Activision Blizzard sues Netflix for debauched executor



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the activitision blizzard and netflix logos

Drawing: Activision Blizzard / Netflix / Kotaku

For those of you who like corporate beef, here’s a big deal: Activision Blizzard is suing Netflix. As reported by Deadline, Netflix hired a top Activision executive, CFO Spencer Neumann, before his contract expired. In response, Activision filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court earlier today.

According to Activision lawyers, Neumann started working at Call of Duty in May 2017, with his contract due to expire in April of this year. (The game’s publisher also retained the right to extend that for another year.) Netflix wooed him in late 2018. A one-and-a-half-year job could be a misstep. business – and could be an eyebrow. -raise on a LinkedIn page, but it is the breach of contract that is the basis for today’s complaint.

Activision is seeking a permanent injunction – basically, a court order that says, “You can’t do this anymore” – against Netflix, banning the streaming service from hiring Activision employees who may have “employment contracts at determined time”. Activision is also asking for punitive damages, or “punished”, which is a lawyer for “$$$$”.

Activision isn’t just seemingly pissed off for Neumann, however. Scroll through the complaint, which you can read it in full here courtesy of Deadline– and you’ll see full language with thinly veiled irritation that Netflix is ​​making apparent forays into the video game space, following Neumann’s integration in 2018. Activision lawyers point out that Netflix attended E3 in 2019, and hosted a panel titled “Bringing Your Favorite Shows to Life: Developing Netflix Originals into Video Games”. I am not so sure of the name of the panel. To this day, I haven’t pouted and failed to protect a UK VIP in a game based on The bodyguard.

I haven’t seen any Emily in Paris game that allows me to become the mid-level expatriate marketing guru that I’ve always known and that existed deep in my bones.

The complaint points out that a game based on Strange things—The popular horror series that is nothing like Super 8, no, not at all – came out last year for multiple platforms. The suits also mention a video game based on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. (Presumably they are talking about The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics, released in February.)

Activision, of course, is now famous for releasing the Call of Duty franchise. According to the NPD group, it is the best-selling video game franchise in US history.

Read the full report at Deadline.

More on the connection between Netflix and games:

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