atari did that...

OH MY GOD, IT WILL RAIN KNIVES AND HELL WILL FREEZE!

Atari screw people: They create Activision.
EA screw people: They just get screwed... (Origin, Westwood, EA Spouse, etc...)
Activision, the saviors of Atari screwed people, screw people: They go to EA (the previous king of hell).

I want popcorn too.

I've heard you make the argument many times about free agency. At this point i'm going to assume that you yourself are a free agent in the game biz and is currently reaping its rewards.

I'm still not sure if it's practicality for Film also holds true for game development if you consider the complexities of making a game as opposed to a film. I'd be happy to read an article that really dissects the pros and cons of this because i'm not convinced this is the one true solution to the problems we face. That doesn't take into account that free agency isn't even a perfect system for film, i'm sure people in that business still complain about their "business" as much as we do.

In other news, Warner Bros comes in and buys everything. 50 years into the future *adds echo* Sony and Warner Bros face off as two massive publishers where as Nintendo went into the adult entertainment business with their new version of the "Wiimote" wink wink.

In all honesty, we are going to see some very interesting gaming landscape changes in the next 10 years.

Why, my popcorn has too much butter. Lol Allen and Mauricio made my day.

Regardless of how this effects the W-2s at Infinity Ward, I think its pretty obvious that MW3 is going to suck.

I could see the free agent model taking hold, but it wont start from/at a large company like Activision. It will start with small companies (ie Bungie (pre MSFT), Infinity Ward etc) that make great products. When the large companies zoom in to steal talent, that is when the contracts will get pushed into the larger businesses.

It'll take at least 2-3 years before we start to see the employment market in this industry really take to it.

I'm sure Activision will counter sue them. That seems to be their standard reaction to lawsuits.

if anything, free agency makes more sense in games than movies, not less. problem is game developers seem more averse to the idea of organizing than film crews.

Brian Canary said "When Kotick takes the fun out of making video games, the devs come right back and take the fun out of him making money."

Awesome :D

Oh and please, could people make less noise with their popcorns ? I just can't hear what the guy says !

There's no denying Call Of Duty is a strong name but I think with this whole issue being so public, it will hurt the Call Of Duty brand, especially the fact that it's well known where the new developers of Infinity Ward have gone. It's hard to think of Call Of Duty in the same light. It'll probably move units similar to Treyarch's versions now.

@Bob: Well said. The Movies to games comparisons have got to stop. Seriously.

That being said, maybe free agency is viable in the games industry as well, although I kinda doubt it, except for a few of the "stars" of our industry.

@Someone: Can I get a few of those popcorn too ?

@Bob Creating a movie requires more than just filming, films face many unknowns, and some of them do require software development and the invention of new technology. You wouldn't know this though because you don't seem to know much about making films.

So, we're all assuming that Activision is in the wrong? I'm inclined to support individual developers over corporate interests, but we really don't have any credible evidence that Activision has acted outside the boundaries of the employee contracts.

Honestly, I hope the developers get the compensation they've earned, but can we reserve at least some judgment until we have some facts?

Or, if everyone else has facts can you provide them or a link to where I can read up?

Normally, I'm not one for drama. But this drama envolves $125 million? I'm in. Pass the popcorn this way too.

I gotta say this is great drama. I don't know why but I like seeing all these lawsuits, and I hate frivolous suits.

It is good to watch because it's a fight between the people who actually create a product and people who are in it for the money. It could be any other industry and it would still be good to watch. The fact that it happens in the game industry makes me even more interested.

The deal structures aren't necessarily skewed in favor of the developers themselves, but without those who are "in it for the money" there would be no Modern Warfare. A lot of investors have a stake here and those people work hard for their money as well. Let's not forget that they provide the capital needed to fund these projects in the first place. The is no billion dollar franchise without the millions of dollars required to fund development of said franchise.

@ Mark Harris

Let's look at what we know:

West and Zampella are "dismissed" from Activision for supposedly shopping their talents and franchises around to other publishers. If that's true, it means they risked tens of millions of dollars in bonuses and royalties. If that's actually the case, logical deduction would suggest they already knew their bonuses weren't being paid out, which is one of the things they allege. Otherwise, why would these two men risk millions of dollars they already earned unless they were certain that money wasn't coming down the pipe from the upper echelons of management? I mean, West and Zampella are not stupid men; even if they were entertaining the notion of defecting, there is no logical reason they wouldn't wait until they collected the royalties on the most financially successful videogame ever released.

