It is always a bit sad when business matters go sour and we are forced to report on them here at TechRaptor, but such is the case today. First reported by TMZ, Frontier Developments (the creators of Planet Coasters and RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 among many others) are suing Atari Interactive (who recently released RollerCoaster Tycoon World) for $2.2 million in unpaid royalties.

In the TMZ report, it is laid out that they allege they have been paid $1.17 million in royalties, but based on another website's sales figures estimations believe that they should have received $3.37 million from Atari. When this discrepancy became apparent they requested an audit of the sales report from Atari, but due to Atari delaying providing it led them to believe that legal action was necessary.

In a statement to us on the matter, Frontier confirmed that they are pursuing legal action after attempting to resolve the matter since April outside of the courts. Frontier's Chief Operating Officer, David Walse, said:

"We can confirm Frontier is currently pursuing a complaint against Atari. We have attempted to resolve this issue without legal action since April 2016. We have so far been denied our contractual right to audit by Atari, and we are unfortunately left with no other way to resolve our concerns. We are unable to offer any further comment while the matter is subject to due legal process."

Atari and Frontier have a history dating back to 2003 when Frontier was brought on to work on some RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 expansions by Infograms (who would rename themselves Atari later that year with the IP and trademarks they owned) and then worked on RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. They would later update RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and be caught up in a legal disagreement between Atari (formerly Infograms) and Chris Sawyer (creator of RollerCoaster Tycoon 1 and 2, and consultant for Frontier's RollerCoaster Tycoon 3) over the rights and costs of the RollerCoaster Tycoon franchise, which would settle out of court.

We have reached out to Atari for more information and are investigating to find more, and will update this story when we have more information.