The legal fight between Modern Warfare creators Jason West and Vince Zampella against Activision has been given a court date. The sparks will begin to fly on May 7... provided, of course, the parties involved don't come to some sort of settlement before then.
At stake is potentially millions and batwillions of dollars. The parties are fighting over Call of Duty royalties, bonuess and a host of other contentious legal issues. In other words, it's probably going to get ugly; make some popcorn.
“I’m really looking forward to having our day in Court,” Zampella told Forbes, but in spite of his seeming enthusiasm, I'm still putting my money on a settlement. There's just too much money at stake for these big companies to be found in the middle of a knock-down-drag-out court fight. But hey, I could be wrong. Let's hope so, if only for the entertainment value.
For full, comprehensive coverage of this matter, from the first shots to the present day, check out our Fall of Duty" blog tag.
Source: Forbes
All of the best people are following Stephen Johnson's twitter feed. Also, email me if you wanna.
Comments
Displaying 1–16 of 16
Dr.Drax
hsadfjhdkgvsav
sarge_peppers
i like how all the little kids are on her downig the anti cod "men". face it activision shudnt be sued, they put effort into the single player side. on the other hand infinity ward shud be getting sued by computer gamers for bending us over and theoretically raping us and letting the consoles gamers watch
Mr.RADical
dude their gana lose more money than its worth (both sides) with lawyers, court cost i say they just drop it and dpsx7 if they cancel CoD the market will go way down video games r a big support in the marketing it was in national news do you c how much money those company's make and how much they make from one game. they needa drop before they lose more than they bargained for
MDT'Ster
When will BF win FPS of the year.
Takingpower
i wish you guys would disable comments on things like this because no one actually knows whats going on. everyone complains, makes incredible stupid comments and just talks out they A$$
Keeok
How many zeros are in a batwillion?
SunnyIceTea
Oh my, oh my it shows how big of a debacle can get because of money. Whoever puts up the most cash for a settlement will win other than that. I wonder what Infinity Ward will come up with for fall 2013? I mean after another Treyarch game that adds some new things to CoD. Or Infinity Ward will end the story with "there is definitely gonna be another to add to this storyline"
Iknowa_G_GhostY
the next COD i will be getting is COD batwillion
xMetalxHead
I clicked this because I thought it was going to be something like "kid sues CoD MW3 for riping off his money by putting MW2 in the box with a patch giving it slightly better graphix"
StrayT3chman
I hope West and Zampella get their money, but I could care less about who ends up with the rights to Call of Duty. The franchise is soiled by Activision, so even if the Respawn guys get the rights, I don't think they'll have much success with it. It's just gotten stale. They need to make a new IP, because in the end they are the talent. They're the reason Call of Duty became popular, and everything Treyarch, Sledgehammer, and post-MW2 Infinity Ward does is all based on the work of the 50ish designers, artists, programmers, and other talented people that left after the whole debacle. While I don't want discredit those other developers, the fact is the people who had the vision behind it all are gone. Respawn will be the next AAA studio, and together with EA, they should make a new IP that will crush Call of Duty. By the time they build one from scratch, Call of Duty will be in the same place Guitar Hero was.
TL;DR - I'm buying Battlefield 3
TheBRADLeyB
i hope Zapella and West win. Activision has done everything they could to win this case by simply 'bleeding' Z and Dub dry. (Zapella and West have been bankrolling their own legal team)
yogi_bear_rules
i hope cod gets canceled by this as well. there are far to many kids that think the only game that exists is cod. in fact if all of those cod fanboys tried a different game they would think cod is crap too.
bunnyglomp
Well, According to their contract, they own the rights to ANY call of duty game set after 'nam. So IF this goes to court and IF they win, activision would owe them not only MASSIVE royalties from the game, payment for the rights to have made it plus all the stuff they where denied.
On top of that (keep in mind I know they wont do it, its FAR to profitable for them not to) they would have the right to deny ANY future call of duty game past 'nam. Seeing as activision has said they have no plans to return to WW2 or nam because the sales of MW and MW2 where greater than WaW (granted, blops was nam, but there is only so much you can do on nam). While I would love to see this put into action which would result in activisions stock dropping DRASTICALLY, I know it wont come to that.
Now IF they win, The judge wont be able to deny them the right to hold Call of Duty over the heads of Activision. If they win, that means they have fufilled their contract and you cant have only part of a contract upheld. its either completed or not. I see this settling out of court with a nice sum towards West and Zampella. I also see them denying the out of court settlement a few times. Activision can not afford to gamble on this and will do what ever it takes to keep it alive.
In the end, call of duty will come out every year and they will walk untold millions of dollars. Since they are asking for close to 100m in back pay plus royalties and rights to Call of duty... you can expect the number to be closer to 700m
permanent_nirvana
I hope that Activision loses. Then maybe someone will be able to restore Call of Duty to it's former glory.
Jax009
Court is always fun when its not YOUR ass on the line. My moneys safe in mah pocket...until fall anyway.
DPsx72
I hope it ends with the ultimate cancellation of CoD. We need to keep that terrible game from dragging down our market any further. The kids need to learn that video gaming is far larger in scope.
Displaying 1–16 of 16
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