IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

SouthPeak Allegedly Failed to Pay My Baby Developer

Posted July 26, 2010 by James Brightman

The My Baby franchise passed a million units sold back in May, and is now at nearly 2 million sold worldwide; it's been one of the few bright spots for beleaguered publisher SouthPeak. It was somewhat surprising, therefore, to discover earlier this month that SouthPeak had lost the franchise. 

As it turns out, Cooking Mama publisher Majesco secured the rights, and because of SouthPeak's financial situation, we had guessed that perhaps the publisher didn't pay developer Nobilis on time.  It's beginning to look like we were right. SouthPeak has sued Majesco, claiming that Majesco does not have the rights to legally publish My Baby 3 & Friends, but Nobilis is clearly aligning itself with Majesco and is none too pleased with SouthPeak's suit. 

Arnaud Blacher, Managing Director at Nobilis, told IndustryGamers, "We vigourously contest the statement made by SouthPeak. The rights of My Baby 3 have been legally transferred to Majesco and in the strict respect of the previous contracts signed with SouthPeak. We confirm that all the contracts signed with SouthPeak in the U.S. or in the U.K. have been terminated after uncured breaches from Southpeak notably for non payment. We also confirm that we brought the litigation with SouthPeak to court to defend our rights. We remain very confident on the outcome of these legal actions."

James Brightman has been covering the games industry since 2003 and has been an avid gamer ever since the days of Atari and Intellivision. He was previously the EIC of GameDaily Biz.