Christian

@n30m4u1
you honestly think they are going to "drop" the price because its digital. That's interesting. Did they drop the price of Starcraft 2 if you bought it digitally, nope.

@n30m4u1
you honestly think they are going to "drop" the price because its digital. That's interesting. Did they drop the price of Starcraft 2 if you bought it digitally, nope.

oh look another comment from a CEO that has nothing but a track record of failure. They talk about digital distribution because wall street likes the idea of eliminating the retailers profit, which should in turn help EA's bottom line. It has nothing to do with anything else.

What will ulimtately happen is that once digital distribution takes over, the ISPs will start demanding more fees either from us the consume or the publisher for sending these massive data packets over their lines. There is no such thing as a free lunch and EA will learn that the hard way soon enough.

On a side note isn't amazing that you can consistently deliver terrible returns to your investors, but Pandemic makes one so, so game (mercenaries 2) and they are get axed by the same guy that has been sucking it for years? Danger close will probably suffer the same fate after medal of honor even though it was DICE that made that garbage muliplayer.

I thought the idea was really cool, but after playing I decided that I much rather just watch a movie version (I think this was the first time I actually wanted less interactivity and choice).

I will say the graphics were pretty kick ass though.

@SSJ Furlong

Who knew that Emo-style hating everything that is popular also happens for video games?

Well for all of those defending piracy or think its funny that activision is getting screwed, next time you post about the ridiculous anti-piracy methods of Ubisoft or EA I hope you remember this article.

That of the matter is legit customers are the ones that pay for all of this piracy. So for all of you that think piracy is cool go F yourself.

I know everyone hates activision (not sure how EA is not also hated), but that does not matter here. What matters is the employment contract between Activision and West and Zampella. This contract would be really similar to a contract between a baseball player and a MLB team. Since I am a STL cards fans the best comparison, imagine if Pujols after the first two years in his five year deal was like I am way more awesome than 15 mil a year. At that time the Cubs tell albert if he bails they;ll pay him $30 mil a year. If that were to happen Albert and the Cubs would in hot water. Does albert deserve more money? Sure. But at the time he signed the contract nobody knew how good he was going to be just like West and Zampella probably had no idea that MW and MW2 were going to be so successful (or activision for that matter). This is why you sign employment contract. Now it could have gone the other way, imagine West and Zampella spend more time beating off then writing code for MW1, so the game is terrible. Activision would still be obligated to pay them through their contract expiration or follow some termination clause in the contract.

The part of the document about EA being terrible is to setup the argument that EA's only hope to beat Activision in the shooter arena was to steal its top talent (motive). As I mentioned before this is not a criminal case so the burden of prove is NOT beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead it more like where there's smoke there's fire. That' why you see people get acquitted on criminal charges, but then are found guilty on civil charges.

So all of you siding with EA did you read the full document? Really? There are some pretty damning emails and text messages. My guess is that their employment contract was pretty rock solid, so West and Zampella will have to prove they were not being compensated per THE CONTRACT not what they think is fair for activision to be at fault in anyway.

This filing as shows to EA that Acitivision is willing to go the distance to protect their code, so if Respawn ever releases anything and the code is in anyway similar to MW2 activision will immediately file a copyright suit against respawn and EA. Since EA is sucking wind right now, they will have to decide whether fighting for respawn will be worth the millions in dollars in attorney fees and possible negative outcome. I would not be shocked if that calculation is not being made by EA lead attorney as we speak.

At the end of the day this seems like a clear case of breach of contract on the part of West and Zampella and if Activision can show (now civil suits do NOT have to meet the "beyond a reasonable doubt" bar to be found guilty) that EA made promises to West and Zampella should they depart Acitivision then that would be enough to get EA in trouble too.

West and Zampella are good programmers, not so good at making life decisions.

@guardianlegend
Well if you right in the law of diminishing returns then Black Ops should have done worse than MW2, not better.

Congrats to Treyarch and Activision. Seems like the good SP, addictive MP still equals crazy cash!