AtGames a producer of budget retro gaming plug and plays, consoles and more is being sued by the owners of Pac-Man. Bandai-Namco recently filed a complaint with the United States District Court in the Northern District of California alleging trademark infringement, false advertising, unfair competition and counterfeiting.
This lawsuit is targeting AtGames for a couple products that have used Bandai-Namco's properties, namely Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man. Last fall AtGames sent out review units of their Bandai-Namco Flashback Blast featuring 8 built-in games, including Pac-Man. This began the controversy!
It was found out that AtGames had sent reviewers a version of the Flashback Blast that had superior arcade versions of the games. This was the approved version Bandai-Namco allowed them to use for the retail product. Yet when it came time for interested consumers to purchase these units at retail they had home versions of these games instead of the arcade ports!
The included version on the retail units is one of the versions released on the NES. Which there were several in the US, a Tengen licensed release, an unlicensed Tengen release, and a official Namco release some years later. It doesn't matter which version of the NES game you play as they are all identical due to just being the same code from the original Famicom release from 1984. It does appear though AtGames used a Tengen version of the game due to the title screen not being from the official Namco release.
These are just a few reasons Bandai-Namco is suing AtGames. They are suing for the non approved version of the game being released to retail, them falsely advertising the game by sending out units with the approved arcade version to reviewers only and not to market and also for infringing on the Ms Pac-Man license by creating a product with the game, likeness and artwork without approval.
To see more information about this lawsuit, check out Madlittlepixel's video on the claims.
Take a look at the court filings yourself here.