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Elite accused of not paying devs royalties and pirating ZX Spectrum games on the App Store

Troubling

Elite accused of not paying devs royalties and pirating ZX Spectrum games on the App Store
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Elite Systems has been accused of not paying due royalties for licensed ZX Spectrum games it has been selling on the App Store over the past few years.

The original developers of these Speccy games started to speak out against Elite over on the World of Spectrum forums two days ago.

The licence holder of the Dynamite Dan games, presumably developer Rod Bowkett, started the thread.

"I signed an agreement with him [Elite co-founder Steve Wilcox] over three years ago enabling Elite to use Dynamite Dan I & II in their mobile apps but since then I have not seen a single quarterly statement or received any royalties whatsoever."

Pirates at bay

Even worse, some of the developers claim that Elite has been selling the ZX Spectrum games unlicensed on the App Store. If true, that means Elite has been selling pirated games and taking all of the profits.

The DRM Death Ray Manta dev Rob Fearon has even gone so far as to publish an article on this topic, demonstrating that evidence of Elite removing original developer credits does exist.

Below, you can see the original loading screen for Atic Atac on the left. On the right is the loading screen for the game as it appears in Elite's app... without the credit to the game's developer, Ultimate.
Atic Atac
These accusations come at a critical time for Elite, for we are approaching the final hours of its Kickstarter campaign for a Bluetooth keyboard that is compatible with its ZX Spectrum games on the App Store.

Elite has already reached and surpassed its funding goal of £60,000. Given the campaign has less that 24 hours to run, backers cannot retract their pledges at this point.

However, some of them are saying they will reduce their pledges to the £1 minimum if Elite does not address these serious allegations.

Elite has posted in the comments section of the Kickstarter page for its Bluetooth keyboard that it is "preparing a statement which we trust will satisfy the appeal's backers".

We have reached out to Elite's Steve Wilcox for comment on the allegations made against him and Elite by the aggrieved developers. We'll update this article if we hear back from Wilcox, and as soon as Elite's statement goes live.

Chris Priestman
Chris Priestman
Anything eccentric, macabre, or just plain weird, is what Chris is all about. He turns the spotlight on the games that fly under the radar.