Up until recently, Atari has been having a tough go of things. Between devastating financial losses and corporate restructuring, it was a bit of a wonder to see the company handle 2009 as well as it did, publishing some great games like The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena, Ghostbusters, and Champions Online. It looks like Atari may have jumped out of the pot and into a seething cauldron, however, as it is facing a couple of substantial lawsuits related to how it recently handled the Dungeons & Dragons license it holds, and how it treated some of the associated parties.

The biggest—and possibly most damaging—suit facing Atari was filed last week by Hasbro, the noted toy and board game company which happens to own tabletop game publisher Wizards of the Coast. Back in May, Namco Bandai bought a 34 percent stake in Atari Europe, and Namco Bandai also purchased Infogrames' interest in Distribution Partners this past July. If Hasbro's claims are to be believed, Atari apparently violated its licensing agreement with Hasbro when it sold Atari Europe, and it also misled Hasbro about the deal.

According to the lawsuit, "Namco Bandai, which has been supporting Dungeons & Dragons through its marketing website and customer support functions in these countries, obtained Hasbro' s confidential information about Dungeons & Dragons from Atari, and held itself out as a publisher of Dungeons & Dragons digital games previously published by Atari. Atari sold at least four of its subsidiaries actively engaged in Dungeons & Dragons licensed activities to Namco Bandai. Yet Atari has steadfastly denied any relationship between itself and Namco Bandai with respect to Dungeons & Dragons.

"Despite Hasbro's repeated questions about how its property was being managed in these countries, if Namco Bandai was not managing it, Atari has continuously refused to answer in any meaningful way.

"Hasbro can no longer trust its brand in the hands of Atari, and brings this action to confirm its right to terminate Atari's license to Dungeons & Dragons."

Not the first accusation of Chaotic Evil behavior

Strangely enough, this is the second time in recent memory that Atari has been sued over cheating a partner in the Dungeons & Dragons games. In August, Turbine Inc. (developer of Dungeons & Dragons Online filed suit against Atari, claiming that Atari signed a licensing deal that it had allegedly had no plan to honor. According to the suit, Atari acted "unreasonably" with its efforts to promote and distribute Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach, as well as failing to allocate proper resources to Turbine necessary to run the game.

Turbine also accuses Atari of accepting payments (including future royalties) in order to extend the publishing relationship between the two companies and launch Dungeons & Dragons Online: Unlimited even though Atari knew that it wouldn't fulfill its contractual obligations to Turbine. On top of this, Turbine claims Atari has continuously sought to declare the developer as being in breach of its contracts with Atari. While it isn't anything concrete, the fact that two lawsuits have been filed close together accusing Atari of similar behavior is certainly enough to raise suspicions.

Atari, of course, has been quick to deny these latest allegations. "Atari has had a long and rich history with the Dungeons and Dragons franchise, investing millions of dollars into numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful games that have generated significant revenue for Hasbro," Atari said in a statement. "Hasbro has resorted to these meritless allegations, in an apparent attempt to unfairly take back rights granted to Atari. Atari has sought to resolve the matter without cooperation from Hasbro. We regret that our longtime partner has decided to pursue this action."

An ignoble treatment of a great franchise

While it's true that Atari has released a number of Dungeons & Dragons titles over the past few years, most of those have been tied to the Neverwinter Nights franchise initially established by Bioware. The few games outside of the Neverwinter Nights series haven't exactly been amazing, barring Dungeons & Dragons Online. Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes was a bland Gauntlet clone. Demon Stone had a reasonable story, but it lacked innovative gameplay and often felt derivative. The Temple of Elemental Evil was solid, but there were a number of bugs that had to be patched before it was really all that playable; Dragonshard was an enjoyable RTS title, but its single-player campaign was too short and it was missing a major racial campaign; finally, Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics was pretty much a total mess on the PSP.

That Atari has largely squandered an intellectual property as rich as the one Gary Gygax helped create is a shame. Of course, before Atari took over the rights to the franchise, other publishers that were in the same position didn't always do an amazing job with TSR's various properties. Case in point: Interplay hit on a winning formula with Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, and proceeded to focus on those two series up until the company went bankrupt. That doesn't mean it's right, though: Dungeons & Dragons has some amazing campaign settings and storylines, and it's too bad that they haven't been translated into video games more often.

Depending on how this lawsuit turns out, Atari stands to lose a lot of money since the Neverwinter Nights games are a major source of income for the publisher. From a video game standpoint, though, this could be a good thing: it seems unlikely that developers such as Bioware and Obsidian aren't going to keep on receiving contracts to make Dungeons & Dragons titles. These games are both critical and commercial successes every time they're released, so it'd be stupid for Hasbro to stop employing quality studios to make these titles.

However, looking at a list of the most popular D&D games reveals a common thread behind them: developers like Bioware and Black Isle (which eventually became Obsidian Entertainment). Maybe Hasbro should cut out the middleman and instead just start employing studios that can develop products of suitable quality to do their better IPs justice. Or maybe Hasbro should just give the license to a publisher willing to deliver better —and more varied— Dungeons & Dragons games in the future.

Special thanks to Courthouse News, which is hosting the digital copies of both filed suits against Atari.