Calax

Perhaps the employees should be asking west and zamp for that money that they're suing Acti for allegedly in part for their employees? Only gonna touch on two things: There may be opt outs, but they still shouldn't have been seeking other employment well before their contract was up. I'd expect that leaving prior to contract completion via an opt out would be pretty harsh (as well as west and zamp stealing data from activision and taking it to EA). As for the crying, please read the first page of this thread where people were saying that Acti was in for it for firing them for no reason. Oh, wait, Acti was breaking the contract and stealing money before they were even supposed to owe IW money? How does that work? Did they find a time machine and break the laws of physics while people weren't looking? And the MoU hasn't even been seen since it's initial reporting, like most things, so we can't comment on that, but I'm guessing that West and Zamp left a few choice things about the MoU out of their bitching essay called a complaint. One thing you seem to ignore volo, is that direct insubordination and failure to fulfill objectives generally begets pretty significant sanctions against an employee, no matter what happens afterwords, it still happened and thus the bosses can take diciplinary action as they see fit. All this speculation gets us nowhere except make us both look like idiots for saying things like "THEY WERE WITH HOLDING BONUSES BEFORE THEY SHOULD HAVE HAD BONUSES!" and "They probably kept bonus money for themselves to get their employees angry". I say let this thread die, and the legal drama play out in the courts.

Because they didn't. Part of the whole "Do your job properly" thing is that you have to follow instructions from your bosses, which the IW guys didn't do. And people are saying "well that's on Acti! It was their decision to publish it without the requested piece" Which netted Acti/IW extra profit due to timing. I find it interesting that Acti is to blame for letting the game out the door without their logo, but IW is to blame totally for their profits. Edit: I realize I'm not going to win this because people think that what Acti did was stealing, but I'm wondering just how many of you would be crying if Acti let west and zamp go BEFORE dropping MW2 because of the fact that they said "Give us mo money or we don't let you release!" I'm guessing a lot of you would still be rabidly defending west and zamp simply because they're the developers and Acti has a rep for being a bit of a **** (as does EA). Also it should be pointed out that part of Acti's counter suit is that IW is blocking further development on the Modern Warfare line (Thus, removing an income source), and have a noted track record (from what little I found from their split from the group that did Medal of Honor) of saying "We don't WANNA!" and leaving their company because they wanted to mess around doing something else. Of course when they left EA/Medal of Honor they went and made THE EXACT SAME GAME(!) which to me says that they aren't so much saying "we don't wanna" as "We wanna be powerful". IW did break it's contract, they actively sought to divorce themselves from Acti WELL before their contract was up (2 years), they deliberately didn't follow instructions, and they (allegedly) openly called their bosses incompetent idiots. And when this first appeared most people were saying "They were illegally fired!" because we didn't know anything and now we've come full circle to about the same thing "They had their money stolen from them" and we know next to ZILCH about what actually happened. ... Now that I think about it, I'm worried about what's gonna happen if West and Zamp win. If they do, devs get carte blanche to act how they want to their publisher/owner as long as the product sells well because the only repercussion for being a **** on that order is simply having to change who your bosses are. Second edit about the below: A) Who actually paid for the marketing? Acti or IW? Cause most of the stuff at my store was from Acti, not IW. B) I don't think you were locked into your job and pay grade on a 3 year contract. West and Zamp were, at least from what I understand. They couldn't just say "I quit" and go out looking for another job because they were tied to Acti until at least 2011 (I'm assuming that if they did quit, they couldn't seek other employment until then). C) Sales in a single day, while impressive, isn't solely the merit of the devs. Activision had a HUGE role in that and could have honest to god tanked IW if they wanted (at a cost to themselves, but the way you're demonizing acti...) by releasing it on jan 4th at 70 bucks a pop, people would have bought it, but not nearly as many.

not on my reciept.

