There’s no question that Aliens: Colonial Marines was one of the biggest laughs of 2013. Railed with bad reviews (never going over 50 on Metacritic on the three systems it was released on, and having a WiiU iteration cancelled), it was just a misstep that everyone would like to forget, especially with a new Aliens game on the horizon, with Alien: Isolation developed by a different crew, The Creative Assembly.
Gearbox, the developers of Colonial Marines, have been named in a class-action lawsuit alongside SEGA, the publishers and video game rights holder for the Alien franchise. The lawsuit effectively states that the game that was demo and covered in previews was not indicative of the final project, and was misleading, EuroGamer reports.
Gearbox initially wanted to fight the lawsuit, but now they have filed a motion to argue that the accusations are baseless, and why they should be removed from the lawsuit. Arguments found by Game Informer in the motion state: “During the development process, Gearbox supplemented Sega’s development budget with its own money to help Sega finish its game; Gearbox’s contributions to A:CM totaled millions, none of which was ever repaid.
Gearbox never received money from Sega’s A:CM purchasers, nor has Gearbox received a single royalty from any such sales by Sega.”
Beyond this monetary supplementation, the job, which was “work for hire,” did not involve Gearbox in the marketing aspects of the game, and that SEGA frequently approved the quality of the production at multiple milestone submissions.
In addition to the debates of quality and marketing, Gearbox is adamant that Epic’s Unreal Engine was the only one ever used in development, with claims that they used a different engine for pre-release footage baseless.
Finally, their argument concludes with the assertion that it would be impossible to figure out how many gamers bought the title based on pre-release footage and demos, and that people satisfied with their game purchase would be swept into the lawsuit.
Can Gearbox get out of the lawsuit? Should they be able to? Or should the lawsuit just be dismissed? Let us know in the comments.
Chad Bonin
@chadbonin
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