Once West and Zampella leave, they form Respawn and more than a quarter of the Infinity Ward staff defect and follow within a short time. That fact alone suggests that these employees felt Activision was no longer the kind of company they wanted to work under despite being at the helm of the most successful gaming IP of the last decade. Again, logical deduction would suggest that if Activision was the “victim” in all of this, they would have gained a bit more loyalty from these Infinity Ward employees, which of course is clearly not the case. In an economy like this, where studios are shutting down at a rapid pace, the notion of so many people leaving a major studio helming a huge IP speaks volumes about their faith and trust in Activision as their parent company.

Then last week we have a corporate minion from Activision trying to spin some PR-Bullshit about how generous Activision is by redistributing the West/Zampella bonus among those Infinity Ward employees that choose to stay. Later however we discover that these payouts have significant strings attached and don't really qualify as a bonus at all. Interestingly enough, employees still leave and head over to Respawn, clearly unmoved by Activision's 20 pieces of silver.

And now we have a massive lawsuit by both former and current employees claiming they have been shorted millions in royalties, a demonstrative pattern by Activision that suggests they don’t promptly pay out due compensation to the very people making their company hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

And you're asking if Activision is the bad guy in all of this?

Again, where is the motive for people to demolish the integrity of a studio that just made the most successful game of all time? Why would any of this be initiated by Infinity Ward employees or former management unless they were already having the screws put to them by Activision?

On top of all of that, you have Bobby Kotick, a man who freely admits to fostering a work environment of fear and tension, a man who thinks a brand name alone will keep sales buoyant indefinitely and who has demonstrated time and again that his respect for the talented men and women who make the products he sells is tempered by his own insufferable arrogance.

Seriously, what other conclusion can a person formulate based on the information provided?

The popcorn statements make my day.

Does anybody have any season salt or Iams? That is some good spice on popcorn.

It would seem as we've started a new internet meme: "Pass the popcorn"

Meanwhile I'm going downstairs to make some popcorn in my microwave oven.

@ Bill

First, I'm all for the fair compensation of those who created MW and MW2. They are creative and hard-working people. Despite our feelings about the game (like, dislike, indifferent) they have obviously put together something that many millions of people thought was worth their money. Kudos to them, and they deserve acclaim and compensation. There are lots of people at ATVI outside of the dev team that worked hard on this title as well and they should see their due.

Second, all of your evidence is entirely circumstantial and at best you are making educated guesses about the motivation behind all these moves.

Third, if you must create a "bad guy" then you can point at ATVI, I have no problem with that. However, this is business, and as with anything else they normally fit somewhere in the infinite shades of gray between good and bad. I personally believe that for your long term health you take a little less market profit, pay out bonuses to IW, and let them work on their new IP. IW is a money maker and I'm sure they would turn a decent or better profit on the new project. Perhaps then they would be fresh and eager to return to the MW brand for MW3. I get it from a business standpoint, MW is a brand begging for exploitation. IW can probably exploit it better than anyone else, and I think in this case patience should win out over short term profit goals. We'll see what happens if Sledgehammer works up MW3 and if it sells on brand name over developer name.

For the purposes of this article and this discussion, however, I'm concerned with whether or not ATVI has actually violated the law and breached any of the contracts signed with IW employees. And for the record, when you have precious little information and no concrete evidence whatsoever the conclusion you normally come to is "none". You wait for something resembling facts before you draw conclusions.

Legal brief up on Joystiq.

As for free agency, I guess we will have to see how Respawn does. It seems to be the first high profile studio following that model.

"have you ever had to patch a movie post release?"

Two Words: Star Wars ;)

@ Mark Harris

Educated guesses are all any of us have to go on because the necessary documents and evidence have not been made available to the public and if this case never goes to trial and eventually gets settled, we'll probably never have the full story. What is left to us is the ability to use our cognitive and deductive skill to assess the situation based on circumstantial evidence which, despite what Law and Order has taught us, can be relatively compelling foundation to predicate a theory upon. The circumstantial evidence is overwhelmingly indicative of a greedy company screwing over the very people who they depend upon which, let’s face it, has become the sad legacy of business here in the States and abroad. I will freely admit that I am engaging in speculation and even a bit of conjecture but my postulations are intelligent, logically based and clearly delineated. If in years to come my theory and stance is revealed to be incorrect, I will freely admit my mistake.

