Gale Force Nine Games sues Wizards of the Coast

Gale Force Nine Games has sued Wizards of the Coast for breach of contract, following Wizards' attempt to terminate a previously-agreed contract a year early.

Gale Force Nine and Wizards of the Coast entered into four-year agreement in 2017 for GFN to provide overseas and foreign translations for WotC's Dungeons and Dragons RPG products in several overseas markets. GFN worked with localisation staff in each territory to produce a translated version of each product, which WotC then approved and was then published.

This contract was originally due to expire in February 2021 but was extended to the end of December 2021.

In May 2020, WotC contacted GFN to ask to terminate the contract one year earlier than planned. However, GFN had already begun work on projects due to be published after that period but which had been previously agreed upon, at considerable expense. Some discussions were held on a way of reconciling the issue, but when WotC proved inflexible GFN simply informed them they would abide by the original terms of the contract. However, since then WotC have refused to issue approval for completed products in line with the 2017 contract.

Once GFN made clear its intention to enforce the contract, WotC informed GFN they were in breach of contract by publishing two sub-par works in overseas markets, one in South Korea and one in France. However, GFN notes that both products had been authorised and passed the approval process. WotC also believed that the French translated work had been used in a copyright-infringing manner, but had declined to pursue legal action against the company involved. 

Gale Force Nine are seeking damages of $950,000 from WotC for their failure to fulfil their contractual obligations.

This is the second major lawsuit that Wizards have found themselves receiving in as many months. Last month, Dragonlance authors Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman sued Wizards for $10 million for breach of contract after summarily suspending work on a new Dragonlance novel trilogy.

DUNE board game due in September

Gale Force Nine Games is gearing up for the release (or, more technically, re-release) of their Dune board game. The game is due to hit retail in late August or early September.

The game is a re-release of the original Dune board game released in 1979 and revised in 1984 to tie in with the release of the David Lynch movie. Way ahead of its time, the game is regarded as one of the best board games of all time, with second-hand copies still enthusiastically swapping hands on eBay. It was developed by some of the same team behind Cosmic Encounter, another game which has enjoyed tremendous longevity.

Gale Force Nine's version has been revised by some of the original designers and is launching ahead of the Dune roleplaying game from Modiphius (due a few months down the road), and is part of a general gearing up of the franchise ahead of the release of the new movie in late 2020.

The classic DUNE boardgame is being reissued

Gale Force Nine Games have confirmed they are reprinting the original Dune board game released in 1979 by Avalon Hill. Out of print since the early 1980s, the game has been lauded for its tight mechanics and rich theme, a forerunner of the modern board game scene from the same designers as the long-lived Cosmic Encounter.

Gale Force Nine have picked up the gaming rights to Dune and are working with other publishers on content: Modiphius Entertainment are also producing a Dune pen-and-paper roleplaying game and Gale Force are also working on a tabletop miniatures game.

Regarded as a classic of the board game medium, Fantasy Flight Games mounted a campaign to reprint the game a decade ago but were unable to win the rights, instead issuing a clone called Rex: The Last Days of an Empire, set in their own Twilight Imperium universe.

No release date has been set, but Gale Force may be eyeing a mid-2020 release date ahead of the release of Denis Villeneuve's new Dune film, which starts shooting imminently.