AUG. 27, 2009 • Atari has been taken to court by Turbine Ent. over Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach (DDO Stormreach). In January 2006, with $20 million invested, Turbine believed Atari failing its obligations to publish the soon-to-be-released title and negotiated an contractual amendment to publish the game itself in North America, while Atari remained responsible for Europe.  Subsequent to that amendment, Turbine claims Atari failed to pay millions of dollars in Royalties, at the same time Atari alleged Turbine was hiding revenue from the publisher. As both parties entered into another amendment so that Turbine could adapt the MMO into a free-to-play model, the developer claims Atari was wrongfully threatening immediate termination of the contract as a means to either extort more money from Turbine, or shed itself of its obligations. Turbine is asking for $30 million in losses.

Impact: MMOs are not just expensive products to develop, worldwide marketing and distribution is another complicated challenge to throw into the mix. Most of the traditional publishers with strong retail connections have limited MMO experience and those products are outside their natural comfort zone.  In the case of Dungeons & Dragons matters were complicated by the fact that Atari was struggling at the time and publishing resources were more limited than a larger publisher.