Nebraska Dave News and Reviews

• +2 Gaming/Nerd Culture
• +1 Media Meta (as this touches on the ongoing lawsuit between Tom DeSanto of New Myth Entertainment and Gail Gygax of Gygax Games)

So as it turns out, there was an interesting tidbit in the recent Kotaku piece about Gail Gygax that I, and apparently a lot of other people, overlooked at the time. Specifically, that Gary made a new will shortly before his death, and that Gail is refusing to honor it. From the article:

DeSanto’s lawsuit could have even larger implications for Gail, ones that don’t fit in that linear storyline. Beneath its allegations of breach of contract and fiduciary duty, DeSanto’s suit claims that Gail does not, in fact, own the rights to Gary’s legacy as freely and clearly as she claims.

In May 2017, DeSanto’s suit reads, he learned that Gary Gygax had a second will. He wrote it shortly before his death. That will, according to the complaint, merely gives Gail a life estate to some of Gary’s IP—the parts his children couldn’t claim. That would mean that, when Gail dies, DeSanto would no longer have the rights to develop Gygax properties, making their contract worthless.

Gail agrees that this will exists, but denies that it is valid. She says it was not signed correctly, adding nobody had ever contacted her about the will’s validity before DeSanto.

So in other words, her claim on his estate is suddenly very much in doubt. No wonder Tom DeSanto is suing her! Given that she's hinging her entire argument on Gary's will not being signed correctly, you really have to wonder who exactly Gail thinks she's kidding. She's basically said that she's screwing Gary's legacy over based on a technicality. Even without taking her various ill-considered statements into account, it seems fairly obvious to me that she's simply concerned with how much money she can get out of his estate, and nothing more. Hopefully Desanto's court case, or someone else's legal challenge, will see Gary's final will being honored.

Oh, and just to make things absolutely clear: a while back I did a public mea culpa on having gotten one of my facts wrong with regards to Gail. That was brought to my attention via Gail's agents, Gina Ramirez. This time, I sent Gina a message here on reddit several weeks ago, asking for a comment on this topic. As of now, I still haven't received a response from her.