The lawsuit filed against Activision by removed Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella contains a startling description of events that led up to their firings this Monday. The court documents, circulated by West and Zampella’s attorneys, single out CEO Bobby Kotick as someone who “prefers to pay his lawyers instead of his employees,” call the company he runs ‘greedy and astonishingly arrogant,’ and accuses it of questioning Infinity Ward employees to the point of tears.
“This lawsuit is solely and regrettably the result of the astonishing arrogance and unbridled greed of defendant Activision,” it reads.
“Such actions are not surprising, given that Activision is run by a CEO who has been publicly quoted as believing that the best way to run a video game studio is to engender a culture of “scepticism, pessimism and fear” and prefers to pay his lawyers instead of his employees.
“Instead of thanking, lauding of just plain paying West and Zampella for giving Activision the most successful entertainment product ever offered to the public, last month Activision hired lawyers to conduct a pretextual “investigation” into unstated and unsubstantiated charges of “insubordination” and “breach of duty”.
“It then summoned West and Zampella to a sham meeting two days ago during which they were fired on the basis of false and trivial charges. Activision conducted the investigation in a manner designed to maximise the inconvenience and anxiety it would cause West and Zampella.
“On little notice, Activision insisted on conducting interviews over the Presidents’ Day holiday weekend; West and Zampella were interrogated for over six hours in a windowless conference room; Activision investigators brought other Infinity Ward employees to tears in their questioning and accusations and threatened West and Zampella with “insubordination” if they attempted to console them; Activision’s outside counsel demanded that West and Zampella surrender their personal computers, phones and communication devices.”
The full document is sixteen pages long. It can be read over at IGN.
