28th February 2010, 1:57 PM
http://kotaku.com/5482221/activision-ter...-extension
Like it says on the tin. Sierra, though mostly hollowed out already, had allowed a 3rd party group of fans to make a new King's Quest game with their blessing so long as it didn't have King's Quest in the title, simply calling it "The Silver Lining". They've been working on it for 9 years or so, and admittedly I myself had wondered if I'd ever see any actual progress beyond the playable demo they released a long time ago.
However, Activision apparently owns the brand now and they've decided to go back on that deal and demand they stop production of the game outright.
One could compare this to the Chrono Trigger remake that got shut down (and how in it's place we've just been getting port after port of the SNES game). In terms of disappointment, this is actually greater as it wasn't just a remake. However, there is a difference. They had actually been making this on a "non-profit liscense" all this time, which Activision simply cancelled. I honestly can't imagine why. It hardly threatened their profits. It was never going to be sold, and considering any possible new game in the series they'd make would almost certainly be different, it couldn't really cut into sales either. If anything it'd help sales of the only product from the series I'm sure they would produce, shoddy Dosbox enabled "ports" of the original series.
Disappointing... I am not sure why they insist on shooting their view among gamers in the foot like this. I'm reminded of when Steven Colbert showed his non-infringing title for his coverage of the "Winter Based Comptetitive Events" and some lawyer said "we'd still sue you but you'd win". Company lawyers must think the law is a big joke to waste the court's time and tax payer's money on a case they know for a fact they'd lose JUST for the sake of "establishing attempted defense of copyright".
Like it says on the tin. Sierra, though mostly hollowed out already, had allowed a 3rd party group of fans to make a new King's Quest game with their blessing so long as it didn't have King's Quest in the title, simply calling it "The Silver Lining". They've been working on it for 9 years or so, and admittedly I myself had wondered if I'd ever see any actual progress beyond the playable demo they released a long time ago.
However, Activision apparently owns the brand now and they've decided to go back on that deal and demand they stop production of the game outright.
One could compare this to the Chrono Trigger remake that got shut down (and how in it's place we've just been getting port after port of the SNES game). In terms of disappointment, this is actually greater as it wasn't just a remake. However, there is a difference. They had actually been making this on a "non-profit liscense" all this time, which Activision simply cancelled. I honestly can't imagine why. It hardly threatened their profits. It was never going to be sold, and considering any possible new game in the series they'd make would almost certainly be different, it couldn't really cut into sales either. If anything it'd help sales of the only product from the series I'm sure they would produce, shoddy Dosbox enabled "ports" of the original series.
Disappointing... I am not sure why they insist on shooting their view among gamers in the foot like this. I'm reminded of when Steven Colbert showed his non-infringing title for his coverage of the "Winter Based Comptetitive Events" and some lawyer said "we'd still sue you but you'd win". Company lawyers must think the law is a big joke to waste the court's time and tax payer's money on a case they know for a fact they'd lose JUST for the sake of "establishing attempted defense of copyright".