It seems that after years of publishing Dungeons & Dragons titles, Atari has come up against a disagreement with license owner, Hasbro. The toy and game giant is suing the publisher in New Jersey for breach of contract, alleging that Atari entered into a sublicensing agreement with Namco Bandai in violation of the Hasbro/Atari agreement. Hasbro is seeking monetary compensation and termination of the original licensing agreement.
Atari has released a statement, calling Hasbro’s claims, “meritless” and “an apparent attempt to unfairly take back rights granted to Atari.” No word yet on how Namco Bandai actually fits into this equation, but the Japanese company did purchase Atari Europe back in March to act as its European distribution arm, so there may be some relationship there.
You know what? They can have each other. Atari hasn’t published a game in a long time that wound up meeting my expectations and Hasbro, quite simply, is the devil. I hope it’s really expensive for everyone involved.
