Last month Firefall developer Red 5 Studios filed for arbitration in California against Firefall’s Asian publisher Webzen. The developer claimed in the filing that Webzen’s new management team had failed to market the game as agreed in its contract.

In a post to the Firefall community last month, Red 5 CEO Mark Kern explained the reasoning behind Red 5’s filing for arbitration to terminate Webzen’s contract. The letter states that Webzen has not honored its obligation to Firefall in Asia and that Red 5 has been shouldering the burden of advertisement costs in the US without support from the publisher.

This week Webzen is firing back with a new lawsuit against Red 5’s Korean office alleging numerous breaches of its publishing contract. According to a report from Gamasutra, Webzen alleges to have invested more than $25 million in Firefall over the game’s 5-year development.

The Webzen dispute also points to an offline test organized without their permission and the recent “unauthorized” announcement of author Orson Scott Card’s involvement in writing the story for the project. Webzen alleges that they have been planning to reveal the Firefall details at G-star, but after learning that Red 5 intended to attend the event independently, the publisher took legal action.

Sources:

Gamasutra

ThisIsGame