Longtime slot-game developer GC2, which is responsible for many of the most successful titles in the industry under third-party development agreements with International Game Technology and other slot suppliers, is suing IGT over copyrighted art and graphics of several GC2 games in online versions of the games without first securing permission from the Illinois-based content provider.
GC2 entered into an operating agreement with a subsidiary of IGT in 2003, and has amended it several times since then. In the latest amended agreement, IGT has exclusive right to license and distribute GC2 games, but only in physical machines—not online.
The lawsuit claims internet gaming was expressly excluded from the license agreement.
“GC2 developed many of Defendant IGT’s best-selling video slot machine games,” reads the lawsuit. “Defendant IGT became one of the world’s leading manufacturers and distributors of video reel slot machine games in part as a result of obtaining rights to license, sell and distribute GC2’s games.”
Those games include many of IGT’s biggest hits, including Pharaoh’s Fortune, Coyote Moon, King Pin Bowling, Lucky Lion Fish, Festival Fantastico, Wild Goose Chase and Kitty Glitter.
The lawsuit claims IGT offered GC2 titles through its former subsidiary, DoubleDown Interactive LLC, whose gaming software can be accessed and played through platforms such as Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Android and GooglePlay.
Games like “Pharaoh’s Fortune” and “Coyote Moon” were then distributed without GC2’s permission or copyright logo, according to the lawsuit.
Last November, a judge sided with GC2. “There appears to be at least some evidence that GC2 provided its logo along with the glass artwork and that IGT NV made modifications to the artwork and took off GC2’s logo,” wrote the judge in an opinion referring to “Pharaoh’s Fortune” and “Coyote Moon.”
In respect to other games, such as “Kitty Glitter,” the court agreed that both parties’ games had images of cats, but that the similarities ended there.
IGT’s lawyer told the jury during his opening this week that IGT paid GC2 $5.9 million for all of the copyrights at issue, and if any copyright infringements are found, it would only be “a handful at most,” according to the legal news site Law360.
GC2 is asking the jury to award damages in the amount of profits IGT made while using the allegedly infringing games.
According to a report in the Nevada Current, as “a relatively smaller company” GC2 said they were “especially harmed” by IGT failure to obtain licensing, as it depends on “cash flow from licenses for use of its intellectual properties in order to continue its development without incurring additional debt and interest obligations.”
