In the ever-continuing lawsuit for the ages, the court involved in Activision v. Zampella and West case agreed to the former’s initiative to add rival publisher Electronic Arts to the list of defendants. This act by the court also brings previously redacted evidence back into possible use in the proceedings, evidence which includes secretive emails between EA bosses and the former Infinity Ward studio heads. The documents, obtained by IndustryGamers, also heavily imply a bit of corporate espionage on the part of those involved to boost the competing shooter Battlefield: Bad Company 2.
In one email from DICE Senior Director of Global Marketing Lincoln Hershberger, stated, “A couple months ago, I asked Vince [Zampella] to hold back their map pack until after we launched. (He owes me one). Given that they’ve already made a billion, he was cool with that, obviously Kotick took it as being belligerent.” The email was sent on the launch date of Bad Company 2, 28 days before Modern Warfare 2‘s “Resurgence Map Pack” was launched on Xbox Live.
In its defense, Electronic Arts has responded to the new evidence. “This was obviously sarcasm,” EA spokesman Jeff Brown told Kotaku. “It’s clear from the email this was a joke and they never spoke. We explained this to lawyers at Activision – who apparently don’t have much of a sense of humor.”
Activision has also released a statement in light of this new evidence: “We have taken this difficult, but necessary, step to protect our rights and intellectual property. We acted only after we determined during discovery the illegal conduct by Electronic Arts and we look forward to making our case in a court of law.”
Looks like this formerly open-shut legal case has gotten complicated, E-Gs, any thoughts on the new development?
This lawsuit needs to be done with already. I am tired of hearing all this crap that is flying between both sides. Activision owes West and Zampella money for the development of a $2 billion selling game, and illegally held the money and distributed it to people who the money wasn’t targeted for in the first place (they bribed the remaining staff with the bonuses so they wouldn’t defect to Respawn).