Activision and Infinity Ward update

Yesterday we brought you a story about Activision shaking up it's development house Infinity Ward and their plans to make Call of Duty into more or less it's own company. Well the drama isn't over yet. Just like in a Call of Duty game, there's always a twist.

Just moments ago, G4tv.com broke a story that Infinity Ward's former CTO Jason West and president Vince Zampella have filed a lawsuit against the software giant Activision. In statements released today, the two are claiming that Activision is terminating their contracts mere weeks before they were to receive royalty payments for their record breaking game Modern Warfare 2.

"We were shocked by Activision's decision to terminate our contract," said West in today's release. "We poured our heart and soul into that company, building not only a world class development studio, but assembling a team we've been proud to work with for nearly a decade. We think the work we've done speaks for itself."

Zampella added, "After all we have given to Activision, we shouldn't have to sue to get paid."

In today's release, the former heads of Infinity Ward also stated that the reasons suplied by Activision for the duo's termination were completely false. Robert Schwartz, the lawyer representing West and Zampella, went on to say "last month Activision hired lawyers to conduct a pretextual 'investigation' into unstated and unsubstantiated charges of 'insubordination' and 'breach of fiduciary duty,' which then became the grounds for their termination on Monday, March 1st."

To top this all off, West and Zampella are also claiming that in their contracts with Activision that they were given creative control over the Modern Warfare brand. If this is correct, it is possible that Activision could no longer produce Modern Warfare titles and that West and Zampella would be able to approach another publisher with the franchise.

Stay tuned folks, because this is apparently going to last longer than a CoD single player campaign.