They’re Coming Out of the Walls

This whole Infinity Ward v. Activision suit is really getting out of hand. New information seems to be coming from everywhere about who schemed with who. After filing a motion last month to amend its countersuit against Vince Zampella and Jason Wast, former heads of Infinity Ward and now founders of Respawn Entertainment, Activision let loose a bevy of documents today that could prove EA’s indirect involvement in the whole debacle.

In one of the previously redacted court documents, paragraph 36 read as the following:

“Activision is informed and believes that to protect its weaker BFBC series, EA secretly schemed with West and Zampella to bolster sales of BFBC at the expense of Call of Duty.”

In paragraph 62, the document claimed:

“Electronic Arts secretly conspired with Infinity Ward employees to affect the timing of the release of Electronic Arts and Activision products to the benefit of Electronic Arts and detriment of Activision. Activision's belief is based on an internal EA email bragging about how Electronic Arts asked Zampella to hold back the release of an Infinity Ward product until after Electronic Arts launched its game, and how Zampella 'was cool with that.’”

To back up their claim, Activision provided an internal email that names specific people in the creation of both these products. The Activision product in question was the first map pack for Modern Warfare 2, titled Stimulus Package, which released on Xbox Live March 30, 2010. The EA product was Battlefield: Bad Company 2, which was released on March 2, 2010.

The e-mail is dated March 2 and names the sender as Lincoln Hershberger, Senior Director of Global Marketing at Electronic Arts, DICE. The subject line reads, “RE: The Fall of IW?”:

“A couple months ago, I asked Vince 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.”

Oh snap. The 63-page document can be found on Joystiq, where it details other emails sent between executives talking about strategies for hiring Zampella and West, including a mean barbeque at John Riccitiello’s house.