Lt Col Oliver North is a polarising figure in American history and, we found out, earlier this month, an advisor on the next huge Call of Duty game, Black Ops II. North isn’t your average video game consultant. He was one of the main actors in the Iran-Contra scandal that wracked America in the ’80s.
A stack of emails released as part of the ongoing legal action between Activision and Call of Duty’s creators have turned up some hilariously catty exchanges and contingency plans coming from the publisher’s top brass.
Englishman Lewys Martin thought it would be a good idea to to offer people “hacks” for Call of Duty Games, which not only broke the rules of the game, but also included a virus.
The ugly court battle between Activision and its former employees has gotten even uglier.
The lawyer in Activision’s case against Call of Duty’s creators, Beth Wilkinson, who was only hired last week as a replacement, has asked for the trial’s commencement date to be pushed back by 30 days so she can “get up to speed”. [BW]
Activision is facing another big lawsuit over its tentpole Call of Duty series, only this one has nothing to do with people who used to work on the series. It’s to do with a rival developer who owns the right to a name that Call of Duty uses a lot.
Shooters protagonist Terry Glass isn’t that different from the kind of character you’d play in a Medal of Honor, Battlefield or Call of Duty game. He’s a fictional American soldier fighting in the geopolitical hotspots where America’s armed forces face off against disparate, tough-to-pin-down threats.