Well, you seem to be saying that as soon as it left IW's hands IW would get the bonuses even if it was like Zone of the Enders and only sold because of something inside, not because it's actually a good game in its own right (which was true with ZoE). And similarly with the whole "Acti owns IW" Acti owns them and thus can in theory dissolve or build the company as they see fit, thus they can do similar with the paycheck. Then again, it's been proven that even if the world is in the worst financial situation because of one persons actions they still get a bonus because, well, they get bonuses (see: Wall Street). I find it appalling that somebody would have people saying "This guy deserves a bonus" when "this guy" didn't even do his job properly. And then you go out of your way to shift the blame from the persons who job it was to do something and put it on the person who ordered it and refuse to acknoweldge that anything monetary could be leveled at the devs for not doing their jobs properly because "LAWL IT SOLD WELL!" which was mostly due to the publisher deciding to not make a big deal about something small, only to see the developer take all the credit and demand a bonus because they sold well WHEN ANYTHING SELLS WELL.

So, basically, you're saying that if a developer delivers a product, they no longer have any responsability for it's success or failure financially, and shouldn't be penalized if it's a terrible performer and/or broken, because that's the publishers fault and they should have pushed it back until it turned into duke nukem, HOWEVER they should be rewarded when their game sells like hotcakes because well, it was all their effort that pushed them over the top and had NOTHING to do with the publisher.

speed. They have a point in that as of last month not a single straight 10man guild was able to kill lich king, at all. The way they're going to try to set it up is so that 25 mans get much more of the gear than the 10mans (including badges and money).

You didn't answer my question volo, if they'd held onto the game and fixed it, missing the christmas window, who's fault would it be for the lost money?

Added: They just announced in WoW that 10 man and 25 man raids (the same raid, just with slightly different loot tables and different people requirments, 10man loot being lower than 25 man) will now have the same loot and lockouts, meaning that we won't have to kill the same bosses twice for progression.

1) No evidence other than the fact that sales numbers plummet after the christmas season, to the point where ALMOST nothing sells at the rates it does during november. NO MATTER THE GAME. 2) Ifs do mean something because you're blaming Acti for making a decision to release the game in time for the christmas rush, without having their logo in it, in order to earn more money, where if they had decided to delay in order to put the logo in they'd probably have missed the christmas release window and have not gotten NEARLY as much in sales right off as they did now. If they were to do that would you say that IW is to blame for the lost profits? Because you seem to think they have nothing to do with the logo thing and aren't responsible for what they do/don't do if it doesn't have as much of an impact on the financial line. Acti chose to release the game without their logo to make more money, they lost name visibility but figured that that was an ok trade off... until west and zamp decided to be primadonnas.

Note; you don't have to keep the preorder there forever, just throw 5 on it and get your code, then when you don't want it, come back and remove the 5

In my experience, the people you play with is what makes or breaks an MMO. If you can find a group with similar interests and playstyle, you might as well write off the next few months of your social life. Otherwise, those games are boring as ****... or worse. Ultimately, yes. On its own WoW is a finely made game, though excruciatingly boring at times. If I had 5-6 regular people to play with that I know in "real life" I'd probably emerge from my room this time, next year. Thank god this wasn't around when I was 16, it would have ruined my life. When the story does progress to cata you'll still need to have BC and Wrath to move up there. A lot of the problems most people had with the leveling game go away once you hit BC because they learned A LOT in the 2 years before BC came out about quests, Cata is going to make it even better. Yes the game is a large investment, but it can be worth it. On that note: Raiding the past few weeks has been rocky but we finally saw Arthas last night at the top of Icecrown Citadel. Wow... just... wow, this is going to be a rough fight.

They almost did, as in not let it get released unless ACti gave them more money, which effectively means that they extorted all the bonuses you're whining about, PLUS some extra, from activision. Also think about this, if Acti HADN'T released for the christmas window, MW2 wouldn't have been NEARLY as successful as it was because most people wouldn't be able willing to toss money on the product after spending so much and seeing their checkbook accounts, which amounts to financial damage no?

And if you hired somebody to paint your house and then came back after it'd been done and realized two rooms were left undone what would happen? While we know next to nothing about this, I'd suggest that if somebody screwed up IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF ORDERS their pay gets docked (at the very least). Is Acti stealing? Is IW extorting money? Is the world crashing to the ground? The Law will let us know in three months. I suppose extorting is the wrong phrase, but I'd consider holding a financially successful product hostage for a MASSIVE pay raise to be at least MORALLY reprehensible.

