Iam8bit is suing Skybound Games for £2.9 million ($4 million), alleging breach of contract, fraudulent expenses, theft of designs, and claiming that Skybound used iam8bit’s trade secrets to cut it out of a Stray deal.
Iam8bit – which entered into a partnership with Robert Kirkman’s game studio, Skybound, in 2021 – alleges Skybound failed to provide its contractually obligated monthly reports, and “padded its expenses with millions of dollars in fake line items”.
After Skybound was reportedly unable to provide evidence of the line items to a third-party auditor, 8bit has now filed a breach-of-contract complaint with the Los Angeles Superior Court.
In the complaint seen by Engadget, iam8bit similarly claims that after designing promotional materials for the launch of Stray, Skybound used iam8bit’s materials to secure its own deal for the Nintendo Switch port, intentionally cutting the latter out while using “almost exact copies” of 8bit’s marketing materials.
Iam8bit also claims Skybound used confidential information about 8bit’s royalty split with Annapurna Interactive to cut it out of the deal.
In all, iam8bit is suing for breach of contract, fraud, conversion, unjust enrichment, and misappropriation. It’s seeking real and punitive damages totalling $4 million. Neither company has publicly commented on the lawsuit.
