Atari calls Turbine lawsuit frivolous

This is nothing more than legal jousting. I predict that Atari's motion will be denied, as a question of fact does appear to exist in Turbine's original suit.

In aside, Atari's countersuit for reimbursement of independent audit expenses is trivial in comparison to the original action, i.e. $30 mil vs. an audit worth at most tens of thousands of dollars.

Atari has been dodging the bullet for a while with their own financial troubles. As part of the MMORPG community I support Turbine 100%. Publishers are like the Mob.

It does seem like Turbine might as well have self-published from the beginning. Compared to the advertising deluge behind Champions Online, DDO was barely mentioned. While on the one hand it does seem a bit like sour grapes on the part of Turbine, the fact that they had to pony up their own money to make up for Atari's lack of support is what gives the lawsuit some credence.

However, I don't know that they'll win. While they can probably show Atari failed to meet their contractual obligation, Turbine chose to spend money to market and distribute DDO, they were not forced to by Atari. They could have chosen to let the game flop, cut their losses, and run. While it's admirable that Turbine stepped up, I don't know that the law will care.

The thing that is interesting and/or funny to me is the number of lawsuits the D&D world has prompted. The D&D franchise may be the most litigated game ever made from paper to pixel.

I'm suing you for those comments.

Turbine is just upset because Champions Online is doing much better then AD&D ever did or ever will. AD&D should have stayed a table top game and never should have been made into an MMO. Turbine just take the panties off and attempt to grow your balls back and admit that AD&D Online is flawed and that they should be great full that LOTRO is doing as well as it is because of it's fan base.

I bought DDO when it came out, many moons ago. I played it for awhile. It just didn't work.

The problem with D&D in a computer game is that you MUST, absolutely must, radically change the way it works. The moment you do that, it isn't D&D fans get all in a rage about it. The fact is the ruleset doesn't work without a human being at the helm. Once a computer takes over and it is merely a calculation, it falls apart. The maths don't work. The DM in D&D games have always 'managed' encounters to help players live and advance.

The moment you put a computer at the helm it just adds up 1+1=2 it doesn't adapt, it doesn't work around, it doesn't change the story slightly. It adds up 1+1=2 oh you died. So they made slight changes, which I didn't think were enough to compete with the enjoyment of other MMORPGs. The spells are rubbish, memorizing them is boring, limited options in Melee combat compare this to every other MMORPG which is not constrained by such a rubbish system, and DDO can not compete.

@warfarian: Let's talk in 4 years once you hit puberty. In your case your are trying to sound intelligent but really you are just making your self a blumpkin eater.

@warfarian: No, let's talk right now. Try to state some actual facts and try to say some thing that we will give a flying f**k about. Trying to deflect and make the statements that you have just tells us that you haven't puberty yet.

Turbine are responsible for a huge breach and breakdown in trust against Atari. I doubt if I will play their games again, but I am sure they will get over my massive loss as but one single player.

At least Blizz publish their own games, although some legal wiz leech will try to get them to sue themselves if money is to be made from creaming off their successes.

What, their suing "for monies owed"? Monies sounds like a word a 5 year old would use.

Arm-chair lawyers always make me laugh.