Ben-DutkaActivision and EA may have settled their lawsuit , but the publisher still plans to go to trial on May 29 with former Infinity Ward bosses Jason West and Vince Zampella.
And things are gonna get dicey.
The LA Times has procured a series of interoffice Activision emails, sent between executives at the company and detailing the impending West/Zampella fallout. The duo was fired in March 2010 but that may have been inevitable, as the emails clearly paint an ugly picture of the relationship between Activision and the Infinity Ward heads. In fact, the team's failure to produce a demo of Modern Warfare 2 at Microsoft's E3 conference in 2009 may have been the spark that ignited the inferno.
Activision Publishing boss at the time, Mike Griffith (the post is now held by Eric Hirshberg), wrote:
"[Microsoft] will go ballistic over this and the deal is seriously risked."
Worse, when Griffith phoned West and Zampella about the situation, both apparently hung up on the executive. CEO Bobby Kotick replied by saying:
"If they really did I would change their locks and lock them out of their building."
Another Activision exec, Dave Stohl, wanted to know if everyone was "ready for the big, negative PR story this is going to turn into if we kick them out." The company knew that firing West and Zampella could cause immediate and critical problems, especially in regards to the development of MW2. Stohl wanted to know what "plan B" might look like and added- "[It's] freaking me out a little."
Yeah, things ought to be interesting when it all hits the courts next week.