Well it looks like this “war” between former Infinity Ward executives, West and Zampella, and Activision is finally heating up. Today Activision has filed a countersuit against the two former IW co-founders claiming that their firing of the two was justified. In the suit it is mentioned that the two “attempted to hijack Activision's assets for their own personal gain and whose actions threatened both the future of the call of Duty franchise and the future of Activsion's Infinity Ward studio.”

To add more fuel to the fire, Activision claims that West and Zampella were acting against other employees as they attempted to prevent the royalties and bonuses from being paid to other IW members. Activision claims that they attempted this in order to make the IW employees “easier to poach” for a new studio. The allegations from both sides are damaging and frankly I don’t know what to think anymore.

Activision Countersues Former Infinity Ward Execs [IGN]

We’ve obtained a copy of the lawsuit filed by ex-Infinity Ward heads, Jason West and Vince Zampella, against Activision. While most of the documents explain what we already know, there are a few details that have been unveiled in the document that are of some interest to us:

• Infinity Ward employees working at “break neck pace under aggressive schedules” with regards to Modern Warfare 2 production (which took under 1 year and 8 months to complete)
• Infinity Ward was restricted to creating Modern Warfare 2 in order to extend their contract with Activision (West and Zampella were hesitant of extending their contract)
  • West/Zampella feared that restricting the studio to Call of Duty games prevented them from developing new IPs (intellectual properties) and was “burning out” creativity
• Activision launched an investigation against West and Zampella at the beginning of February in which they interrogated the men for 6 hours, in a windowless room (over Presidents’ Day Weekend), and even interrogated some of the other IW employees to the point of tears.
• During the investigation, Activision sought to obtain West and Zampella’s PCs, phones and “other communication” devices leading West and Zampella to refuse on basis of their privacy rights (this could be the “insubordination” that Activision is referring to)
• Activision used accusations against the two men that were months old (when no action was taken against them at that time) which suggests that they were waiting until MW2 launched to begin their inquiry
• West and Zampella were given exclusive control over the Modern Warfare franchise, requiring their permission before another entry in the series is made

You can read the entire document after the break