Light & Wonder has addressed the Nevada District Court’s order to cease operations of its Dragon Train cabinet pending a final ruling in the trade secret case between the firm and competitor Aristocrat.
Judge Gloria Navarro agreed that Aristocrat has sufficiently established the existence of trade secrets and showed a likelihood to succeed in arguing that Light & Wonder violated the trade secrets around Aristocrat’s Dragon Link game while developing the competing Dragon Train title.
Most notably, Light & Wonder hired former Aristocrat engineer Emma Charles, who worked on the Dragon Train development team.
Addressing investors, Light & Wonder President and CEO Matt Wilson appeared on the studio’s YouTube channel to run through the talking points surrounding the case.
Wilson explained that Light & Wonder is working to remove Dragon Train cabinets from the market in North America and Australia and has offered retailers alternative titles to replace them with.
He also outlined the studio’s plans to produce a “Dragon Train 2.0” due to the court order only finding infringements in the maths behind the game.
He said: “Our intention is to build out Dragon Train 2.0 in compliance with the order and we’re working actively on this right now. It’s a very high priority for us and we’re working quickly to get that out.
“When you think about what’s in question here in this order, it’s really a small portion of the overall game that is Dragon Train, it’s just certain aspects of the maths that are being challenged.
“There are a lot of elements in this game that have made it successful. There’s the Dragon Train secondary Hold and Respin feature, the art, the sounds, the animation and the brand. These things are not affected by the order.”
Addressing the news that the designer of the Dragon Train has left Light & Wonder, Wilson confirmed that the designer was “terminated” from the company earlier this week, however, he was unable to discuss the “specifics of the personal matter”.
Concluding his statement to investors, Wilson said: “I remain really excited about the future at Light & Wonder, this is an isolated incident that we are mitigating effectively.
“We are going to continue the momentum that you’ve seen at Light & Wonder over the last five years.”
