Activision Drags EA Into Infinity Ward Legal Battle

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The ongoing legal nightmare between Infinity Ward founders Jason West and Vince Zampella and Activision has gotten a bit thornier as Activision has now pointed its laser sights at long-time rival EA, accusing EA of conspiring with Zampella and West to break their contract with Activision.

Activision says that EA conspired to set up an independent company staffed by key Activision employees, including designers, programmers, artists, and others from Activision s Infinity Ward development studio, thus draining the studio of talent and potentially delaying future Call of Duty games.”

West and Zampella went on to found Respawn Entertainment, which is working with EA Partners.

The cross-complaint also adds the Creative Artists Agency and the law firm Gang, Tyre, Ramer & Brown to the list of defendants.

For its part, EA issued this response: “This is a PR play filled with pettiness and deliberate misdirection. Activision wants to hide the fact that they have no credible response to the claim of two artists who were fired and now just want to get paid for their work.”

Gamasutra has much more from the cross-complaint.

Can Windows 8 Revive PC Gaming?

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It seems like just yesterday that WIndows 7 launched, but as Microsoft’s bread and butter, the next operating system is always in progress. And this time, Microsoft has reportedly claimed that the next OS will be a big deal for PC gaming.

“Windows 8 will represent a real new push into PC gaming,” an anonymous source told TechRadar. “Gaming will be a key component for the whole OS.”

That’s all well and good, but Microsoft has to back up any talk with actions that show they’re serious about PC games again. The current pattern has been to delay or outright cancel big games on PC that already were hits on Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Until Microsoft shows that PC isn’t playing second fiddle to their console business, all the talk in the world about Windows 8 won’t matter.

Free Xbox 360 Game With Purchase Of Windows Phone 7

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Microsoft is hoping that Xbox Live integration will draw more of the Xbox 360 fan base to its new Windows Phone 7, which has now sold 1.5 million units. In an effort to further spark interest in the device among gamers, Microsoft is actually giving away a free game to new purchasers of Windows Phone 7.

Gamers can choose from Halo: Reach, Fable III, Kinect Joy Ride or Kinectimals. Of course, the last two will require that you own a Kinect camera for your 360. The Windows Phone 7 has to be purchased by December 31 in order to participate in the free game offer.

Check out the free game promotional website. {link no longer active}

Call Of Duty: Black Ops Exceeds $1 Billion

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Activision Blizzard has set records in entertainment for two consecutive years with the Call of Duty franchise. Black Ops hit sales of $650 million in just five days, and now the publisher has announced that the game has already surpassed $1 billion in worldwide sales. With DLC content to further fuel the brand, that $1 billion is no doubt just the beginning.

“In all of entertainment, only Call of Duty and “Avatar” have ever achieved the billion dollar revenue milestone this quickly,”  said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard.  “This is a tribute to the global appeal of the Call of Duty franchise, the exceptional talent at Treyarch and the hundreds of extraordinary people across our many Call of Duty studios including Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer that work tirelessly on the franchise.  Our ability to provide the most compelling, immersive  entertainment experience, and enhance it with regular, recurring content that delivers hundreds of hours of audience value, has allowed Call of Duty to continue to set sales and usage records.”

Kotick continued, “This extraordinary milestone was achieved  because of  the tens of millions of passionate Call of Duty players around the world.  Global audiences have logged billions of hours online with Call of Duty games on Xbox LIVE, the Playstation Network and on personal computers.  This unique level of community engagement has enabled Call of Duty to become one of the world’s most engaged online communities.”

“Call of Duty continues to rewrite not just the record books, but also the rules of interactive entertainment,” says Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing. “Even more remarkable than the number of units sold is the number of hours people are playing the game together online which are unprecedented. Call of Dutyis more than a game, it’s a true community.

Microsoft Sells 1.5 Million Windows Phones

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Windows Phone 7 is facing a huge uphill battle when you consider the market shares of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android devices, but Microsoft is confident it will make a dent over time. Today, the company revealed that it’s sold 1.5 million units of Windows Phone 7 within six weeks since it launched.

Achim Berg, vice president of business and marketing for Windows Phones, noted in a Q&A posted {link no longer active} to Microsoft’s website, that the sales number is, “in line with our expectations especially when compared to other new platform introductions.”

[a]listdaily recently spoke with Microsoft about its ambitions in the mobile space, its marketing around the device, and gaming on Windows Phone 7. You can read that feature here.

Sir Patrick Stewart Loves iPhone, Fears Gaming

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Sir Patrick Stewart (or to geeks, Captain Jean-Luc Picard or Professor Charles Xavier) talks about his love of the iPhone in this brief interview. Apple no doubt loves the free endorsement. The actor also confesses that he has a stack of video games that are unopened because he’s afraid to start playing.

{video link no longer active}

 

Xbox Brand ‘Doesn’t Carry As Much Sway’ As Sony, Says EA CEO

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The Xbox brand has come a long way since the first console was introduced in 2001, but PlayStation has obviously been around for a lot longer. The PS3 started off slow, but despite the Xbox 360’s one-year head start, the PS3 is closing the installed base gap. Part of that is the Sony brand recognition internationally, says EA boss John Riccitiello.

“Honestly, I think that Microsoft has done great work the last couple of years, and they’ve made a lot of smart moves: hitting pricing when they needed to, the right combination of hitting price points and disk drive sizes that allow them to hit price points that matter, and they ve done a great job with Xbox Live. At the same time, the Xbox brand, the Microsoft brand, doesn’t carry anywhere near as much sway as the Sony and PlayStation brand do outside the United States, and so I think the reality is the international marketplace is just so important and it s a natural advantage that no matter how good Microsoft is at growing their business, Sony has an almost-impossible-to-supersede head start,” he said.

Riccitiello continued, “In the last couple of years, Sony’s sharpened their marketing message, you know, ‘the platform with everything.’ They’ve actually gotten past simply Home as an online connected system for them. While I m not sure that one would compare them in depth and breadth and features and support to what you have at Xbox Live, it s good now.”

EA wants all platforms it makes games for to do well, naturally. And the company is pretty happy with both Xbox 360 and PS3.

“We have a similar share on both platforms,” continued Riccitiello. “It s not that I wouldn t want to criticize one of the other; I’m not shy. I just think they’ve actually both done a pretty good job. The big disadvantage Sony carries is they have an expensive platform because of Blu-ray, so they have a harder time hitting price points. Microsoft has taken advantage of that and their online service, which really is the gold standard. Sony has [leveraged] their limited amount of unique content really well. They’ve done a nice job promoting the Blu-ray, their advertising and marketing campaigns have been stronger, and they ve done a nice job of supporting some EA content to their own advantage. I don t know that you d point to either of them and say they can t shoot straight or that they ve given it up.”

Source: IndustryGamers {link no longer active}

Avatar Is Most Pirated Movie Of 2010

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Artistic talent, computer animation, and storytelling aren’t the only things Hollywood and the game industry have in common; both sectors also are hurt every year by piracy. This year’s “winner” in Hollywood is not surprisingly the blockbuster Avatar from James Cameron.

Avatar was downloaded from torrent websites a whopping 16.58 million times. That number represents a 33 percent increase in download activity from last year’s top-pirated film, Star Trek, which was downloaded just under 11 million times.

Of course, as we already know, the piracy didn’t stop Avatar from becoming the highest grossing film in history, with a recorded $2.8 billion at the box office.

Source: Hollywood Reporter