Tendo City

http://www.activision.com/en_US/news_art...caab9.html[/QUOTE]

Quote:Complaint Cites Viacom's Lack of Support For "Star Trek" Movie and Television Franchise and Failure To Cooperate With Activision

Santa Monica, CA – July 1, 2003 – Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), a leading developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment software products, today announced that it has filed a breach of contract suit against Viacom.

In its complaint, which was filed in the Superior Court of the State of California on June 30, 2003, Activision accused Viacom of breaching its fundamental promise to continue exploiting the Star Trek franchise consistent with its practice at the time the agreement was signed in 1998. “Activision cannot successfully develop and sell Star Trek video games without the product exploitation and support promised by Viacom. A continuing pipeline of movie and television production, and related marketing, is absolutely crucial to the success of video games based on a property such as Star Trek,” charged Activision in its court filings.

However, through its actions and inactions, Viacom has let the once proud Star Trek franchise stagnate and decay. Viacom has released only one “Star Trek” movie since entering into agreement with Activision and has recently informed Activision it has no current plans for further “Star Trek” films. Viacom also has allowed two “Star Trek” television series to go off the air and the remaining series suffers from weak ratings. Viacom also frustrated Activision’s efforts to coordinate the development and marketing of its games with Viacom’s development and marketing of its new movies and television series.

The complaint goes on to state: “By failing and refusing to continue to exploit and support the Star Trek franchise as it had promised, Viacom has significantly diminished the value of Star Trek licensing rights including the rights received by Activision. Moreover, in so doing, Viacom has breached a fundamental term of its agreement with Activision … and has caused Activision significant damage.”

As a result of the breaches by Viacom, Activision has terminated the agreement and filed a complaint seeking to recover the damages it has suffered and will suffer as a result of Viacom’s failure to abide by its agreement, and its stated intention to continue to breach its agreement, and seeks the return of the warrants now wrongfully in Viacom’s possession.

The company expects that the court filing and the termination of the agreement with Viacom will have no material impact on its previously provided first quarter and fiscal year earnings outlook.

Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products. Founded in 1979, Activision posted net revenues of $864 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2003.

Activision maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, Scandinavia and the Netherlands. More information about Activision and its products can be found on the company's World Wide Web site, which is located at http://www.activision.com.

The statements contained in this release that are not historical facts are “forward-looking statements.” The Company cautions readers of this press release that a number of important factors could cause Activision’s actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in any such forward-looking statements. These important factors, and other factors that could affect Activision, are described in Activision’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2003, which was filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Readers of this press release are referred to such filings.

Well, it seems that Elite Force 2 is the last Trek game we'll see for a while... not really surprising given how Trek is struggling, but its still too bad.

Damn, that sucks! EF II is so damn fun. And does this mean that Shattered Universe won't be coming out??

I can't say I really blame Activision, though. Paramount is handling Trek very poorly right now and they refuse to change. They've made so many mistakes in the past several years that it's going to take a whole lot to revive the franchise.

Yeah, with Trek in the shape its in its probably the best business decision for them... its not like Enterprise is exactly a franchise worth the huge 5-year exclusive contract and, I assume, large amounts of money that this contract contains...

Star Trek never recovered from the original cancellation. I like TNG, never watched DS9...Voyager was lame and PC...and Enterprise isn't what they promised. It's just like Voyager; no more bold, and no more original. As for Star Trek videogames, I haven't played a new one in 11 years! They try to market cool FPS games like Elite Force on a blatantly pacifist, politically-correct show. Blah.

Heh heh :D

Hahaha, that is so true.


...

And sad. :(

Haha. That goes for the Nintendo corporate brass too.

Wow, Penny Arcade went Dilbert for a moment there :D. No problem, Dilbert is hilarious.

*Garbage man walks into Dilbert's mom's house and changes out the trash cans*

Dilbert: Since when have garbage men changed the trash out of our trash cans and replaced the liners?

Garbage man: We've always done this. You just have to ask.

This sucks. I love Star Trek, the first PC game I ever bought was a Star Trek game, and the latest PC game I bought was a Star Trek one, and I just finished watching Star Trek before coming here. Damn Activison

It's not Activision's fault, it's Viacom's. But there's some good news on this: http://filmforce.ign.com/startrek/articl...206p1.html

Nemesis wasn't a great Star Trek movie, but it had it's moments.

I hope they make a Voyager movie; I wachted that more than Deep Space Nine.

I thought Nemesis was a good movie, certainly better than Insurection and maybe better than Generations, but First Contact was still the best Next Gen film.

There really needs to be a DS9 movie though. They didn't really conclude the series when the last episode aired. I want to know what exactly happened to Sisko and if he'll ever return from the wormhole.

I don't know what they'd do for a Voyager movie. Voyager has really concluded the main story of the whole series, and janeway has been promoted to admiral. Sure they could try to pull the same thing they did with Kirk to get Janeway back on the ship but I don't think that would make much sense because they've already pulled the "you were the greatest captain in starfleet and you know the ship like the back of your hand so you should take command again" thing with Kirk. Also she isn't the greatest commander in starfleet I would still argue that that would be Picard.

I think it would be cool(even though they ruled out the next gen crew) if they loosly based a movie or two on William Shatner's series of Star Trek books, that way they could bring Kirk back, but there would need to be a few major changes since they can't have McCoy on it.

I also think that B-4 should get a cameo in a future Trek film so that we can see how he's doing and see if he's almost the same as Data yet.

Yeah I agree, neo. I liked Nemesis a lot more than Insurrection and just a tad bit more than Generations. I hated Voyager though, even though it was the first Trek series I watched on a regular basis. It's just TNG but with lamer plots and an insanely annoying cast. Enterprise isn't too hot (although there have been some good episodes this season), but it does have potential which will hopefully be reached in the future. Next season could be quite good with how they set it up.

I like your Kirk idea (since the original cast is my favorite), but I don't know if most people want to see these old people back in action again. I certainly would, though.

I remember when Star Trek: The Return came out around a year after Generations came out. It was a really good book that pitted a Borg and Romulan alliance against the federation, and the worst part of it was they had taken Kirk's body and managed to resurect him using Borg technolegy. Their was a petition going around for awhile trying to get paramount to turn it into a movie, and Shatner even jumped on the bandwagon to try to get it done. Then I read that the Borg would be the villians in the next Star Trek movie and I was like "holy shit maybe it will happen, maybe Kirk will come back) but sadley he did not.
That book was also interesting because it revealed that V'ger from the motion picture and the Borg were the same species.
I also liked learning what happened to Chekov. He eventually became head of Star Fleet Security and Inteligence and later Grand Admiral Chekov the overall commander of starfleet.
It's a really good series too because after that book they start fighting the mirror universe. Who's forces have once again rallied behind Emperor Tiberiouse, and what greater rival for James T. Kirk, than his mirror self

Holy shit that would have been awesome!

Nemesis is much better than Insurrection and almost certainly better than Generations. Its probably not quite as good as First Contact, but it was a very good Trek movie. It is too bad that Viacom is killing the franchise... :(

If they did adapt Shatner's series they would have to make some major changes since DeForest Kelly passed away and since they killed off Data, seeing as the main characters in the series are Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Picard and Data as well as Kirk's new wife who is half romulan and half klingon(I guess he doesn't still hold that much of a gruge against the klingons)

That would be so cool, but it would be a good idea so there's no way Paramount would want to do it.

lol I guess your right
But then who knows, they might make a movie with McCoy in it so they can waste millions of dollars with a computer animated Bones that looks just like DeForest Kelly

Yeah, that would be cool... but as you say quite unlikely. Oh well...