Media Forensics reveals total figure for discovered unpaid royalties

Videogame accounts auditors Media Forensics have told GamesIndustry.biz that it has more than GBP 8 million (11.9 million Euro) in unpaid royalties since the firm opened for business in 2002.

Media Forensics, which was co-founded by Tim Christian and Faye Sieracki, specialises in analysing and auditing royalty and distribution agreements to ensure companies are paid in full.

Over the past four years the firm has performed audits for a wide range of publishers and developers, including Bethesda Softworks, Criterion, Rebellion, Blitz Games and Zoo Digital.

According to Sieracki, they have found errors in royalty reporting on each occasion an audit has been performed - uncovering a total of GBP 8.8 million (13.1 million Euro). The figure covers audits of standard box copies, downloadable content, licensed content, OEM content and mobile games.

"It is important to stress that most errors are simply that - errors, not deliberate fraud," Sieracki said.

"This due in part to complex contracts, i.e. no one contract is the same and also basic databases which donât really cope that well with the stresses of royalty accounting."

Christian added, "We always find previously undiscovered royalties, or previously unreported royalties. Sometimes we will find an error that goes the other way.

"In all of the jobs we've undertaken, there are only two cases where we haven't actually covered the cost of the audit by the amount of money we've found."

For more from Christian, read our full interview.