23 March 2015Copyright

Atari IP battle with games developer comes to light

Games maker Atari is involved in an intellectual property dispute with one of its former developers over the PlayStation Vita game TxK, it has emerged.

Atari sent a cease-and-desist letter to Jeff Minter and Llamasoft, the development company he founded and which produced TxK, claiming the game infringed the IP for Tempest 2000 and its predecessor.

Tempest 2000 was released in 1994 for the Atari Jaguar console, but is also now available on PC and PlayStation. Minter previously worked for Atari and designed the game, which was a remake of the 1981 video game Tempest.

TxK was released last year.

The letter was sent by Atari in June last year, but the dispute only came to light after Minter posted on a public forum and tweeted about it last week.

Minter said: “This has been going on behind the scenes for a while now. I’d kept it on the down low all this time because I had hoped we could maybe work something out.

“I think they [Atari] thought I was somehow making loads and loads of money on the Vita version of TxK. I guess because it did garner excellent reviews and a bit of positive press, but the Vita isn’t a massive market,” he added.

In the letter, Atari stated: “TxK is a blatant copy of the Tempest games. Contrary to your assertion, there is nothing remotely ‘original’ in TxK and in no meaningful sense can TxK be described as your clients ‘own independent creation’.”

The letter states that the graphical user interface and the gameplay infringe the copyright of the Tempest franchise series and that its name, TxK, falsely suggests it is part of the series and its use amounts to passing off.

Atari has demanded the game be withdrawn from sale and that Llamasoft send over any financial statements detailing how much it has made from the development of the game.

Minter claimed he has sent detailed financial statements on how much he made from TxK, but Atari has still insisted that the game be withdrawn from sale. Minter has said he cannot carry out further action because “there is simply no way on God’s earth I can afford any kind of legal battle”.

Atari did not respond to a request for comment from WIPR, but a spokesperson told news publication Ars Technica that “there is no lawsuit” and that the company hoped the matter “would be resolved”.

“When Llamasoft launched TxK in early 2014, Atari was surprised and dismayed by the very close similarities between TxK and the Tempest franchise,” the spokesperson added.

Llamasoft did not respond to a request for comment.

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