Ed Annunziata has settled a lawsuit with video game publisher Sega over the ownership of the Ecco the Dolphin series. That’s an interesting development that could pave the way for the rebirth of the franchise, which Sega brought to its game consoles starting in 1992.
Ed Annunziata
Annunziata filed the lawsuit a few years ago after he created a Kickstarter campaign for a game called The Big Blue. Since he didn’t have the rights to the Ecco the Dolphin name, Annunziata tried to create a spiritual successor in 2013 with Spencer Nilsen, another creator, through a startup called Playchemy. The game would have been a next-generation undersea adventure.
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Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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