EA founder, Trip Hawkins (who is no longer at EA), has emerged to defend his original company. Robin Antonick, a programmer on the Apple II, Commodore 64 and MS-DOS versions of the original Madden title for EA, has filed a suit against the publisher, claiming unpaid royalties since 1992.

In the suit Antonick mentioned working near Hawkins and alluded to an office friendship with him, however, in a recent interview with the L.A. Times, Hawkins reveals that Antonick was just "one of many" programmers on the game and that he was a contractor who worked from home on the project, and not next to Hawkins as described in his suit.

He also said Antonick only worked on the 8-bit iterations because the 16-bit titles needed developers with "more advanced" programming abilities, which is why his royalty payments were suspended.

An EA Spokesperson, Tiffany Steckler, told The Times Antonick's suit was "without merit" and that EA refused to come to the settlment table at all when they were approached by Antonick's lawyers.

There are always two sides to every story, and it's hard to argue with Hawkins who was actually the lead guy in getting the Madden franchise off the ground.