Scratch Developer Counter-Sues Publisher

24 Apr 2009 at 12:02:44 by Tim McDonald

A counter-suit from Scratch: The Ultimate DJ developer 7 Studios, against publisher Genius Products, has appeared.

The game has had a stormy time, and last week Genius Products sued Activision Blizzard - who recently acquired 7 Studios - claiming "intentional interference with contract," amongst other things, and essentially alleging that Activision was trying to delay and cause problems with the development of Scratch.

Shortly thereafter, the court found "no evidence of any wrongdoing against Activision," but this was quickly overturned, and a judge ordered 7 Studios to "turn over to Scratch DJ Game LLC within five days all source code related to Scratch - The Ultimate DJ game, including 7 Studios' pre-existing developer software tools and technology that went into developing the game."

The plot has thickened further with a new report from Variety, citing a counter-suit from 7 Studios (using the same law firm as Activision, implying that this has been done, at least partially, on Activision's initiative.)

The allegations in this new counter-suit, which amounts to over $1 million USD in damages, are wide-ranging, with 7 Studios essentially blaming Genius Products for the development issues. According to Variety, 7 Studios alleges that Genius had problems getting approval from Microsoft and Sony to publish on 360 and PS3 respectively; that both the music needed for the game and the turntable controllers were delivered late; that as a result of all this, production costs rose, and Genius only covered one month of the costs; that Genius began approaching other publishers in December; and that Genius tried to terminate its contract with 7 Studios - first by alleging that Scratch was insolvent, and then by claiming that materials hadn't been delivered on time when that was disproved.

Quoting the lawsuit: "The promises were made by Genius with the intent to induce 7 Studios toenter into the Developer Agreement, and to continue to develop the gameto near completion, at 7 Studios' cost and expense, without adequatesupport from Genius so that Genius could then take the nearly completedGame and shop it to potential buyers and/or another developer who couldcomplete the game using 7 Studios' substantial, confidential andvaluable work product."

We'll keep you updated as we learn more.

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