Amended Infinity Ward Lawsuit Details Activision's "Police State"

[The DSM]

Activision has now reached the pinnacle of corperate evil.

They are now called Gentek.

No good has ever came from a company called Gentek.

 

[Enemy Of The State]

When you have a goose that lays golden eggs, you probably shouldn't subject it to interrogations or withhold it food until it lays another one.

You just keep feeding it and give it its space and it'll keep doing its thing.

Allegory Epic Win

OT: Activision... when will you learn?

 

[Pendragon9]

This is personally the fault of everyone who bought Modern Warfare 2. You guys basically said "I like Bobby Kotick and he deserves to steal money from people."

Sorry, but that's the truth. Sorry if it doesn't sound pleasant, but really, what did you expect?

 

[Jared]

Interrogations? On What? What they had for lunch!? Seems a little exaderated...I admited Activision are been a right punch of idiots not paying out whats promised...but, some claims been made against them seen hard to believe...

 

[Patton662]

Activision = Apple ? They both seem to treat their employees like disposable property.

 

[T-Bone24]

This is Bobby Kotick we're talking about. The man who said he wanted to "take all the fun out of making video games."

I'm sick of people quoting this. When he said that, he was talking to very serious investors who wanted to know that their money was safe. Before, to quote Dan Amrich, the videogame industry was "cocaine and hot tubs". Saying that he was taking the fun out of making games is saying that the it's a serious industry now, and one capable of making a lot of money.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Am I the only one who gets the distinct feeling the IW workers are just caught in the crossfire between Activision and Ward/Zampella?

West and Zampella negotiate with other companies to create their own company, which threatens Activision's money franchise. They can't get the information from the duo for obvious reasons, so they "interrogate" the rest of the team.

Plus these "interrogations" really don't sound that bad. You ever been in a "consultant meeting" where you have four producers, four directors, the station manager, and a group of consultants picking apart every single little thing you did? Yeah, it's a fucking miserable experience. And probably what happened to them, but they're exasperating.

To continue playing devil's advocate, yes, Activision is arguably "evil" in this whole case. But when you look at everything presented, it seems a lot less like "Activision is evil!" and more "Activision is evil because Infinity Ward poked the bear."

Well, yeah, this all sounds extremely reasonable...
Except fot one thing. Even with Zampella and West long, long gone, people are still contiuning to quit Infinity Ward (last week, Alexander Roycewicz was number 47 to do so, if I'm not mistaken). That surely can't mean that with those guys gone, the atmosphere is back to normal. Or maybe this has to do with the fact that IW is in total ruins.
But, another thing. Even with West and Zampella in cahoots with EA, surely they couldn't have been making their negotiations all by themselves. And if they were, then why has pretty much everyone left with them?

 

[squid5580]

How does anyone know about the "secret" interrogations lol

I don't blame Acti for running it like a "police state". They have to keep thier secrets safe.

what secrets? their formula to an fps game? because its gun + enemy + no thought = fun.

How about trying to keep thier games off of torrent sites a month before release?

 

[Danpascooch]

40% of the promised bonuses due to the sales of Modern Warfare 2 were paid out, but the suit says that the rest was withheld until Modern Warfare 3 was completed by a required deadline of November 2011.

This actually makes sense, not that it's alright, or legal, or that they shouldn't have to pay it, but unlike the rest of the lawsuit, at least I can make sense of the motivations behind this statement.

 

[imgunagitusucka]

Firstly, the only other COD game treyarch has made besides cod3 is W@W. COD 1,2,4 and MW2 all did better critically and commercially than W@W, which was shit by the way. Also saving a few hundred million bucks at the cost of the money printing machine that IW call of duty games are, is idiocy. As with microsoft trying to make halo games without bungie, activision trying to make COD games without IW will fail.

What was so bad about World at War? The fact that they managed to take the CoD4 engine, upgrade it, and bring it back to World War II? The fact that they managed to keep a very well-balanced multiplayer (up until recently, now that everyone just runs around with MP40s)? The fact that they added the fantastic Nazi Zombies game mode that adds hours upon hours of replayability and has it's own story? That, in general, I experienced less lag and less 'bullshit' kills compared to Modern Warfare 2?

Anyway, Bobby Kotick said that Infinity Ward -- remember, not everybody left -- will remain an integral part of the Call of Duty series:

Confirming that Infinity Ward was working on Modern Warfare 3, Activision boss Bobby Kotick reiterated that the studio remains an integral part of the franchise going forward.

(Source [http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/54699/Call-Of-Duty-Dominates-Activision-Investment-Call])

There has always been only one weapon in W@W, the MP40 has been abused since the MP beta. There are so many environment glitches in that game it's embarrasing, and It's way too easy to spawn trap the enemy, just like COD3. The vehicles are overpowered and the bolt action rifles are underpowered, which matters little anyway because as you admitted, the MP40 breaks the game. W@Ws' hoard/firefight mode is the weakest of it's kind, GOW, HaloODST, and BFBC2 all have superior versions. The IW working on MW3 isn't even close to being the IW that made all previous COD games....no less than 12 employees left in the wake of the lawsuit, and these were the leads in their departments, not the guy who made the coffee and went out to get lunch. Yes, I know it takes more than a dozen people to make a game, but the quality and experience these guys took with them can't and won't be replaced easily, whereas these guys can lead and mentor teams at respawn ent. to great things, in a working environment free from Koticks' gestapo bullshit. The war will be won or lost when the new IW and respawn ent. release their respective games and the public votes with their wallets. Even with the insane advantage IW has with the COD brand recognition, victory is in no way assured.

 

[Bruce Edwards]

Wow. If this is true, then Activision has been playing Legal Chicken with the IW guys. Withholding bonuses is both unethical and, I would assume, in breach of contract.

Activision no doubt put in place the contracts believing there was no way they would ever have to pay out such a bonus. Or they never intended to, and used these contracts to lure the IW team in-house.

Either way, if I was an Activision shareholder I would be looking for heads to roll over this. At it's best it's willful mismanagement of critical staff, at it's worst it's premeditated breach of a legally binding contract.

 

[maddog015]

Now please correct me if I'm wrong, but are these Infinity Ward employees expecting to get an average bonus of $4 million dollars each on top of their wages?

Apparently a large bonus was promised, but how can any business expect to retain employees if they give them bonuses of $4 million dollars each? I know that if I suddenly received 4 million dollars I wouldn't be going into work the next day...

Surely I must be missing something obvious, because regardless of promises and how much money the game made, that seems a hell of a lot of money for someone who makes video games to earn, and for Activation it seems a bit like 'they're dammed if they do, and dammed if they don't', because if they had paid the bonuses then Infinity Ward would have still disbanded when all the staff took early retirement as millionaires.

Not wishing to take sides, but I can certainly see why Activision would have wanted to get another Modern Warfare game out of the Infinity Ward staff before giving them so much money.

Well, remember, the legal team gets the approx. half (if not more) of whatever they win, if they win. So, I'd be willing to be they will probably walk away with only a million each, which is good, but doesn't go as far as it used to.