Lawsuit Awards $11 Million to Original Madden Programmer
A verdict has been reached in the lawsuit between original Madden programmer Robin Antonick and EA, awarding Antonick more than $11 million in damages. The verdict also opens the door for Antonick to pursue the same claims against EA for games released after 1996, where revenues exceed $3 billion.
Antonick developed the first Madden title in 1988 for MS-DOS, Commodore, and Apple II platforms. In 2011, he sued EA for millions of dollars of unpaid royalties, claiming that the contract he signed with the publisher in 1986 stipulated he should be paid royalties not only for the games he developed, but any derivative works.