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Sega pins Aliens: Colonial Marines marketing mishaps on Gearbox
After Aliens: Colonial Marines publisher Sega moved to settle a class-action lawsuit to the tune of $1.25 million in August for alleged false advertising for the game, it shifted the blame for the game's marketing issues to Gearbox Software, according to court documents obtained by Game Informer. Internal emails from Gearbox and Sega representatives cite examples of the former revealing information about the game without the consent of the publisher. One such email refers to a New York Comic Con panel in October 2012, in which Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford firmly states that a Wii U version of Aliens: Colonial Marines would launch in February 2013 alongside the other versions of the game. Emails within Sega stated that "no-one on the call was aware" of the Wii U version, and that it's "not been picked up so far." Of course, the game missed its Wii U launch window before Sega confirmed in March 2013 that it was no longer in development.
Activision countersuit against Zampella and West seeks money back, alleges multiple acts of insubordination
Beyond the details we heard in the LA Times report from earlier today, Joystiq has obtained the entire 23 page complaint this afternoon (filed against former Infinity Ward co-heads Jason West and Vince Zampella by Activision), which details the publisher's claims about the duo's insubordination during employment. The claims detailed therein range from refusing to meet with Activision executives, to "engaging in a campaign to portray Activision and its management in a negative light to IW employees in an effort to solicit those employees," to slowing pre-production of Modern Warfare 3 as leverage in ongoing discussions with Activision. The suit even says that West and Zampella "refused to sign standard exit documents representing that they had returned all Activision property, including computer code, and would honor the confidentiality obligations that they have to Activision." Further, Activision claims that "on numerous occasions and during critical final stages of game development," West and Zampella threatened to stop production on last year's Modern Warfare 2 "in a bad faith effort to gain further leverage in their contractual relations with Activision." And during all this, the publisher claims that the studio heads were engaging in secret conversations "with Activision's direct competitor" (presumably Electronic Arts, though an EA representative refused to confirm that earlier today). As a result of these alleged actions, Activision's complaint seeks to "recapture certain equity from West and Zampella, and to recover, as a measure of damages, all compensation and benefits in addition to equity received by them during the period of their disloyalty." In English, that means that Activision is seeking an undisclosed fortune from the defendants, left up to the court to determine, but consisting of money the two earned during their amorphous "period of disloyalty." And there's a ton more in the complaint that we couldn't fit into this measly post, so we'd strongly suggest clicking through its 23 pages in the gallery below. We'll gather up some of the most notable bits and share them after the break. %Gallery-90176%
Activision/Infinity Ward court documents detail ex-studio heads' many, many complaints
[bloomsberries] Beyond a statement released by ex-Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella's lawyer yesterday detailing the lawsuit the two are filing against Activision, we've seen little in the way of back history on the various events that lead us to the debacle we're seeing this week. This morning, though, Joystiq obtained the entire 16-page court document (gallery-ized below for you) that details, among many other things, the ex-employees' complaints about Activision in the wake of their untimely departure. The initial claim of unpaid royalties is represented in the documents, even going as far as to claim that the publisher fired West and Zampella just weeks before having to pay out said royalties. "Activision fired them in hope that by doing so, it could avoid paying them what they had rightfully earned, and to seize control of the Infinity Ward studio, to which Activision had previously granted creative control over all Modern Warfare branded games," the document reads. In the history lesson portion of the complaint, it's revealed that Activision allegedly purchased the studio for just $5 million originally (in two different chunks), and the Call of Duty franchise (including Treyarch-developed titles) has earned over $3 billion since 2003. Finally, the complaint claims that, before Infinity Ward agreed to develop Modern Warfare 2, the then-studio heads "were not eager to extend their employment" as Activision had apparently begun demanding a more constant development pace at the studio. "Despite assurances by Activision that West and Zampella would have complete freedom to run Infinity Ward as an independent studio, Activision had begun to intrude upon Infinity Ward's ability to create quality games. For example, Activision forced Infinity Ward's employees to continue producing the games at a breakneck pace under aggressive schedules, and West and Zampella were concerned that Activision was emphasizing quantity over quality." Regardless of the veracity of these allegations, it would certainly appear that the gloves have come all the way off. We'll have a more thorough breakdown of the entire document later today, but for now you can see it in its entirety below. %Gallery-87508%