Battlefield bad company 2 possibly. or Killzone 2 if you have a PS3

A) Obviously the relationship is different in that IW has the MoU operating as their personal shield of "invincibal!" You can argue all you want about it being on activision to put the coding in the game, but the point still stands that they didn't do what they were told, AND Acti did catch one instance of them trying to **** acti over and corrected it. Seriously, saying that Acti should have done it themselves, and removing the responsability from IW to DO THEIR BLOODY JOB is quite the copout on your part.

One would expect that if you're expected to deliver a product within a contract, part of the contract would include putting everything the publisher wants within the game. IW didn't do that, and thus breached the contract. And please, stop moving the responsibility off of IW because you're so happy to go after acti for being "thieves". IW had a job with at least one very specific point they had to do and they refused to do it, it's their own fault. If I really wanted to I could easily make a case that IW would be stealing money from Acti if they got their full bonuses because they didn't do the work they were ordered to by A) not putting the logo on the game and B) (according to the link below) forcing a reprint of a LOT of box art because they didn't put it on the box art either. You don't get paid for garbage you didn't do, even if it is something that simple. For those lost: http://kotaku.com/5513694/the-modern-warfa...s-infinity-ward

Honestly, it'd probably be hell for me to find a way to use that many moniters.

Yeah, that one, where they deliberately ignored a direct order to put the publishers logo in the game because they were just that petty.

And the IW guys breached as well, by not following the benchmarks set for their product. It's a matter of who was a **** first.

as is holding a games development over a publishers head to get more money, go figure. Not if the publlsher in A) is in breach of contract in doing it and the people in your example B) have creative control. I think that what Activision will take away from this is that they will never ever give creative control to anybody, again. Well, I don't think that they were in breach of contract when IW was saying "Give us more money or we'll slow work on your game until Duke Nukem Forever looks like it had a lightning quick development cycle"

as is holding a games development over a publishers head to get more money, go figure.

http://kotaku.com/5523154/five-more-out-at...o-infinity-ward

for the wrex thing, it's totally unlinked to Kaiden. The person who dies on that planet is FORCED into your party so you have no choice but to take them on your quest.

A mages teleport is REALLY nice when you're at high level because often you'll get a fex-ex quest to zip across three continents (or worse, from a BC area, like netherstorm, to STV) and back again.. Warriors honestly get jack squat in terms of bonuses and often are getting nerfed as new content comes out (at least damage wise) because the high level (gear wise) warriors do flat out the MOST damage in most raids, because of how well they scale in gear. Druids have always been pretty second fiddle. Not that they're horrible, but they've never really been the "best" at much becuase of the simple fact that they're so diverse in terms of roles (Tank, melee, ranged, and healing specs are all available) that EVERYONE would whine about it. And yeah, hunters kinda rock. I do wish there was a version of hunters that was just them standing their shooting with those guns rather than having to mess around with a pet .

I said no such thing as truth, I said that as a possibility that you immediately latched onto as me saying it was gods honest truth. You clearly re-iterated many times you thought Activision were in the right here and that the founders of IW needed to be "taken down a notch". I think its pretty clear the only people who think Activision were in the right here are the executives that have managed to bleed talent from their most successful developer. Not really, West and Zamp did break their contract by openly attempting to court another publisher, WELL before their contract was over, and then went so far as to blatantly ignore orders handed down by their bosses on a game. The question is not "Who broke the contract" but "Who broke the contract first". Why do you seem to think that IW can do no wrong, walk on water, and fall into a cesspit and come out smelling as if they'd just taken a bath. I never said activision did no wrong, but decryed the assertion that OBVIOUSLY Activision was at fault in this whole thing that somebody like you appears to hold because "LOL TEY TEH BIG CORPORATION AND THEY IS ALWAYS MONEY LOVING BASTARDS!" What I had put foreward with the stealing was one POSSIBLE scenario (Which I stated in my original post that people conveniently forgot) that activision was stating that was then invalidated as more info came out (but people still clung to it as weapon). Also, court of public opinion does not truth make.