Publisher Ragnarok sued the developers of Rune II for their departure to Bethesda

Rune IIHow the story began

Human Head developed and Ragnarok published the game Rune II. It was released in the Epic Games Store on November 12. A few days later, Human Head announced the closure and transition under the wing of Bethesda under a new name — Roundhouse Studios. The publisher learned about this event from the news. It is noted that a week before leaving, key studio employees took vacations and refused to communicate with the publisher.

According to Ragnarok, the developers violated the agreement on long-term support for Rune II. As a result, this obligation fell on the publisher. After recovering from the shock, Ragnarok sued Human Head, or rather, Nine Realms, Inc. This organization has the same legal address as the studio.

The lawsuit is also filed against three co-founders of Human Head: Chris Rinehart, Ben Gokey and Paul MacArthur.

Rune IIWhat is the studio accused of

According to Gamasutra, the lawsuit has the following excerpts:

• Human Head publicly announced its departure to Bethesda (Ragnarok’s competitor) less than a day after the launch of Rune II. By doing this, he hurt the release of a new game, despite his early promises.
• Human Head has not informed Ragnarok that it is looking for a new owner or planning any corporate changes. The publisher has no doubt that the studio specifically announced the departure in such a way as to maximize the damage to Ragnarok and Rune II. The reasons may be “malicious intent, greed”, “an attempt to regain the gaming IP” or all in the aggregate. Note that in the next five years, exclusive IP rights are for Ragnarok.
• Developers were paid “millions of dollars” ($3.5 million, according to Gamesindustry.biz) for the creation and further support of the game. But Human Head could not provide a “fully localized and tested game without bugs”. And instead of bringing the matter to an end, she secretly decided to leave the publisher. The deal with Bethesda, according to Ragnarok, was negotiated for several months.
• Three of the above founders “took hostage” the game code Rune II plus other property owned by the publisher. The developers are not going to return all this, since Ragnarok refused them additional payments for work not done. The publisher described their act as “blackmail”.
• In addition, Rinehart, Goki and MacArthur tried to make changes to the game code. The attempt failed.

The Supreme Court of California in Los Angeles County will hear this case.

Also on the topic:

• The Human Head team did not inform its publisher that it was leaving to work for Bethesda