Atari is claiming that the release of TxK violates it’s copyright on Tempest 2000 . It’s very obvious that TxK was inspired by Tempest 2000 . It was even worked on by the original developer of Tempest 2000 , Jeff Minter. The first Tempest game was released in 1981 and was created by Dave Theurer. Tempest 2000 was the first sequel released in 1994. Atari alleges that TxK not only infringes on its copyright, but the deliberately vague name is also looking to cash in on the Tempest title.
Minter himself says there isn’t a whole lot of money to give Atari even if they win.
“I think they thought I was somehow making loads and loads of money on the Vita version of TxK , I guess because it did garner excellent reviews and a bit of positive press. But the Vita isn’t a massive market, TxK made back its development advance and a bit more and that was it,” he said.
“They kept hassling us and eventually I sent them sales statements so that they could see for themselves that we weren’t getting super rich out of it. I even tried to point out that if there was any serious money to be made out of it, it would likely be from the ports we were making, and that we were willing to negotiate about obtaining ‘official’ branding for, if it meant they could at least be released, but we were met with nothing more than intransigence.”
“Even after having shown them that, they are still trying to insist that I remove from sale Vita TxK , even though it’s plainly at the end of its run now and only brings in a trickle these days, and sign papers basically saying I can never make a Tempest style game ever again. So no chance of releasing the ports.”
That being said Minter has said that the charges are “all abject bollocks” but that he can’t afford any sort of legal battle. As a result, we will not likely see this well-received game be released on the Ps4, PC, Oculus Rift, Gear VR, or Android.
Source: Gamespot