Hoo boy, things are getting very serious with the media debacle that is Infinity Ward and Activision. A group of around thiry-eight Infinity Ward employees have filed a lawsuit against Activision claiming the publisher has not paid the full amount of bonuses and royalities owed to the developer since the release of Modern Warfare 2; going so far as to say that Activision is intentionally holding the developer's payment hostage in order to keep employees working at IW to develop (and subsequently reap the rewards of) Modern Warfare 3.

According to G4TV, the employees taking part in the suit include "a significant portion of the members of the creative team" for Modern Warfare 2.  Information filed within the suit mentions that Activision has paid Infinity Ward around $28 million for the game, but is charged for witholding an additional $54 million for 2009's profits, not including amounts yet to be payed for the games success in 2010. In addition to the money owed, the IW employees are seeking anywhere from $75 million to $500 million in punitive damages. The suit also mentions Activision's breach of contract by failing to pay terminated or departing employees their due within seventy-two hours of their end of employment.

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InformationWeek reports that Microsoft is facing a class-action lawsuit because one troubled user complains he was ripped off by the Microsoft Points system Xbox Live uses. Samuel Lassoff of Horsham, PA claims "an invoice he received earlier this month from Microsoft included charges for purchases he couldn't complete due to a balky download system—and he claimed it wasn't an accident."

It's interesting because just last week, Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg said that MS Points were never intended to "mislead people." Microsoft has considered changing the system in the past, so don't be surprised if MS Points go away soon.

Casual games developer PopCap, maker of such titles as Peggle and Zuma, has lost in a lawsuit filed against them by fellow developer MumboJumbo. PopCap has been ordered to pay $4.6 million in damages to the company, who state that they entered a contract with Popcap in 2006 to distribute all of PopCap's games in North America. MumboJumbo presented internal e-mails from PopCap showing that the company purposefully misled the company into believing they would distribute the games, despite the intent to publish and distribute them internally.

A representative from PopCap said, "PopCap continues to believe that it did nothing wrong in this case, and will vigorously pursue its claims and defend itself through the appeals process."

[via Joystiq]

A while back, No Doubt filed a lawsuit against Activision for allowing gamers to play as the rockers in Band Hero, claiming that it relegated them to a "virtual karaoke act." Activision decided that they will have none of this. Instead, they are counter-suing the group. The countersuit was filed in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California, on December 3rd, according to Game Politics.

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It seems Microsoft are once again going to be going to court after Datel, the UK based peripheral maker, files for lawsuit. Read more after the break.

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A Californian gamer attempted to sue Sony after being banned on the PlayStation Network after "multiple, repeated, intentional violations" of the user agreement. The gamer attempted to sue the multi-million dollar company by saying the ban infringed on his First Amendment right to free speech. The lawsuit failed after the Judge said that the First Amendment is to protect a person from having their right to free speech violated by the US government and not by a private company.

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