The ongoing legal nightmare between Infinity Ward founders Jason West and Vince Zampella and Activision has gotten a bit thornier as Activision has now pointed its laser sights at long-time rival EA, accusing EA of conspiring with Zampella and West to break their contract with Activision.
Activision says that EA conspired to set up an independent company staffed by key Activision employees, including designers, programmers, artists, and others from Activision s Infinity Ward development studio, thus draining the studio of talent and potentially delaying future Call of Duty games.”
West and Zampella went on to found Respawn Entertainment, which is working with EA Partners.
The cross-complaint also adds the Creative Artists Agency and the law firm Gang, Tyre, Ramer & Brown to the list of defendants.
For its part, EA issued this response: “This is a PR play filled with pettiness and deliberate misdirection. Activision wants to hide the fact that they have no credible response to the claim of two artists who were fired and now just want to get paid for their work.”
Gamasutra has much more from the cross-complaint.
