Ubisoft sued by Yourself!Fitness dev for at least $26 million

by Alexander Sliwinski { Aug 14th 2008 at 9:00PM }

ResponDesign, an Oregon-based company that published Yourself!Fitness a couple years back for various consoles, is suing Ubisoft over a game the French company was supposed to publish earlier this year. Ubisoft, which licensed assets from ResponDesign, was expected to publish My Fitness Coach to coincide with the release of Wii Fit, ResponDesign feels it has lost millions of dollars in royalties due to the game's delay.

There's a lot of numbers in the suit, with many zeros behind them, but the point is that ResponDesign believes it's owed at least $26 million for breach of license agreement and continued damages from Ubisoft's inability to "diligently pursue development of the game." Ubisoft has yet to respond to the lawsuit.

Tags: lawsuit, respondesign, ubisoft, yourselffitness

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Highcharity @ Aug 14th 2008 9:21PM

Sooooo.......Anyone ready for Warhammer open beta tomorrow? j/k ;) But seriously I think my brain is going to explode if I hear that someone is trying to sue a game again for copyright/controller/content or supposed rape scene.

wrathforger @ Aug 14th 2008 9:53PM

WTF...

mr mobius @ Aug 14th 2008 10:07PM

So it makes more business sense to release a game that is a replica of a game that is released with the peripheral which this game is designed for exactly at the same time when the game bundled with the peripheral is released while the game bundled with the peripheral is most likely a much better game than the replica game?

Hmm...

Nick the Hero of Canton @ Aug 14th 2008 10:14PM

My head asploded.

Chase @ Aug 15th 2008 3:17AM

Misfit Toy @ Aug 14th 2008 11:18PM

People are really sue-happy in the games business aren't they?

juju187 @ Aug 15th 2008 1:52AM

no they are sue happy in general...

aj @ Aug 15th 2008 1:50AM

This would be the first time I've heard of Ubisoft not releasing a game.

Maybe they can not release a few more. I think I saw "Imagine: Babiez 4" the other day. That may have been a hallucination.

epobirs @ Aug 15th 2008 3:57AM

Aren't these the same people who were sued by Roger Avary, the co-writer of 'Pulp Fiction', becuase he claimed to have had the idea first, despite variations on the theme going back to the 8-bit era? And didn't this series already tank on the previous generation of hardware?

ALH @ Aug 15th 2008 6:32AM

wow, people will sue for ANYTHING nowadays. I think im going to sue joystiq for tempting me to comment when i should be getting breakfast. This place is going to make me sluggish and without energy for the rest of the day! CONSIDER YOURSELVES SUED.

theclaw @ Aug 15th 2008 7:03AM

This might be a breach of contract, if Ubisoft was contracted to release the game on a specific date.

ScottG13 @ Aug 15th 2008 8:58AM

As uninteresting as Wii Fit is, unpublished software lawsuits even top that for boringness.

Creciente @ Aug 15th 2008 11:03AM

Who buys these, anyway?

Seth @ Sep 2nd 2008 1:26PM

I do! I've been using Yourself!Fitness for a while now, and it's got a good mix of progressive exercise routines, and RPG-like unlockables and upgrades as you achieve certain goals. You tell it what equipment you have (if any, all I have is hand weights) and it develops exercises around those. It's got a bunch of differently-focused routines, and recommends new ones based on what you've done recently or you can choose one if you, for example, don't feel like working the upper body today.

There's a monthly fitness test that keeps track of your progress, and you put in your weight each day which helps you keep on track if you're trying to lose weight (like me) although it doesn't have a built-in scale like WiiFit does.

It's got interesting environments (with new ones unlockable as you keep a regular schedule) and the trainer, Maya, is fit without being "sexy" so it's not distracting -- that's harder than it seems. The only thing that I don't like is that I can't cut out certain exercises completely, and some of the fitness tests have artificial limits (i.e. 50 situps is the max it will record) so once you reach the limit you can't keep track of further improvements.

As the demand for Wii Fit illustrates, there is definitely a need and a market for fitness games.

Jack @ Aug 15th 2008 12:14PM

I couldn't care!
we need more hardcore games.

http://www.squidoo.com/doughboy

Panicing @ Aug 16th 2008 10:35AM

I actually owned this game (not really) on XBOX. Its a great workout video. Kicked my butt for some time. It wasn't perfect, but it blew away regular workout DVDs because it had the ability to scale and change (much like Scene It on 360). I've been watching their site for a sequel and looked dead. Now I may know why.