Game publisher Activision Blizzard has filed a counter suit in its legal battle with two former lead developers of Call of Duty.

Activision claimed it fired Jason West and Vincent Zampella in March because the two "morphed from valued, responsible executives into insubordinate and self-serving schemers who attempted to hijack Activision's assets for their own personal gain."

The outfit claimed that West and Zampella of violating their employment contracts by meeting with Electronic Arts and using illicit means to recruit former colleagues to join them in forming a new independent game development studio. However an attorney for the pair called the claims "false and outrageous" and said that Activision itself proposed spinning off West and Zampella's studio as part of a contract renegotiation last year.

Activision's suit counters a complaint that West and Zampella filed against their former employer March 3, two days after being fired as the heads of Infinity Ward, the Encino-based studio purchased by Activision in 2002. West and Zampella claimed hat Activision fired them to avoid paying them royalties they earned from November's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which has generated an estimated $1.3 billion in worldwide revenue. They say that Activision owes them $36 million in royalties and damages.

Activision's own suit reads like a Jekyll and Hyde game script. One moment "West and Zampella” were legends in their lunchtime. Them the pair's “misdeeds formed an unlawful pattern and practice of conduct that was designed to steal the [Infinity West] studio, which is one of Activision's most valuable assets -- at the expense of Activision and its shareholders and for their own personal financial gain."

Activision claimed the publisher was entitled to withhold all future payments to West and Zampella to recover past payments "during the period of their disloyalty" and cover compensatory damages.