{"id":16949,"date":"2018-04-09T15:32:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T15:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/316312"},"modified":"2018-04-09T15:32:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-09T15:32:00","slug":"gta-v-producer-hits-speed-bump-in-150m-lawsuit-against-rockstar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/04\/09\/gta-v-producer-hits-speed-bump-in-150m-lawsuit-against-rockstar\/","title":{"rendered":"GTA V producer hits speed bump in $150M lawsuit against Rockstar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Rockstar North chief and <em>Grand Theft Auto V<\/em> producer Leslie Benzies has suffered a setback in his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/270254\/Departed_Rockstar_North_chief_sues_Rockstar_for_150M_in_unpaid_royalties.php\">lawsuit against Rockstar<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Benzies is currently suing Rockstar, its owner Take-Two, and studio co-founders Sam and Dan Houser for unpaid royalties in excess of $150 million after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/308484906\/Benzies-4-12-E-filed-Complaint\">alleging he was unlawfully dismissed<\/a> on April 1, 2015.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He claims all three parties worked together to force him out of the company and terminate his royalty payments, which would&#8217;ve entitled him to an equal\u00a0three-way split of profit sharing payments with the\u00a0Housers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, <a href=\"https:\/\/law.justia.com\/cases\/new-york\/appellate-division-first-department\/2018\/651920-16-5396-5395.html\">the New York Supreme Court has ruled<\/a> that the profit sharing agreement Benzies signed\u00a0doesn&#8217;t actually grant\u00a0him\u00a0a\u00a0$150 million cut, as it &#8220;contains no language mandating equal payments.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Despite that, the court agrees that Benzies is entitled\u00a0to &#8220;certain royalties&#8221; as part of his compensation, and that Rockstar did indeed breach its employment agreement based on salary and stock withheld.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In short, that means Benzies could\u00a0still be in line for a significant payout, given <em>GTA V<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/309177\/Microtransactions_now_account_for_nearly_half_of_TakeTwos_revenue.php\">continues to bring home the bacon for Rockstar and Take-Two<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Rockstar North chief and Grand Theft Auto V producer Leslie Benzies has suffered a setback in his lawsuit against Rockstar. Benzies is currently suing Rockstar, its owner Take-Two, and studio co-founders Sam and Dan Houser for unpaid royalties in excess of $150 million after alleging he was unlawfully dismissed on April 1, 2015.\u00a0 He [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}