Breaking: Turbine sues Atari over Dungeons and Dragons Online
by Seraphina Brennan 
Aug 26th 2009 at 2:30PM
Filed under: Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Business models, MMO industry, News items, Free-to-play, Legal
Turbine has filed a lawsuit against publishing partner Atari in New York courts for a breach of licensing agreement all centered around Dungeons and Dragons Online. The two companies are locked in a legal battle regarding accusations including failing contractual obligations and wrongful termination of agreements.
The court documents filed on Monday paint the picture of a long chain of grievances against Atari made by Turbine, starting with lackluster support all the way back when Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach launched in 2006. Turbine asserts that Atari has failed to maintain their obligations as the publisher of the game while still holding onto the licensing for Dungeons and Dragons. These obligations mostly include the marketing aspects of the game, such as commercials, advertising, retail box creation, retail promotion, and cross-promotion with other Atari products. (Fans of the game will remember the very lackluster marketing campaign at the game's launch, especially when compared with Champions Online's marketing, another Atari-backed game.) Because of these failures, Turbine has had to step in and become the publisher of the game in North America, costing the company millions of dollars.
The court documents filed on Monday paint the picture of a long chain of grievances against Atari made by Turbine, starting with lackluster support all the way back when Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach launched in 2006. Turbine asserts that Atari has failed to maintain their obligations as the publisher of the game while still holding onto the licensing for Dungeons and Dragons. These obligations mostly include the marketing aspects of the game, such as commercials, advertising, retail box creation, retail promotion, and cross-promotion with other Atari products. (Fans of the game will remember the very lackluster marketing campaign at the game's launch, especially when compared with Champions Online's marketing, another Atari-backed game.) Because of these failures, Turbine has had to step in and become the publisher of the game in North America, costing the company millions of dollars.
The lawsuit goes on further to describe a plot made by Atari to wrongfully terminate the licensing agreement and shake down Turbine for more money, even while the agreement was being updated to support the game's transition to the free to play model and Turbine was offering Atari a good faith payment of thousands of dollars future royalties. The documents suggest that Atari's motivation for letting this agreement update go through was to take Turbine's good faith payment before severing the agreement completely, shutting out Turbine while simultaneously paving the road for Atari's competing product (which we can only assume is Cryptic Studio's Champions Online.)
Atari hasn't been content to stay silent on this whole matter, stating to Courthouse News that Turbine over invested in Dungeons and Dragons Online to demand more consideration from Atari than called for by the agreement in question. The company also goes on to say that Turbine's lawsuit is threatening the goodwill that Turbine has developed with current and future players who expect to play DDO: Unlimited.
From all of this lawsuit, Turbine is seeking 30 million dollars worth of damages from Atari -- constituting recovered losses from Atari's breaches of contract.
What still seems to be up in the air regarding this whole case is what would happen to Dungeons and Dragons Online should this licensing agreement be terminated. The full rights to the game are between Turbine, Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast, and Atari, however it is Atari who has granted the sublicense for the game to Turbine. Should this agreement completely fall through, will Turbine still have control of the game?
When asked to comment on the case, Turbine released the following statement to Massively: "As a legal matter we can't comment on the particulars of the case. We have recently extended our rights to develop and operate DDO Unlimited until 2016 and are looking forward to our launch next week."
[Via Joystiq]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Mr Angry said on 2:35PM 8-26-2009
...and now it all comes out!
Reply
wolfsterne said on 2:38PM 8-26-2009
So looks like the rumors of Cryptic developing NWN Online are true...and Atari wants their ball back so they can give it to Cryptic.
Really who cares DDO is known in te industry as Ken Troops folly, not that Wizards is that bright to being with...after he made a total mockery of the D&D license they then gave him the new DDI and virtual game table project...which he immediately screwed up as well.
I for one hop Artari comes out on top in this one...a Cryptic D&D game beats a Turbine D&D game any day.
Reply
PeterD said on 3:04PM 8-26-2009
I for one hope Atari does NOT come out on top of this one. A publisher takes a hefty share of any profit a game might make, and if that publisher doesn't follow through on their obligations properly they seriously screw over the developer.
Aganazer said on 4:41PM 8-26-2009
I had forgotten about NWN Online. This pretty much confirms its existence.
CindyL said on 4:56PM 8-26-2009
Cryptic getting NWN Online? OMG no... :(
(pssst give it to Bioware..)
