Games that Atari sued over

[godzillajoe]

I can think of KC Munchkin and Robot Tank.

 

Is that it?

[Urchlay]

I can think of KC Munchkin and Robot Tank.

 

Is that it?

 

Didn't Imagic get sued over Demon Attack? Was that Atari, or someone else?

[Albert]

Atari also sued Activision, although that wasn't over any specific games. Thankfully Atari lost that lawsuit, which opened up console development to third parties.

 

..Al

[Uzumaki]

I seems to remember Nintendo and Atari butting heads in the courts for:

 

Mario Bros. game Atari used Mario without permission. I can't remember how it turned out but Nintendo took Atari's original character Luigi and used him in virtually all major Mario games.

 

RF cable with auto RF switch used in Atari 5200. Something about patent violation.

[Urchlay]

I seems to remember Nintendo and Atari butting heads in the courts for:

 

Also the other way around: Nintendo sued Tengen (aka Atari) over their Tetris for the NES. Too bad, it was a lot nicer than Nintendo's NES Tetris.

[godzillajoe]

But Mario Bros. was licensed FROM Nintendo who did the coin-op so that doesn't make sense.

 

 

I seems to remember Nintendo and Atari butting heads in the courts for:

 

Mario Bros. game Atari used Mario without permission. I can't remember how it turned out but Nintendo took Atari's original character Luigi and used him in virtually all major Mario games.

 

[Zonie]

Care to elaborate on the Mario - Luigi thing? I never heard that. Did Atari actually bootleg mario bros. or something?

[Shannon]

The atari suing over KC munchkin never made any sense to me. Shouldn't that have been namco's responsibility to sue?

[godzillajoe]

Atari owned the home rights to Pac-Man. Namco probably didn't care because a rip-off home version didn't affect their arcade game all that much if any.

[Albert]

The atari suing over KC munchkin never made any sense to me. Shouldn't that have been namco's responsibility to sue?

I think Atari had the Pac-Man rights for home video game systems and computers, which is why they sued.

 

..Al

[PressureCooker2600]

i've never heard of the luigi story either.....never heard the robot tank story but it would make sense

although battlezone and robot tank aren't really THAT similar

[NovaXpress]

Mario Bros. game Atari used Mario without permission. I can't remember how it turned out but Nintendo took Atari's original character Luigi and used him in virtually all major Mario games.

That is a total freakin' lie. Nintendo created the original game and licensed it to Atari. There's nothing more to that story.

 

Atari also sued Activision, although that wasn't over any specific games. Thankfully Atari lost that lawsuit, which opened up console development to third parties.

Atari did not lose that lawsuit. Activision settled out-of-court, agreeing to pay a royalty for every game sold.

 

Atari did successfully sue Magnavox over KC Munchkin.

 

They sued Imagic over the Intellivision version of Demon Attack but lost.

 

There was never any lawsuit over Robot Tank.

[PressureCooker2600]

so THATS why i never heard of the luigi or robot tank stories

[godzillajoe]

Weird, I would have sworn I heard Atari sued over Robot Tank because it came out just before their version of Battlezone as was considered too similar.

[NovaXpress]

Other lawsuit fun from the classic era:

Universal Studios sued Coleco and Nintendo over Donkey Kong. Coleco paid up while Nintendo fought and eventually won. Coleco then had to sue to get their money back.

 

Activision blatantly ripped off Konami's Loco Motion with Happy Trails and even beat the official license from Mattel into stores. Mattel thought that Konami should sue, to which Konami said "we get paid either way so it's your problem." In the end, nobody sued and the home version of Loco Motion was a flop.

 

GCC stirred up a lot of fun. They released a Missile Command mod which angered Atari but resulted in GCC becoming an outside producer for products such as Food Fight and the 7800. GCC also made a Pac bootleg called Crazy Otto which was so good they sold it to Midway and it became Ms. Pac-Man. After GCC and Midway sued each other over royalties, they realized that Namco was the actual damaged party and both gave up the rights to the game.

