Chris Sawyer has not been involved in TTD for quite some time, and any remaining rights he had were bought out officially in 2024.
Chris Sawyer was last involved in the IP when it was rugpulled out from under him in the early 2000s and sent to Frontier Developments, the Planet Zoo and Planet Coaster guys, to bury the IP in an unmarked grave with RCT3; Frontier is also the same guys that screwed Haemimont Games games over, the Tropico and Surviving Mars guys, leading to the studio being bought out and rebooted by Paradox to continue Surviving Mars development.
The IP ownership has been legally retained by Atari SA, aka Infogrames, aka GT Interactive, aka GoodTimes Entertainment, which has a very long history of screwing game developers and stealing their IP out from under them and also misrepresenting IP ownership and licensing.
Now, it is also worth mentioning that Chris Sawyer is anti-open source, so he probably personally approves of trying to steal money from OpenTTD players, even if he isn't personally getting a cut of it.
> Now, it is also worth mentioning that Chris Sawyer is anti-open source, so he probably personally approves of trying to steal money from OpenTTD players, even if he isn't personally getting a cut of it.
It's pretty rude to put something like that on him if he hasn't actually said that.
"The project has no blessing or support from Chris Sawyer and our view, it is both unethical and unlawful, involving infringements that may in some territories be criminal as well as a violation of Chris Sawyer's rights and those of his licensees - all of which remain reserved.
RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic, distributed by Atari, contains RCT and RCT2 rebuilt for modern operating systems under Chris's own direction.
Sincerely
Guy Herbert Director
Marjacq The Space 235 High Holborn LONDON WC1V 7DN"
