Codemasters Accuses Dev Of Poaching Staff

Codemasters has accused UK-based developer Playground Games of poaching its staff.Going by the Daily Mail, Codemasters has claimed in a High Court writ that PlayGround Games – founded by former Codemasters execs Nicholas Wheelwright and Trevor Williams – poached employees with access to trade secrets and confidential information in order to get a head start on development.“Those employees constituted a ready-made top-rate racing games develpoment team,” reads the writ. “Between them they had some 100 years of experience in creating, developing and producing first-class racing games.”The writ alleges that Playground has disrupted Codemasters’ development of its own racing games, and the company is apparently seeking unspecified damages and/or an account of profits as related to Playground’s actions.Considering Codies has extensive experience with the racing genre – with titles ranging from DiRT 2 through F1 2010 – we can see why they’re a little bit protective. More when we hear it.