Activision has fired the founders and creators of Call Of Duty, Modern Warfare – Jason West and Vince Zampella.  The wonders of the game, were the heads of ‘Infinity Ward’, the development company that created the Call of Duty Series (generating around 4 billion dollars of revenue since it’s inception according to ATVI reports)  – Owned by Activision.

After some digging, royalty payments from Activision to the Infinity Ward masters were due, and Activision took advance action to eliminate the liability of paying these royalties.  All of this as of today has been filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.  The dirt is gonna come out folks.

One thing’s for sure, this lawsuit will affect millions of  Call of Duty online gamers, in the xbox, pc, and ps3 world – don’t forget the shareholders!

They fired their main talent!  The long term affects from this could be tremendous!

Quote from the PRNewsWire.Com:

Zampella added, “After all we have given to Activision, we shouldn’t have to sue to get paid.”

Modern Warfare 2 is arguably one of the most successful games in history and together with Call of Duty, has generated more than $3 billion in sales for Activision.  In addition, Activision seized control of the Infinity Ward studio, to which Activision had previously granted creative control over all Modern Warfare-branded games.  The suit was filed to vindicate the rights of West and Zampella to be paid the compensation they have earned, as well as the contractual rights Activision granted to West and Zampella to control Modern Warfare-branded games.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/jason-west-and-vince-zampella-file-lawsuit-against-activision-86295312.html

This is all insane.  What a way to put a highly SUCCESSFUL public corporation in the tank!

Best of luck to West and Zampella.  We like developers – they are the ones that make things happen!

Associated links:

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3178214

http://gamerant.com/infinity-ward-heads-file-suit-activision-paul-11717/

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/04/ousted-infinity-ward-founders-file-suit-against-activision/