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Earlier this week Activision fired Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella for "breaches of contract and insubordination". They sent bouncers and everything.

News broke subsequently of allegations that Activision had not paid Infinity Ward any royalties from Modern Warfare 2's sales, alongside rumours that West and Zampella had been shopping for a new publisher - specifically EA - on the sly.

Predictably, West and Zampella have filed suit against Activision. IGN has published the entire 16-page filing, citing the publisher's "astonishing arrogance and unbridled greed", and that West and Zampella having to sue for their pay was "not surprising, given that Activision is run by a CEO who has been publicly quoted as believing that the best way to run a videogame studio is to engender a culture of 'skepticism, pessimism, and fear,' and who prefers to pay his lawyers instead of his employees". Ouch, Bobby Kotick.

The filing goes on:

Given Activision's insistence that Infinity Ward continue to focus on sequels to Call of Duty games instead of new intellectual property, West and Zampella were also concerned that Activision's demands risked 'burning out' the Infinity Ward employees' creativity. Nurturing a creative environment had been one of the cornerstones of Infinity Ward's success.

West and Zampella were not eager to extend their employment; especially as they watched their games receive countless awards and make Activision billions of dollars, while many Infinity Ward employees were not being provided a fair share.

There are also allegations that, following the release of Modern Warfare 2, Activision set up an investigation to "manufacture a basis to fire West and Zampella". This included an interrogation "for over six hours in a windowless conference room", while investigators "brought other Infinity Ward employees to tears in their questioning".

Once this was concluded, the two were given six hours to respond, during which Activision went ahead and filed an SEC report disclosing their findings anyway.

Eurogamer reports Activision's response, claiming the lawsuit is "meritless". The pair are reportedly suing Activision for $36 million, also according to Eurogamer.

An interesting point to consider is that, while Activision owns the Call of Duty brand, Modern Warfare is West and Zampella's. Their lawsuit refers to a Memorandum of Understanding, signed by Activision's Mike Griffith in 2008, granting the two men "creative authority over the development of any games under the Modern Warfare brand (or any Call of Duty game set in the post-Vietnam era, the near future or distant future) including complete control over the Infinity Ward studio". This agreement "explicitly provides that no such game can be commercially released without the written consent of West and Zampella."