General discussion for the DRIVER series.
User avatar
By madness
#10695
Bad News.
Well it's not that bad but I was looking at some legal documents earlier today and this thing sounds serious, not I'm going to throw you in jail serious but the fact that the media has kept this kind of a lie.

Now this is hard to figure out as the language of this document is as bad as the Australian constitution, using old timers english language.

From what I can gather the general media says this
Atari received a better sense of closure in a suit brought against it by Martin Edmondson, the former managing director of Driver-developer Reflections Studio. Edmondson resigned in December of 2004, but the Reflections founder and creator of the Driver franchise filed suit the following March for "constructive unfair dismissal" after an alleged breach of contract.
Now this suggests that Martin Edmondson resigned at his own word. But this is where things get confusing, it says he filed a suit under unfair dismissal but it said he resigned.

So we go to the legal documents and it says Atari sacked him form his job and Martin filed that suit under "Unfair Dismissal Act" and received just over 4million dollars.

Now I believe this is what they were suggesting, I'm going to give the documents a better read tomorrow since there is about 15 pages of it and see if I can make any more sense out of this.
User avatar
By Coyote
#10696
And he can't use the 4 millions for DRIVER 4 and if he gives them to his brother, his brother is not allowed to put the money in the Driver series … :(
User avatar
By madness
#10701
Coyote wrote:And he can't use the 4 millions for DRIVER 4 and if he gives them to his brother, his brother is not allowed to put the money in the Driver series … :(
Yeah, I was telling Coyote this earlier.
I believe that this money wouldn't go back into the driver series, first off all Martin got sacked I think he might use the money just to continue and have a good life, nice new house, nice new car and everything.

and Ubisoft was designed to fund the series the money, and that's how Gareth Edmondson gets paid, by ubisoft and ubisoft get the money back from the sales the game makes.
User avatar
By Coyote
#10703
:( I hope they'll put everything they can in Driver 4 ... even if they can't use that money :(
User avatar
By madness
#10706
We never know that it's going to be called Driver-4, but I guess Driver: Parallel Lines suggests that and that it would include Tanner. But we don't really know anything.

I can assure you it seems that ubisoft is putting a lot of money into the next driver project. So far they are looking into employing 14 skilled developers and hopefully the game will be as big as Far Cry was and other popular ubisoft titles like Assians Creed.
User avatar
By Lseven7
Registration Days Posts Posts Posts Avatar
#10753
The fact that the document was filed in 2005 leads me to believe the "driver 4" they refer to is parallel lines. It said something about the game known as nothing other than driver 4 at that stage. And its between atari and martin edmondson.
By nitrored
Registration Days Posts Posts Posts Posts Avatar
#10754
http://www.davis.ca/en/blog/Video-Game-Law/2006/03/01/REFLECTIONS-FOUNDER-SETTLES-WITH-ATARI wrote:Martin Edmondson, the founder of Reflections Interactive (a UK development studio owned by Atari) has dropped his unfair dismissal claim against Atari. Mr. Edmondson resigned in December 2004, and documents show that he brought a lawsuit against Atari in March 2005 alleging constructive dismissal due to Reflection's breach of his employment contract. However, Mr. Edmondson dropped the claim in August 2005 after settling with Atari for shares and a cash payment.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=14959 wrote:
Reflections Interactive founder Martin Edmondson has withdrawn his claim of unfair dismissal against Atari after the publisher agreed a settlement deal worth more than USD 4 million.
Edmondson, who created the multi-million selling Driver series, resigned from Reflections in December 2004. Financial documents released last week by Atari, as reported by Gamasutra, reveal that Edmondson filed suit the following March, alleging "constructive unfair dismissal as a result of Reflections alleged repudiatory breach of a contract of employment that necessitated Mr. Edmondson’s resignation."
The documents state that Edmondson withdrew his claim last August after reaching a settlement agreement with Atari. The publisher agreed to issue Edmondson with 1,557,668 shares, valued at USD 2.1 million, plus a cash payment of USD 2.2 million.
It was also agreed that the cash payment would be made in twelve monthly instalments starting September 1st, 2005, and that Edmondson would also receive a one-off lump sum of USD 400,000 along with the first payment.
Edmondson founded Reflections in 1984 and the studio was best known for producing Amiga classic Shadow of the Beast before the first instalment in the Driver series became one of the best-selling titles for the original PlayStation. A successful sequel followed and there was much hype around the release of the first Driver game for PS2, Driv3r - but poor reviews and a failure to meet sales targets are thought to have caused tension between Edmondson and Atari.
User avatar
By Coyote
#10758
Lseven7 wrote:The fact that the document was filed in 2005 leads me to believe the "driver 4" they refer to is parallel lines.
At the time they didn't find a name for the game yet and now we are sure Driver 4 is not Driver Parallel Lines, just watch the 1UP video, where Gareth Edmonsdon says 'Driver Parallel Lines is NOT Driver 4' That explains everything … and I think the developper decides that and he said that.
User avatar
By Sedans
#10788
It appears to me this is all Ataris fault. Edmonson obviously has issues with them, and Atari just couldn't do it right. It says there was tension between Edmonson and Atari. But this was probally becasue Atari put out that game called Driv3r the didn't do so well, Not-to-mention that Driv3r took a huge shift with how the game was acting upon the series. And when it got to Driver: Parallel Lines it only got worse but DPL wasn't even in the picture yet; but Edmonson is probally just mad at Atari for rushing Driv3r and causing issues. I would be too.
User avatar
By Daltarin-Elite
Registration Days Posts Posts Posts Posts Avatar
#10843
It seems peaople are a little confused, basically a "Constuctive Unfair Dissmisal" is where the employer wrongfully forces an employee to leave the company instead of simply terminating the contract.

Ways that they do this is usually with some sort of meeting between employer and employee whey they will be told that they beleive their work ethic is slipping and they would rather that the employee resigns rather than have the fact they were fired stated on their permanent record.

Also, this types of things usually coincide with the end of the contract period where employee's are expected to resubmit and negotiate terms of a new contract with the business. The employer will begin offering less and less things until the conract comes to a point where it can no longer sustain the employee and therefore they will be forced to leave the job and seek new employment. This could be a cut in pay, or an extension of hours with no increase in salary. Maybe the employer no longer thinks they should have to pay for a phone bill, or a company car, that clearly the employee needs for his line of work, therefore they are left with more costs and so they get less and less money.

The reason for the drop of the lawsuit was most likely because atari paid him off for the loss in wages over a certain period after the breach of contract, and also paid him off the shares i would think as compinsation for the deformation put on him as a result of a dissmissal whether wrongful or not.

Maybe he did something wrong like have an affair with the bosses daughter so they gradually squeezed him out, who knows? They could have had information that would be bad if it got out like embezlment or maybe cutting financial corners. I'm not saying this is the case but it could have happened.

In that case the reason he dropped all charges for a preliminary sttlement was both employer and employee could dig the dirt on each other and it is better for an employer that, that sort of thing doesn't get out, because that ruins more than the bosses life.

The most confusing thing for me is, you only have a ninety day period where you can legally raise a greivence under the wrongful dissmissal claim, it's the same for sexual harrasment etc. After ninety days if you said nothing then you can no longer charge a former boss or employee for wrongful acts or termination of contract, this is the only part that doesn't work.
Crazy Copper Frenzy

https://youtu.be/xAE3QsULyB4

https://youtu.be/AxdGf3F0yIg

Driv3r "Nice Getaway"

https://youtu.be/CYkmGAPoO9s Lucas in Driv3r's Ni[…]

https://youtu.be/Yvc_xKrKhnc?si=k4I5kraarTXctHJp […]