Former execs lose fraud claim against Activision

Infinity Ward founders Jason West and Vincent Zampella have lost one of their claims against Activision for fraud, a court has ruled.

The state superior court of Los Angeles dismissed a fraudulent-inducement claim made by the duo.

Judge Elihu Berle however, as reported by Bloomberg, allowed for a claim for promissory fraud, which alleges Activision had no intention of keeping promises made to the developers.

West and Zampella claim they were ready to quit the studio in October 2008 when their contracts were due to expire, but were persuaded to stay on and develop Modern Warfare 2 after the publisher made them “false promises”.

The duo claim that Activision failed to carry these out, and sacked them shortly after the title’s release to avoid paying out millions in royalties.

Activision claims that it sacked the developers after it had been revealed they had been talking to rival publisher EA about forming a new studio, Respawn Entertainment.

This caused Activision to file a lawsuit in December 2010 suing EA for $400 million in compensation for contract interference.

The case is set to go to court on May 7th.