14 DAY TRIAL // The start date for the trial that will pit publisher Activision against former Infinity Ward leaders Jason West and Vince Zampella has been delayed a little bit, from May 29 to June 1.
The two game designers have used this delay to open up about the events that are the subject of the legal action.
Robert M. Schwartz, who is the attorney representing the pair, told Game Informer that, “Basically Activision is saying that they are bad guys needed to be fired, and Activision had a contract for their services and was deprived of the value of not getting better games.”
Zampella and West claim to have been negotiating a new contract with Activision in good faith, in which they were asking to hire up to ten staff members from Infinity Ward for a new studio. At that point, they were announced that Activison was investigating them and then received news that they had been fired.
Schwartz also talked about the contact with Electronic Arts, saying that, “In October or November their lawyer and their agent got a phone call from EA saying, 'Hey, are they interested? Would they be interested? What’s going on?'”
“Activision was under serious negotiations with them, so they sent a phone call back saying, ‘Look, we’re trying to work things out with Activision, so we’re not going to be able to respond to that, thank you very much.’ And that was it,” he concluded.
The lawyers believe that the two former Infinity Ward leaders were the main contributors to the bottom line of Activision and that they were surprised to be kicked out of their positions instead of being congratulated.
The two developers have created a new studio called Respawn Entertainment, which has an exclusive publishing deal with Electronic Arts.
Elihu Berle, who is set to preside over the Activision versus Zampella and West trial, has stated that the case can be completed in about 20 days, as the core issues are not too complicated.