The former Rockstar North head Leslie Benzies who has been leading the teams on most of the Grand Theft Auto games, is suing the company and its parent company for $150 million for royalties.
In January this year, Rockstar had issued a statement that Benzies had left the company after refusing to return from sabbatical but now Benzies claims that he was ousted from Rockstar after his return to the company.
Says the statement on the suit, filed by legal firm Locke Lord LLC:
At the root of the dispute is a sabbatical that Mr. Benzies was enticed by Rockstar to take after leading the company to world-record breaking sales and revenue.
As described in the lawsuit, while on sabbatical, Mr. Benzies discovered numerous deceptions on the part of Take-Two, Rockstar, Rockstar North Ltd, Sam Houser and Dan Houser, who sought to force him out of the company and terminate his portion of royalty payments based upon arbitrary actions by the company’s royalty Allocation Committee, a committee that may or may not have actually ever met. As the lawsuit describes, based upon agreements in place, as one of three named Rockstar Principals, Mr. Benzies is owed in excess of $150,000,000 million in unpaid royalties.
The lawsuit describes that Mr. Benzies, Sam Houser and brother Dan Houser were official “Rockstar Principals” by identical contracts each had with Take-Two. This was the company’s way of rewarding Mr. Benzies by bringing him into the highest compensation tier. Having reached this height, Mr. Benzies’ removal after years of receiving compensation identical to the Housers was the product of what turned out to be a lengthy deception by Sam Houser. The complaint describes Sam Houser’s mounting resentments after many years of high praise.
The complaint also states that Take-Two breached its mediation obligations when it issued a statement regarding Benzies sabbatical and that he would not be returning back to work. In fact, when he had attempted to return back to work on 1 April 2015, Benzies entered the Rockstar building but could not go further because his facilities access device had been deactivated. After being let inside by building security, Mr. Benzies was then ordered to leave by the Rockstar North office manager without reason.
Rockstar has filed for a counter suit that claims that Benzies was in a breach of contract and the suit and claims that his filings are “downright bizarre.”
“Leslie Benzies was a valued employee of our company for many years. Sadly, the events that culminated in his resignation ultimately stem from his significant performance and conduct issues. Despite our repeated efforts to address and resolve these issues amicably both before and after his departure, Leslie has chosen to take this route in an attempt to set aside contract terms to which he previously agreed on multiple occasions,” Rockstar Games told Gamesindustry.biz
“His claims are entirely without merit and in many instances downright bizarre, and we are very confident this matter will be resolved in our favor. A core ethos since Rockstar’s inception has been the concept of ‘the team’. It is deeply disappointing and simply wrong for Leslie to attempt to take personal credit for what has always been the tremendous efforts of the entire Rockstar team, who remain hard at work delivering the most immersive and engaging entertainment experiences we can for our fans.”
Through this lawsuit people may just get an insight into internal workings of GTA series developers and what went behind making of these games. Whatever maybe the case, Rockstar might want to keep everything under wraps before things take an ugly turn.