In her latest Develop column, Team 17 Managing Director Debbie Bestwick admitted that her studio nearly lost the Worms IP in the 1990's.
Back then, the team was around 4 or 5 months behind schedule on a big game and needed extra funding to finish it. That funding was secured through an unnamed publisher signed a contract with Team 17 mandating that they'd have to relinquish the Worms IP if the game failed to meet the 12-months sales target set by him.
"At the time, the extra funding was necessary but agreeing to clauses that include IP seizure is beyond stupid," admitted Bestwick .
Team 17 spent the next 12 months working closely with the publisher's team to "monitor orders on a day-to-day basis, knowing every single unit sold and where it had shipped." In the end, they were able to beat the sales target by 1.7 percent.