Namco Bandai files suit over Witcher 2's European publishing

Okay, this is going to get confusing. Namco Bandai is suing Optimus SA, parent company of CD Projekt Red, over the European console publishing rights for The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. It claims that Optimus failed to meet its commitment with Namco Bandai when it gave THQ the rights to distribute the Xbox version of the game in some parts of Europe.

What does Namco Bandai have to do with The Witcher? Namco Bandai actually owns the European distribution business of Atari (who will publish the console release in North America, and who published the PC version in Europe), after purchasing it in 2009. For its part, Optimus says that it only signed a distribution deal with N amco for the PC version, and had its choice of distributor for the console release.

In addition, Namco Bandai claims CD Projekt Red violated its agreement when it spontaneously removed DRM from all versions of The Witcher 2. As a result, Namco is withholding payment of around €1.255 million ($1.8 million) -- a threat to which Optimus president Adam Kicinski blithely responded (as translated by Google): "Our liquidity situation is very good. Therefore, the lack of a few million does not have any leverage on current activities. Withholding of payments means only that for some time, our partner will have to give us the money with interest."

He added that he was confident the case would be settled before it went to court -- or, if not, Optimus will win the case "and then the loser will pay for our lawyers."

Wow.

Namco Bandai files suit over Witcher 2's European publishing originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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