Double Fine’s studio executive producer Caroline Esmurdoc, talked with Game Developer Magazine about what could have been the douchiest move last year in 2008. If you remember during that summer, Activision made it known that they would no longer be publishing and releasing several games, but most notably Ghostbusters and Brutal Legend were on the list. It was a move that shocked the industry because both games were actually considered anticipated titles in the gaming community and most thought we would have been playing them come the holidays that year.

Now you would have thought Activision, who is one of the leading publishers in the industry today, would have respected the studios enough to let them know ahead of time, that their services were no longer needed. Well, according to Esmurdoc, who’s studio developed Brutal Legend, said Activision did the complete opposite. According to her, when the publisher sent out a press release to various media outlets about how they were dropping titles from the company, that is when the Double Fine learned about their departure.

“We learned Activision was not going to be publishing Brutal Legend through an official press announcement issued by Activision that listed the games they would be shipping, ours conspicuously absent,” she told the magazine. “Again, the team was abuzz with anxiety — and the official hunt for a new publisher began, distracting Tim [Tim Schafer], myself, and various team leads during an already intense development period.”

If this ends up being true, this is a new low from Activision. While I understand Activision is like any other company that has to do everything they can in order to make money and please their shareholders; I just don’t understand why they couldn’t have the common courtesy and let Double Fine, or any other studio for that matter, that they were no longer on the Activision team. Again, if this is the truth, it paints Activision in even a darker light, even more so than they already are.

Obviously, Brutal Legend would eventually be released, thanks to Electronic Arts picking up the title. But that was a move that lead to a lawsuit filed by Activision. Esmurdoc talked further about the lawsuit, and how the stress of trying to develop a game on schedule, along with being sued, took a toll on the team and ultimately it hurt their final product.

“The lawsuit was filed just as the game went Alpha, with a stipulation that it be heard prior to Gold Master being submitted — relegating Tim and myself and a cadre of team leaders to the unenviable job of information gathering, declaration writing, lawsuit reading, witness interviewing and all around non-game-making during the crunchiest, most critical time of development. The lawsuit took its toll on the team, on the company, on our product and on our optimism. Wrong, any way you slice it.”