Dale Culp:  The big news 'round the games press watering hole today is Richard "Lord British" Garriott suing the ever-living crap out of NCSoft to the tune of $24 million.  That's roughly equivalent to 60,150 80GB PlayStation 3s.  Whoa.

Kotaku broke the news yesterday but GamePolitics has the full, gory details.

The reports were that Garriott decided to leave NCSoft, but according to the post on GamePolitics, Chris Chung, President of NCSoft's North American operations, informed Mr. Garriott that NCSoft has decided to "part company" in November of 2008.  What's the difference?  Tens of millions of dollars in stock options.

Again, according to the post on GamePolitics: If NCsoft terminated Mr. Garriott's employment (which it did) then the options - worth tens of millions of dollars - would remain in effect until 2011; but if Mr. Garriott resigned voluntarily (which he did not), then NCsoft might have terminated those options... within ninety days of his departure...  NCsoft forced Mr. Garriott into a Hobson's choice of exercising his options... and forced him to sell into one of the worst equity markets in modern history... 

In all, Garriott claims to have suffered "more than $27,000,000 in actual damages."

Written by :

EpittarkKat

 

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