Plaintiff: Activision. Defendant: Guitar Hero?

In a bizarre case of biting the hand that feeds them, Activision lists three Guitar Hero developers as defendants in its latest legal filing.

By Eugene Huang

Shortly after Activision announced that Guitar Hero II was a vital component to the company's most successful third quarter in history, GameSpot reports that the company is now planning to sue three of Guitar Hero's original developers, as well as the company they had allegedly been conspiring with.

In a complaint filed last month with the US District Court in Los Angeles, Activision is suing a peripheral manufacturer called The Ant Commandos for a number of charges, which will mark the second Activision vs. TAC lawsuit filed within the span of a year. Activision's first lawsuit accused TAC of misleading consumers into believing that their line of "Guitar Mania" controllers was fully compatible with the Guitar Hero game, in addition to various other copyright offenses. TAC countersued, claiming that Red Octane's guitar peripheral was heavily based on the "Magical Guitar" controller, which was originally created by TAC's parent company Topway Electrical Appliance for use with Konami's Guitar Freaks games. The two companies eventually agreed on an out-of-court settlement.

However, in this current lawsuit, The Ant Commandos won't be alone in their defense. Three Guitar Hero developers, executive producer John Tam, brand manager Corey Fong, and hardware group member Jamie Yang, have been named as co-defendants. Furthermore, Reverb Communications, a PR firm that formerly represented previous Guitar Hero developer RedOctane, was also named as a defendant.

Activision alleges that the three Guitar Hero developers secretly conspired with The Ant Commandos to create a new company, referred in the suit as both Lodestone Entertainment and Hourglass Interactive. The software giant is also accusing the developers over the misappropriation of Activision's trade secrets, the unauthorized release of confidential information, breach of contract, and numerous other offenses. Activision has also obtained a temporary restraining order against the defendants, preventing them from using or disclosing any and all knowledge of Activision's trade secrets, as well as such information as contract terms for music licensing, sales figures, product designs, and possible future songs and artists to be featured. They are also barred from developing, marketing, manufacturing, selling, or distributing "any guitar or drum based video games." This includes a demo that Tam created that would infuse elements from both guitar and dance games.

This lawsuit may shed light on Activision's announcement last month that NeverSoft would be taking over development of the Guitar Hero franchise, but lawyers for the defendants, representatives of Reverb, The Ant Commandos, and Activision all declined to comment, according to GameSpot.

Curiously enough, Activision is history's first third-party video game publisher, and was originally founded by a group of disgruntled Atari 2600 game designers who splintered from Atari in 1979 to seek better financial treatment from publishers.

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