Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Ladies and gentlemen... let's get ready to rumble! It's been almost a week since we heard about Turbine's fairly large suit aimed at Atari concerning Dungeons and Dragons Online, but the parties in question haven't forgotten about the allegations and neither side is going to go down quietly in this squabble.

Just a few minutes ago, Atari finally fired back at Turbine's legal comments, saying, “Last week, with no warning, Turbine filed what can only be viewed as a frivolous lawsuit against Atari."

While no company would ever think that a suit against them was anything but frivolous, Atari then upped the ante and escalated the conflict a bit more with their next statements. "This action can ultimately do a great disservice to D&D fans and to the MMO community at large."

This Ten Ton Hammer staffer isn't quite sure how a lawsuit by Turbine is doing D&D fans a disservice - I'm not even convinced that D&D fans really care about the lawsuit as long as the game keeps running. A few members on the Ten Ton Hammer forums have discussed their problems trying to attain DDO in Europe, but otherwise most folks are simply concerned with the future of the game they enjoy.

The rest of Atari's statement is pretty cut and dry legal hurf-blurf, but we'll include it in the write-up for you to take a gander at.

"Turbine’s actions also appear intended to divert attention from the contractual obligations that Turbine owes to Atari. In response, today Atari served a motion to dismiss the entirety of Turbine’s lawsuit. Atari also filed a separate complaint to recover monies owed to Atari resulting from an independent third party audit of Turbine. While Atari hopes for a quick and fair resolution, it remains fully committed to the D&D communities worldwide and will vigorously protect the franchise and its own integrity in this matter.”

As always, Ten Ton Hammer is going to do its best to stay on top of this story as it continues to break. It doesn't come as any surprise that Atari fired back today, but we truly hope that a fair and quick resolution will be served at the end of this disagreement.