I don't have anything against Cryptic but I firmly believe that anything Forgotten Realms belong should go to a company that can do story telling... :/
Wjowski said on 5:59PM 8-26-2009
I don't want to see a NWN online game period. MMO conventions will destroy everything that made the games interesting.
thyrisvicci said on 3:06AM 9-02-2009
"Wjowski said on 5:59PM 8-26-2009
I don't want to see a NWN online game period. MMO conventions will destroy everything that made the games interesting."
uhh..you seem to be forgetting that Neverwinter Nights started out as The First MMORPG in every sense of the term. It was through Quantum Link, a C64 online community program, later known as AOL. AOL maintained NWN for several years before killing it, much to the chagrin of it's players, most of whom only had an AOL account to play NWN.
The fact that Bioware released NWN with minimalistic multiplaying capabilities actually annoyed most of us who loved the original.
(sorry for double post, this is where I meant to post this reply)
Ironraptor said on 2:43PM 8-26-2009
How would a Cryptic D&D game beats a Turbine D&D game when there is not even a Cryptic D&D out?
Any future DnD games will be based off the 4e rules which plays more like a strategic war game and WoW.
Reply
onetrueping said on 4:37PM 8-26-2009
Which is kinda the point, I guess.
thyrisvicci said on 3:08AM 9-02-2009
Well from what I see of Cryptic's work with Champions Online, I'd have to say a Cryptic DDO would suck just as hard as CO does :P
Tom said on 2:44PM 8-26-2009
The line in the article "grievances against Turbine" makes it sound as though it is Atari that is filing the suit against Turbine.
Sure sounds like a nasty mess, in any case.
Reply
Bryan said on 3:29PM 8-26-2009
Sounds like Atari is in the wrong on this one. I like Cryptic and Turbine products equally myself, and to have the big corp. Atari getting in between is annoying.
Reply
Lateris said on 4:17PM 8-26-2009
I compare publishers in the game industry to the Mob. They lend you money then slap you around for as much as they can drain from you…forever. Studios need to break free of them such as Turbine and Arena Net. I know it would be a financial struggle but at some point we need to move back to the garage like we were a part of before the costs of production rose to 13 million -30 million for the production of a single MMORPG. I hope Turbine wins.
Reply
Wieland said on 4:52PM 8-26-2009
Damn, noone wants to play our crappy game.
Lets sue our publisher.
Reply
mpdivo said on 5:06PM 8-26-2009
Turbine made a crappy game - hard to feel bad for them.
D&D without a dungeon master? Without player made content?
Reply
Sarr said on 5:16PM 8-26-2009
You just Can't be more wrong : ). If you played beta on these vacations, you'd know the response was overwhelmingly good. So good that they delayed launch of 100% ready game for one month to buy more hardware.
Number of players who singed up for the beta and even subscribed to the old version which was still running in the background surpassed not only Turbine's, by my own expectations as a veteran of old, paid DDO:Stormreach. Which is going to history on the launch, September 9th (1st for beta testers and all those who had active sub in the past).
New server named Cannith is launching too, so new players will get a whole new world to forge for themselves. Character transfers for vets will be locked, only new players here.
Check out our new (Polish) D&D Online Portal:
http://ddopl.com
But it all doesn't matter. This game is a success already.
derella said on 5:56PM 8-26-2009
(psst Bioware doesn't want it -- see NWN2)
Reply
Dude said on 6:47PM 8-26-2009
Fail.
Hi Blizz, have my sub and don't sue anyone, including yourself.
Reply
Wisdomandlore said on 7:07PM 8-26-2009
Turbine is in the right here. Atari provided terrible marketing and promotional support for the game. This includes marketing the game as a MMO. Too many players logged in expecting an open world. Many probably expected the Forgotten Realms, not steampunk Eberron. A better marketing campaign playing to the game's strengths could have turned this into a successful niche dungeon crawler (a non-subscription based model would have helped too). Instead it fell to the wayside. I hope the F2P/freemium model helps reinvigorate it. DDO really isn't a bad game.
Reply
dgeraghty said on 7:20PM 8-26-2009
I wonder if they are also going to bring up the fact that when LOTRO launched Atari had to bite the bullet and make plenty of appologies to Turbine, Retailers and Customers that they "forgot" to release the game in Australia and were forced to admit that they were going to delay the game at retail for at least a month while they sorted the mess out.
This pretty much led to LOTRO having almost non-existant retail sales in Australia.
Reply