 

When Atari hired Intellivision programmers, Mattel sued for "corporate espionage" but that didn't go anywhere.

 

Atari sued over Sierra's Jawbreaker for the PC but lost. Still, when Tigervision released Jawbreaker for the 2600 they significantly changed the gameplay and actually made a better game (which was then licensed back to Sierra and became Jawbreaker 2 on the PC)

[PressureCooker2600]

i love this shit.....tell more, tell more

[+FujiSkunk]

Also the other way around: Nintendo sued Tengen (aka Atari) over their Tetris for the NES. Too bad, it was a lot nicer than Nintendo's NES Tetris.

 

To clarify, by that point Atari was two different companies, and both were butting heads with Nintendo. Atari Corp. (makers of home consoles and "Atari" home video games) accused Nintendo of monopolistic practices, and lost. Atari Games (makers of arcade games and "Tengen" home video games) also accused Nintendo of acting like a monopoly, but their beef was specifically about Nintendo's lock-out chips, which Atari Games then decided to circumvent. Nintendo sued them right back, and eventually the two settled.

 

Unrelated to the above lawsuits was the Tetris debacle. Atari had purchased the arcade rights not from the original rights holder, but from an intermediary. They then purchased home publishing rights from that same intermediary. Nintendo did some research and discovered that the home publishing rights were never the intermediary's to sell. So, Nintendo did it the right way, and of course, promptly C&D'ed Atari Games, not only forcing them to recall their own NES Tetris, but also killing any hope of Tetris coming out (officially) for any console besides Nintendo's (at least during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras).

Edited November 30, 2006 by skunkworx

[PressureCooker2600]

i feel bad for the russian guy who created Tetris......he didnt get shit.....the commies took all his royalties

[Uzumaki]

I thought I did hear about suit over Mario Bros but it could have been urban legend in my area.

 

Tetris I can understand. Tengen got the right from a company in Europe. That company only had the right to produce in Europe and not in North America. Nintendo went directly to the original in Russia and got the license the correct way. Tengen was at fault for not researching licenses carefully.

 

It sucks because I liked Tengen version too.

[godzillajoe]

Every home version of Tetris sucked. It never played like the arcade game with higher levels having some blocks already in the playfield to start. It just got faster and faster.

[NovaXpress]

i feel bad for the many guys who created 2600 games......they didnt get shit.....the capitalists took all their royalties

Fixed it for you.

[Albert]

Atari did not lose that lawsuit. Activision settled out-of-court, agreeing to pay a royalty for every game sold.

That's not how I've heard it repeatedly told. I did a quick search in Google and only saw one reference that Activision had to share profits from their games. Most of the other references say that Atari either lost the lawsuit or that it never went anywhere. It would be nice to see a definitive account of what occurred.

 

..Al

[Albert]

Atari also sued Coleco for $350 million over the ColecoVision Expansion Module #1 (the VCS module). Coleco then countersued for $550 million. I think they settled out of court with Coleco paying Atari royalties for every module sold.

 

..Al

[NovaXpress]

It's known that Activision ended up paying a royalty in an out-of-court settlement (I found dozens of online references and its even talked about in a 1983 issue of EG). So if Atari had lost the case then there would have been no need to pay. Res ipsa loquitor.

 

Coleco was in position to win the Expansion Model lawsuit, but decided to pay a small royalty to Atari rather than duke it out in court. Intellivision then made their own expansion module and Atari backed down, knowing they'd lose due to the "off-the-shelf" issue. So, as with the Universal lawsuit, Coleco was apparently a chump. Since the 2600 contains no coyrightable software or proprietary hardware, it was open season for clones.

Edited November 30, 2006 by NovaXpress

[NovaXpress]

Note: the royalty lawsuit came after Atari lost the "venetian blinds" lawsuit. I think that's why the classic gaming press gets confused.