Factor 5 sued for fraud, were apperently working on Rogue Squadron Wii

Bloods End

Nintendo World Report wrote: »

Former employees of the recently closed company sue for intellectual property fraud and unpaid wages.


Last month, the German branch of Factor 5 confirmed that San Rafeal, CA branch of Factor 5 closed down. In a recent report in the Marin Independent Journal, it was revealed that when Factor 5 filed to liquidate the company's assets under Chapter 7 bankruptcy on May 13, the company had an estimated $1 to $10 million in debts. The biggest creditor was LucasArts Entertainment Co. Factor 5 owes LucasArts more than $4 million from a loan that was created in 2003.
The bankruptcy filing also had 69 claims for unpaid wages valued at more than $900,000. According to the lawsuit, Factor 5 stopped paying workers on November 1, 2008 and laid off all employees with little or no notice on December 19.
James Smith, a lawyer that represents the former Factor 5 employees, claims that Factor 5's three founders has deceitfully transferred assets, source codes, and intellectual properties to a company called Blue Harvest, which quickly changed their name to White Harvest. The lawyer believes that White Harvest and Factor 5 Inc. are basically the same company run by the same management except under a new name and address.
One game that Factor 5 gave to White Harvest was a new Star Wars: Rogue Squadron for the Wii. Ironically, the game's code name was Blue Harvest. Smith believes that the deceitful asset transfers were made to protect them.
Lukasz Balicki, Staff Writer

Sourced
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=18893

Goddammit. I could have used more X-Wing action. Plus it would have been very pretty and maybe I could have shot down a coralskipper.

DozingDragon

Sounds like they are still making the game, except under a different company name. So that's good I guess, even though it was done by screwing over their employees?

Voth

There were rumors of a new Rouge Squadron for a while though most speculated it was for 360.

If it comes to fruition, I hope they learned their lesson and don't make any on-foot levels.

SkyEye

DozingDragon wrote: »

Sounds like they are still making the game, except under a different company name. So that's good I guess, even though it was done by screwing over their employees?

Harvest's not making the game; the assets are being held to prevent the employees form using it against F5 for leverage.

Voth wrote: »

If it comes to fruition, I hope they learned their lesson and don't make any on-foot levels.

I've heard actually all on-foot levels, with the whole story of the the game being to get to your X-Wing. They'll probably have some X-vs.-TIE action in the background of the credits, though, so you can at least imagine what the combat would've been like.

Darth Nathan

I think it's a bit strange that despite how much I loved Rogue Squadron, all I can think of now when I think of Factor 5 is how awful Lair was.

Still, I do love me some Rogue Squadron, but on the Wii? Really? That would kinda ruin it for me...I'd much rather it were on 360/PS3, for online multiplayer reasons.

UnbreakableVow

Darth Nathan wrote: »

I think it's a bit strange that despite how much I loved Rogue Squadron, all I can think of now when I think of Factor 5 is how awful Lair was.

Still, I do love me some Rogue Squadron, but on the Wii? Really? That would kinda ruin it for me...I'd much rather it were on 360/PS3, for online multiplayer reasons.

Also for graphical reasons.

They squeezed some amazing shit out of the GameCube on a goddamn launch game, and while Lair was shit, it looked pretty nice.