Hasbro today announced its intentions to file a lawsuit against Atari, accusing the game publisher of fraud and five separate licensing agreement breaches of the Dungeons & Dragons brand. This principally stems from a sub-licensing agreement with Namco Bandai, a competitor to Hasbro and their wholly-owned subsidiary Wizards of the Coast.
"While unfortunate that we had to take this action, it is crucial for us to protect the Dungeons & Dragons brand," said Greg Leeds, President of Wizards of the Coast. "We have been working for several months now to reach resolution with Atari, and they have left us with no other choice than to pursue legal action."
For its part, Atari issued IndustryGamers this response: "Atari has had a long and rich history with the Dungeons & Dragons franchise, investing millions of dollars into numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful games that have generated significant revenue for Hasbro. Hasbro has resorted to these meritless allegations, in an apparent attempt to unfairly take back rights granted to Atari. Atari has sought to resolve the matter without cooperation from Hasbro. We regret that our long-time partner has decided to pursue this action. Atari will respond appropriately through its legal counsel in court."
This is not the first time this year that the Dungeons & Dragons license has brought a lawsuit to Atari's doorstep; Turbine announced earlier this year it was suing Atari for $30 million in damages.
2 Comments
December 18, 2009
What exactly is Hasbro claiming Atari did? What were the breaches they are accusing Atari of? It's hard to decide which company to side with without any details.
December 21, 2009
I believe that Atari gave Namco Bandai regional publishing rights to a D&D game and Hasbro is mad about that. It's really tough to tell if there was any violation without knowing greater details to the contract between Atari and Hasbro (which they did not provide).