Sponsored By

According to a report in the UK Times newspaper, Roller Coaster Tycoon creator and developer Chris Sawyer is in the processing of pursuing litigation against U.S. ...

Simon Carless, Blogger

November 8, 2005

1 Min Read

According to a report in the UK Times newspaper, Roller Coaster Tycoon creator and developer Chris Sawyer is in the processing of pursuing litigation against U.S. publisher Atari for around $4.8 million in royalties which Sawyer, designer of the multi-million selling franchise, says is still due to him. Revenue from Sawyer’s games, mainly including iterations of the Roller Coaster Tycoon franchise for PC, is estimated to be about $180 million, and Sawyer has already received about $30 million in royalties, but still lists multiple examples of what he suggests are incorrect deductions from his royalty total. The grounds for the suit were set up in 2003 when Sawyer brought in forensic accountants to audit royalties due to him from Atari/Infogrames, a process strongly recommended by game lawyer Tom Buscaglia in a recent Gamasutra column. Since then, Atari has also published the Frontier co-developed Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 for PC, continuing the popularity of the franchise, but the issues over royalty accounting have not been resolved, and a court case is now due to start in London in the near future. This follows a failed attempt by Atari to relocate the trial to New York, where it claimed many of its witnesses and much of the relevant information were located. Neither parties have yet released public statements about the case, and it's unclear whether the future of the Roller Coaster Tycoon series will be affected by this court case. According to earlier comments by Sawyer, the franchise had nearly nine million units sold life-to-date worldwide in early 2005, and it's believed that Sawyer still owns the original IP to the game series.

About the Author(s)

Simon Carless

Blogger

Simon Carless is the founder of the GameDiscoverCo agency and creator of the popular GameDiscoverCo game discoverability newsletter. He consults with a number of PC/console publishers and developers, and was previously most known for his role helping to shape the Independent Games Festival and Game Developers Conference for many years.

He is also an investor and advisor to UK indie game publisher No More Robots (Descenders, Hypnospace Outlaw), a previous publisher and editor-in-chief at both Gamasutra and Game Developer magazine, and sits on the board of the Video Game History Foundation.

Daily news, dev blogs, and stories from Game Developer straight to your inbox

You May Also Like