The Dino MMO Ark Survival Evolved has settled a lawsuit, allegedly for 40 million.
The studio behind Ark, “Wildcard”, had been in a conflict with another studio “Trendy Games”. The background is relatively complicated and convoluted.
The crux of the dispute is designer Jeremy Stieglitz. He worked at Trendy Games, then later resigned, but had a so-called “Non-Compete” clause in his contract, which prevented him from simply moving to a competitor.
What leaked sounded like a pretty complex situation. Stieglitz was accused of transferring know-how and personnel from Trendy Games to Studio WildCard. Trendy Games was now seeking compensation in court for this.
14 days before the court date, the issue with the checkbook was resolved
As a threat, it was mentioned that, in the worst case, development on Ark would have to be halted. On April 27, they were supposed to appear in court.
As reported by the US sites Gamespot and Kotaku, WildCard and Trendy Games reached an out-of-court settlement on April 13, during a mediation, and the dispute is off the table.
Details of the settlement are officially not known. Gamespot reports that Susan Stieglitz, one of the central figures in this dispute, tweeted: Trendy Games initially wanted 600 million. Later, she is said to have told a fan that they agreed on 40 million dollars. The fan then posted this on reddit and imgur.
The figures in this case should be taken with a grain of salt. However, the lawsuit is now off the table.
Ark: Survival Evolved is considered a Steam hit of the last few months. A release on Xbox One as an early-access title has further increased its success. An official release and a port to Playstation 4 are to follow soon.
More background information can be found here: Lawsuit regarding Steam hit ARK: Survival Evolved could mean the end in the worst case