As to your talk of grey areas, that is the sad, pathetic vernacular of the world we live in, isn’t it? We use these terms and rationales in place of honor and integrity, concepts that have been shelved and put on display as archaic remnants of an ideology that no longer applies to our modern construct. When a man like Kotick can arrogantly extol his dismissive, borderline-oppressive philosophies on the treatment of employees and not be taken to task demonstrates what a pathetic, greedy and vapid population we have cultivated. Men like Kotick have grossly exploited the concept of a free market and perverted capitalism to such an extent that it is beginning to resemble the same failures of socialism, albeit manifested in different ways. I’m a Libertarian and support absolute freedom but men like Kotick are nothing but pimps in expensive suits and frankly this whole thing reeks of what Ray Kassar did back in the 80’s with Atari: the marginalization of the talent and the reaping of the profits by upper management.

Frankly, you are no position to lecture me as to what types of conclusions I should or should not come to. Your own position is the typical wishy-washy banality of a generation weaned on apathy and misdirected enough to think that being non-committal is some sort of virtue. There is plenty of evidence to suggest Activision has brought this down upon themselves and more importantly, they have yet to provide a single credible motive for any of this nonsense. Again, if my position is specious and my rationale tenuous, answer me the many logical questions I posed in my initial post:

Why would West and Zampella risk so much money unless they were already being treated poorly or knew the bonus money/royalties weren’t forthcoming?

Why would so many employees leave Infinity Ward and follow Zampella and West if these two men were in the wrong? Why would these people leave such a well-established IP that will inevitably generate millions of more dollars in the very near future?

Why are Infinity Ward employees still leaving even when large cash bonuses are being dangled in front of them by Activision? And why in the hell would current employees sue for tens of millions of dollars if they had been fairly compensated to begin with?

I don’t need a flow chart to see that something very negative is occurring at Activision, especially when the head of the company is a man who has publically made statements that suggest a corporate policy of employee mistreatment. If you want to ride the fence then by all means enjoy the view and keep those hands clean. For my part, I’m giving dozens of hardworking people WHO ACTUALLY MADE THE GAME the benefit of the doubt.

Todd Howard stand aside. Bill Boggess is my new hero for today.

"I don’t need a flow chart to see that something very negative is occurring at Activision, especially when the head of the company is a man who has publically made statements that suggest a corporate policy of employee mistreatment."

Everyone who takes Kotick's pessimism/skepticism/fear statements as "a corporate policy of employee mistreatment" loses all credibility for the purposes of this discussion. Sorry.

Bob, you couldnt be more wrong. taken with everything else, Kotick's statements are extremely relevant.

@Bill Boggess: Hear hear.

That anyone is trying to "defend" activision with not a single scrap of evidence to support their decision nor a single believable motivation to why the people they are accusing would do what they are doing is absolutely beyond me.

The fact that activision are using threatening tactics (making bonus payments dependant on remaining employed) to keep employees at activision, regardless of anything else, is entirely ethically corrupt. End of story. You can argue all the other semantics all you want but that single fact alone paints activision as the bad guy in all of this.

Whoa, Bill, you came at me like a spider monkey there and I don't think I gave you cause. It's cool and all to hate ATVI, but there is no evidence YET to suggest they've done anything ILLEGAL, and that's what court cases are about.

If we're arguing the ethical nature of what's happening, well, ATVI looks like a mud fence on a rainy day, but that has little bearing on the lawsuit.

I'm going to blow past all the borderline "Get off my lawn!" ad hominems you threw my way because trading insults on the interwebs is a no-win situation (despite Captain Kirk's posturing) and a waste of time.

I went back and read my posts and I'm sure I gave IW the benefit of the doubt twice. In no place did I ever lecture you or call into question the logic or intelligence of your arguments, or state that one can't reason through to a conclusion from circumstantial evidence. I mentioned that your evidence is circumstantial specifically to highlight why I haven't yet made judgments on the LEGAL proceedings. In the true Libertarian spirit I should have as much freedom to draw no conclusion until further evidence is provided or until the case is settled as you have to draw your conclusion now. If it was a matter of semantics, using the wrong pronoun or some such that struck a nerve, well then I'll claim fault.

I'm sorry you've taken it personally that I'm not rushing to judgment on an open legal case. Really, though, your rant and attempt to pigeon-hole my character based on a few lines of text makes you look irrational. For the sake of clarity, I'm not saying you are irrational, just that your vehemence and tone were unwarranted given the lack of such in my response. If you just need a straw man to knock down and take out some frustration, then I suppose I'll do. Otherwise, let's trade opinions like professionals, mkay?