We’ve been saying this almost all week and a part of last week as well, there is always fun times to be had in the gaming industry. You can thank King for the recent entertainment lately but now Elite Systems is in the spotlight as well but for a whole different matter.
According to new accusations that ave surfaced, apparently the company is being accused of some serious misconduct. The issues at hand are in regards to accusations of pirating ZX Spectrum games on the mobile storefronts as well as not playing developers royalties for their games. That’s two major accusations that could literally crush a company if they are found to be valid.
This entire ordeal began two days ago when the developers of certain games started speaking out against the company and their practices of not paying royalties and deliberate pirating of their games for profit. The person behind the movement is the license holder of the Dynamite Dan games, Rod Bowkett, who started the thread.
I signed an agreement with him [Elite co-founder Steve Wilcox] over three years ago enabling Elite to use Dynamite Dan I & II in their mobile apps but since then I have not seen a single quarterly statement or received any royalties whatsoever. – Dynamite Dan games developer Rod Bowkett
While the royalty payments could be an issue for numerous legit reasons, the much worse scenario is the pirating claim. This means, if true, Elitee has been selling the ZX Spectrum games unlicensed on App Stores and taking all of the profits, essentially stealing money from developers. If this is true, Elite System has some serious problems on their hands.
The original loading screen for Atic Atac on the left. On the right is the loading screen for the game as it appears in Elite’s app… without the credit to the game’s developer, Ultimate.
If you think things are already bad for Elite Systems, proof is now coming to light to validate these claims. The DRM Death Ray Manta developer Rob Fearon has even gone so far as to publish an article on this topic, demonstrating that evidence of Elite removing original developer credits does exist. However it gets even better for Elite Systems.
The company currently has a Kickstarter campaign in its last 24 hours for a Bluetooth keyboard that is compatible with its ZX Spectrum games. The company has already reached its goal for the campaign but now people are now saying that they will reduce their pledges to a buck unless the company addresses the issues. This would drop their total funding greatly and not make their mark.
It should be interesting to see what happens in the next 24 hours. We’ll post an update when new information arrives.
Website Referenced: Pocketgamer
