14 DAY TRIAL // During this fall season, a lot of great blockbuster titles will appear and will try to capture the attention of gamers. One of the most interesting ones is Brutal Legend, which is currently being developed by Double Fine and will be published by Electronic Arts.
But, as many of you know, there has been a lot of debate over the game, and how Activision revealed, when it bought Vivendi Universal and all of its properties, that Brutal Legend didn't have sequel potential and declined to publish it. But at the beginning of the year, seeing as how hype was gathering around the title, the large corporation bounced back and said that EA had secretly talked with Double Fine and didn't have the right to publish the game.
This scandal eventually materialized in a class action suit filed against EA and Double Fine by Activision. Now though, it seems that the two companies aren't content with such a thing, and have filed a countersuit against the large corporation.
Double Fine reveals that Activision is trying to prevent Brutal Legend from being published, in an effort to prevent competition for its Guitar Hero franchise. It also claims that the company prefers developing games based on its existing franchises instead of trying to create new properties.
“In 2008, Activision and Vivendi met and made a decision to walk away from Tim Schafer, Double Fine and Brutal Legend,” revealed Caroline Esmurdoc, COO, Double Fine Productions. “Now that we've found a publisher and the game is getting sensational coverage, they want to stop its release. Double Fine's countersuit is a demonstration of our intention to fight for this game - Activision will not kill Brutal Legend.”
Activision declined to comment on this reaction, but seeing as how it is currently trying to prevent Brutal Legend from coming out on its scheduled release date in October, it will come forward with a statement soon enough.