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Beyonce settles $100 million videogame lawsuit
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 19 June 2013
Beyonce has settled a long running lawsuit with videogames developer Gate Five. As previously reported, in 2011 the company sued the singer for $106.7 million in compensation after she pulled out of a deal to create a dancing game using her music and likeness, entitled ‘Starpower: Beyonce’. The developer said the $100 million+ would cover the money it invested in the canned project and lost potential profits.
In legal papers Gate Five said that Beyonce’s decision to back out was “a bad faith breach of contract so callous that, on what appeared to be a whim, she destroyed Gate Five’s business and drove 70 people into unemployment, the week before Christmas”. It added that a key funder had already pulled out of the venture prior to her departure on the grounds that she was “too erratic to do business with”.
Beyonce’s lawyers argued that she was within her rights to terminate the deal when the company failed to raise an agreed $5 million in funding. But Gate Five argued that it had actually been on the verge of raising $19.2 million in investment, until the singer scared of that investor, and that fact removed her right to back out of the deal. There were also allegations Beyonce bailed when a better offer came in from a rival developer (so not because of fundraising issues), though that wasn’t proven.
All of which would have made this case rather fun had it got to court. But it won’t. The two sides have now reached a settlement, terms of which are confidential.
