Gaming Cases Updates
Links to Activision vs. West/Zampanella (IW) case – my original post HERE: more links after the jump
Infinity Ward lawsuit in depth (Crispy Gamer)
Infinity Ward Update; developers sign with C.A.A. (LA Times blog)
IW firings may impact COD future (Game Career Guide)
SEC filing Activision/Blizzard, Official filing (http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1047469-10-1649)
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Links to O’Bannon vs. NCAA, my original referral to the subject HERE
Chicago Sun-Times article (from Gannett) that tells of other ex-players joining lawsuit.
Article from Joystiq describing NCAA’s failure to get case dismissed.
Here’s the link to the amended complaint of March 10: http://www.scribd.com/doc/28209552/O-Bannon-v-NCAA-Amended-Class-Action-March-10-2010
Response to NCAA’s motion to dismiss case, February 2010: http://www.scribd.com/doc/26623903/O-Bannon-v-NCAA-Order-re-Motion-to-Dismiss (Notes about Scribd links – this is an external link to a third-party Website that is clearly a secondary source… it apparently is the scanned copy of the original court document, but if I receive information any third-party link is compromised… I will remove the link)
Daily News, UCLA (Feb 2010)
Professional articles on this Subject
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/To+license+or+not+to+license:+that+is+the+question+for+professional…-a0216352319 (From Sports Marketing Quarterly, September 2009)
Photo credits: Library of Congress collection, Flickr, no known copyright restrictions (Note: titled UniformNoNumber… get it?)
Jay Moffitt is a Tennessee attorney. This blog is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not consitute legal advice or create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in this area by Tennessee and Tennessee does not certify specialists in this practice area. All comments will be answered promptly and courteously as long as they are germane to the discussion and do not contain specific game names or incidents.
Tags: Activision, Case Updates, Infinity Ward, NCAA, O'Bannon
The Crispy Gamer article on West and Zampella seems contradictory. First he argues that O’Melveney and Meyers would not have represented them had they not had a solid chance of winning. Then he argues that they must have slim to no chance of winning because they did not disclose such grounds in their initial Document of Complaint.
Surely there are many reasons for not disclosing your reasoning ranging from the poker player’s reluctance to show one’s hand to commercial confidentiality. Additionally the legal documents in this high profile case are partly written for the general public and games industry journalists, not just the court. It makes perfect sense to whip up a storm of sympathy by keeping people’s attention focused on what are essentially irrelevant issue such as how upset other employees were and how little money IW was originally sold for.
Seems both a stretch and a contradiction to conclude that the contracts and the alleged infringements support Activision.
jaymoffitt Reply:
March 22nd, 2010 at 12:50 pm
I agree with you that some things in the article do not follow each other logically. But I empathize more with “Crispy Gamer’s” general belief that Activision is at fault for “turning out” two of their best developers. The belief is questionable, and the facts will determine if it’s a valid point of view, but myself I read at least a dozen articles which followed the same perspective (that you should have your cake and eat it too) with West and Zampanella. In reality, once you sell the studio to a mega-publisher (like Activision) there will inevitably be conflicts. And not to be all historical, but the Call of Duty franchise has been Activision all along, with Infinity Ward the creators since the days of COD 1, which would be about a decade ago. So it’s not as if Activision hasn’t been paying the salaries of West, Zampanella, and the Infinity Ward team for all these years.
What the Crispy Gamer article showed me was passion, a well-researched factual base, and for a layperson a pretty good base of analyzing the case. Compared to other blogs by developers I’ve read, it tried to be evenhanded and realized the precarious balance between developer control and publisher marketing money/strategic input. Your point about the facts stated in the complaint seem pretty spot-on…. they state at least enough (they hope) to win against any motions to dismiss the case, yet their lawyers put enough other allegations out there to justify discovery to uncover other causes of action and to bulk up the evidence they have already against Activision. I do disagree about the complaint being tailored towards the game community and the game press…. even though this case received incredible publicity (for a video game case) there usually is a reticence within law firms to “puff up” the langugage for publicity’s sake, and I don’t think their acknowledgedly well-known lawyers did that here.
Once again, thanks for contributing via comment, yours always make me think and I have to work hard to dissect a reasoned response.