East Side Games has issued a response and counterclaim to Truly Social Games’ lawsuits alleging that the former broke contracts, withheld pay and more during the development and release of Archer: Danger Phone.
Truly Social Games has served East Side Games with a lawsuit and a civil claim in the last few months. ESG has now issued its own counterclaim to the first suit, and denied “each and every allegation” in the civil claim, saying that there has been no breach of contract, conspiracy, breach of confidence, misrepresentation or unjust enrichment.
In additional materials submitted to argue ESG’s case, the company alleges that TSG asked for additional funds to complete development of Archer: Danger Phone in May 2021.
“ESG advanced sums in excess of $1m to TSG on various dates and in various amounts, the particulars of which are known to TSG and which will be provided prior to trial,” says the filing. It goes on to allege that TSG still owes ESG over $370k.
ESG then lists seven counts on which it alleges TSG had breached its obligations, including failing to fix errors, maintaining a feature roadmap, maintaining a 4-star rating on Google Play, and failing to respond to reviews of 3-stars or less.
It then alleges that TSG “ceased performing any of its obligations” as per its contract in October 2022, and tried to prevent ESG gaining access to the game.
As a result, ESG alleges that TSG’s breaches led to the game’s decline, which threatened the game’s financial viability. This led to ESG trying to support the game, but was impeded from doing so by TSG, resulting in “loss and damage”, ESG claims.
Furthermore, ESG has added extra copyright, conspiracy and abuse of process claims into its counterclaim. It alleges that TSG knowingly cloned its games BudMaster and TBP: Merge and released them as Monster Masters and Summer Camp Merge respectively.
ESG’s counterclaim concludes with the company seeking an award of aggravated and punitive damages.
