Beyoncé Faces $100 Million Lawsuit for Killing Dance Game
- Thread starter Tom Goldman
- Start date
Shouldn't be surprising for someone who performed for Qadafi while his country was building up in rebellion against him.
She'll figure out a way to squirrel out of the money owed.
She'll figure out a way to squirrel out of the money owed.
Congratulations, you made me laugh while eating French fries.Coliumbos said:
On-topic, this has to be one of the few times I'm supporting the party filing a lawsuit in a battle between a company and a celebrity. Yeah, $100 million is too much, but people don't start out suing for what they actually want to receive. They start out high, in order to "compromise" for exactly what they wanted, if not a bit extra. Start out at the level you want, and you'll get bartered down to less than what you want.
I agree $100M is a pretty generous estimation of how much their game would have made, however if she pulled out of a contract hopefully these guys will get loses back plus more as a punishment for her withdraw. I think their request might harm their case though.
Well, I don't know who is right and who is wrong here, nor do I know what the actual contract(s) involved here look like.Onyx Oblivion said:
If Beyonce is wrong here, and there is no way to tell since we haven't heard her side of the story, then I don't think the 100 million dollars is out of line. The reason is due to punitive damages. If you simply go after a big business or extremely rich person for "actual damages" then it becomes increasingly easy for them to just do whatever they want, paying off the people they screw simply becoming part of their assumed operating costs. If a big company or major celebrity can just wrong people and settle it by slinging some money from their petty cash drawer, I think that's an issue.
Of course if I was the guys involved in this, I'd be blunt about my demands for money being punitive and intended to hurt the person I think screwed me, rather than trying to justify it with projected earnings and other crap. What's more the amount of money I demand would be relative to whom I'm actually after.
As I've said before, if I really believed I was wronged by a major company or someone who was crazy rich, as a rule of thumb I'd go after an amount equal to the profits from their most profitable quarter of the last reported year. Profits being calculated AFTER expenses such as paying employees and other things. This amount of money simply being taking their gains rather than their operating expenses. Even if my losses were trivial comparitively speaking, the idea is to do damage signifigant to the group I have a problem with. It isn't a punishment if they can just laugh it off. What's more if they keep screwing people and taking hits on that level they will become totally unprofitable and probably go out of business, and frankly I'm cool with that if they are screwing people.
Beyonce is a big honking deal, she's been around a long time, and is not just a performed, but also a brand. For her I'd imagine 7 million is chump change for her overall organization. Whatever her motive, such as more money from another potential contract, or simply figuring the game wasn't profitable enough to invest the time, she probably figured she could just violate her contract, and deal with the problem by tossing what is a trivial amount of cash at it and do whatever the heck she wants. You can't accomplish anything and keep people like this in line, honoring their agreement, and so on, unless you hit them hard enough for it to matter.
I don't know the overall finances involved, but 100 million is probably enough to be punitive, where I'm not sure if 7 million would be, with all the merchandising and such she has a piece of. To me, it seems fairly reasonable for the accusation, assuming of course these guys are in the right (a bit assumption with only one side of the story) and she loses. Of course, as I said, I'd be using a differant logic. If I went after the profits generated by her organization/brand over a 3 month period I suspect the price tag would be more than a hundred million. It would also be a deterrant in making sure she, and those with a financial stake in her, didn't do it again. The hit I scored wouldn't ruin her individually, but a few hits like this would, and I see nothing wrong with that. One of our big problems is actually that I think people are too merciful in cases like this, and the system makes it too easy for the very rich to buy their way out of trouble, with paying off suits simply being part of operating expenses.
When I see a news story I hurry to the comments to see your pun lol. I've made a game where I try to guess it, let it be known this is the first time I've got it right.HankMan said:
Your related pun(s) to the dog fighting game removal were ingenius.
As I read it, all she did was negotiate and then an investor backed out, causing her to see that the game would go no where, so she left. We have yet to hear from anyone but the game developer on this, and of course they would say she made "extortionate demands" which for all we know, would have brought her payout up to that of other stars in similar situations.
Basically this.mireko said:
If she wins the case not only is she (and other celebrities like her) likely to do this again but it also means that other small independent developers as a whole might have second thoughts about bring on celebrities to sell their game (which might be for the best in some cases).
If they win, they might end up releasing another game just like it, maybe with an even more annoying celebrity. I mean, honestly, who would willingly subject themselves to a dance game based around someone like Beyoncé?
Also, yeah, "projected" losses? I highly doubt the game would make that much, given what it is and who it's based on, but on the other hand, a scarily high amount of people have really bad taste, it could've been popular, but I don't think I'd get along with the sort of people who'd buy it.
While I was never going to buy the game, it's good to see that developers are not afraid to take the hard stance with divas.
Prediction:
They settle out of court, game and studio are axed, everything is hushed up and we all forget.
They settle out of court, game and studio are axed, everything is hushed up and we all forget.
Agreed. The suffering she's caused in her time as an "artist" has caused enough suffering that she deserves to pay this at the very least.The Plunk said:
I don't think she understand what signing a contract means... I've never liked her, but on the bright side we wont have a game with her out soon at least. It's creepy enough with kids playing with Micheal Jackson...
Putting aside my bias to see Beyonce penniless, 100 million dollars does seem like a tad much though we are not given any details of the contract so that may not be the case. The main fact is that she has went against a contract she signed then Gate Five has everyright to seek compensation for the breach of that contract, especially if people lost their jobs because. While $100 million does seem alot I have feeling they might actually get quite a bit out of her as I'm sure a game with starring Beyonce regardless of quality will sell like hot cakes, and I feel a court may see that the same way. That said sueing someone for loss of potential earnings is bit underhaded to say the least. /Impartial opinion
And now that I got that out the way I can say this. ahem...Go underdog everyman developer, destory the mega-rich pop star! /Biased opinion
And now that I got that out the way I can say this. ahem...Go underdog everyman developer, destory the mega-rich pop star! /Biased opinion