"We have settled, terms are confidential." - Vince Zampella, moments before getting in to his gold plated hovercraft
Call of Duty
Originally starting as a World War II-themed first-person shooter, the Call of Duty franchise now incorporates other time periods and conflicts and can be found on virtually every modern platform.
Call of Duty Trial Isn't Happening, Parties Settle [UPDATED]
First SK lose and now this, all my gaming related court stories are crumbling before me. Oh well, at least we haven't heard about Jack Thompson for the last year.
I wonder if this is Activision acting on Activision behalf or just specific people trying to cover their own tracks.
@PandaBear said:
@Wrect said:
I'm gonna guess that Activision got scared. They screwed the IW guys, and then basically dared them to sue. The IW guys called Activision's bluff, and Activision had to back down. No way did Activision want a jury to hear about that "Project Icebreaker" stuff. That billion-dollar litigation reserve would have been eaten all the way down. Activision's attorneys were probably able to talk some sense into them.
On a related note: How is Activision going to make publishing deals going forward? They certainly can't try to pull this again. And any developer making a deal with Activision will be (should be) suspicious of them. Is EA the big winner in all of this?
If you go back less than a decade EA was bigger than Activision, so it'd be interesting if this was a turning point where things started to swing back in the other direction. I'm certainly no expert but you'd have to imagine this will impact future projects and who wants to work with Activision. Time will tell... I think the next console launch will be the big test. If Battlefield (5?) is first to market it could be the EA show again.
EA isn't doing too hot right now. Former NCAA athletes are suing them for $1 billion. Then there is the NFL likeness lawsuit. And the helicopter lawsuit. And the BF 1943 lawsuit. Basically, any search for EA & the word lawsuit is going to bring you some results, as Joystiq have posted: (Clicky)
Most of those will probably be settled, and at much less than $1 billion a pop, but it's still going to hurt their near monopoly on sports games. Then you add in the fact that we don't know the details of their settlement with Activision, the fact that The Old Republic is doing horribly right now, or even how they have practically no games coming out this year, and yeah... EA is not going to be hitting a turning point any time soon.
Activision may have been set back a little by this suit, but most non-informed gamers have no idea that it even happened, and if they did, I doubt they care. Certainly none of my CoD-only friends care.
Awww maaaan! I was really looking forward to a good, old fashioned, courtroom dust up. Guess we'll never know the numbers involved but it's safe to say they were BIG!
So... wait, who has the rights to the Modern Warfare brand? That was one of West and Zampella's demands, wasn't it?
I was so geared to see it been played out in the courts. At least Patrick gets to go to E3 proper now...
This settlement works for everyone. Activision pays, but admist nothing. West and Zampella get less cash, but the fact they likely breached a contract is hidden. In some way West and Zampella are getting less then they wanted because they wnated Activision to bleed. Also, you can tell West and Zampella wanted the first BLOPs to fail and for the next MW without them would flop too, but the narrative didn't really work out that way so now people start to wonder if West and Zampella were ever that important.
Bummer. I was greatly looking forward to all the probably HIGHLY illegal stuff that would surface about Activision's biz practices.
Wuddup. Im a licensed CPA. I want to give some insight into quantifying the term materiality. It is a measure auditors use to determine what $ amount of fraud or errors could actually impact a debtor or investors evaluation of a company. It is relatively subjective, but there are some general calcs.
#1 5% of net income - based on 2011 would be $55 MM
Or
#2 33% of (tangible) assets which would be $1.5BB
Two extremely simplified numbers, but a loosely scientific assesment of the $ range of this settlement based on those updated statements.
@MonkeyKing1969 said:
This settlement works for everyone. Activision pays, but admist nothing. West and Zampella get less cash, but the fact they likely breached a contract is hidden. In some way West and Zampella are getting less then they wanted because they wnated Activision to bleed. Also, you can tell West and Zampella wanted the first BLOPs to fail and for the next MW without them would flop too, but the narrative didn't really work out that way so now people start to wonder if West and Zampella were ever that important.
Pretty much. Activision probably found what they needed to pay for the settlement in between the couch cushions, and West and Zampella don't get to have their breach of contract exposed for all to see. The real winner in all this is Treyarch, who no longer need to worry about this hanging over the Black Ops II launch.
Please Log In to post.
This edit will also create new pages on Giant Bomb for:
Beware, you are proposing to add brand new pages to the wiki along with your edits. Make sure this is what you intended. This will likely increase the time it takes for your changes to go live.Comment and Save
Until you earn 1000 points all your submissions need to be vetted by other Giant Bomb users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll send you an email once approved.
Log in to comment