All manner of dirty laundry is currently being aired the ongoing ongoing lawsuit between Activision and Vince Zampella and Jason West, creators of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
A series of internal Activision emails indicate the projected 2009 and 2010 earnings of the most well-paid 30 employees at Infinity Ward. In 2010, the year that West and Zampella were fired, both men were slated to make $US436,800 as a base salary and a whopping $US13 million bonus, which when combined with their vested equity put their total projected compensation at $US16.4 million apiece. Good gravy!
In the email attached to the spreadsheet above, Activision’s Mike Griffith opines that while the spreadsheet indicated plenty of spare money to retain good employees, “we are paying way too many people way too much”, and that “we need to find a way to put caps on our bonus payouts.”
There’s certainly no denying $US13 million is one hell of a bonus.
Internal Email, Exhibit 655 [Court document via James Stevenson]
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