14 DAY TRIAL // Publisher Electronic Arts has wasted no time in hitting back at rival Activision Blizzard over the new allegations it has made in the long-running saga of Modern Warfare 2, Infinity Ward and Respawn Entertainment.
Jeff Brown, who is the vice president in charge of corporate communications at Electronic Arts, has stated, “This is a PR play filled with pettiness and deliberate misdirection. Activision wants to hide the fact that they have no credible response to the claim of two artists who were fired and now just want to get paid for their work.”
Electronic Arts has not said anything about launching a countersuit against Activision Blizzard, but the company will likely offer assistance to Vince Zampella and Jason West in their legal fight.
Activision Blizzard has expanded its lawsuit to include key personnel from Electronic Arts, including Chief Executive Officer John Riccitiello, and is asking no less than 400 million dollars in damages.
The actual trial is set to move on at some point during 2011 and presumably the two sides will reach a settlement at some point.
The publicity around the two developers and their very visible partition from Infinity Ward and Activision is bad for all parties involved and it would make sense for them to bury the hatchet as quickly as possible in order to not draw negative publicity over their coming projects.
Respawn Entertainment is now working for Electronic Arts, preparing a new franchise which could be announced next year and could be playable in 2012, with the speculation mentioning a first person shooter based game that could move to space or the near future.
Activision is planning to deliver more Call of Duty games, although presumably it will not be using the Modern Warfare brand for some time, with one project confirmed for the fall of next year and on track to be another sales success.