Activision Sues Star Trek Over Franchise Decay

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a press release announcing that Activision is suing Viacom for breach of contract over the Star Trek game license. The article summarizes Activion's complaints: "..through its actions and inactions, Viacom has let the once proud Star Trek franchise stagnate and decay", and furthermore that "..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." Activision has terminated the contract agreement, and looks to recover damages and advances from Viacom - according to a Dow Jones story, "..the initial license agreement included $20 million in advance royalties and warrants, with additional payments to be based on game sales."

Comments

It sounds like a legitimate gripe.

[OwnerOfWhinyCat]

Viacom should just pay up, or better still promise to invest the 20 mil. in the next ST movie.

Let's see a show of hands for everyone who thought Nemesis was the best Star Trek yet?
[crowd remains motionless]

The likely problem I see is that damned corporate pride. There are all kinds of fun things to do in the StarTrek universe still. The Viacom execs. must have convinced themselves that "StarTrek is dead and we have the ratings from Nemesis to prove it."

I certainly hope someone at that company has the balls to say Nemesis sucked because we made it suck, and shop for a decent script for a new movie.

Re:It sounds like a legitimate gripe.

[MImeKillEr]

Yeah, I thought it was odd that Janeway was an admiral.

Neelix left behind? YAAAAA! Admittedly, I stopped watching Voyager.

I've seen a couple of the news series' episodes, despite my loathing of Scott Bakula. The hot Vulcan chic is the only reason to tune in, and even then the coldness of her character (yes, I know Vulcans as supposed to be that way) makes one lose interest.

Nemesis blew. The Scimitar was a cool ship, but not cool enough to rescue the movie.

Ok....?

[MImeKillEr]

Viacom decided not to pursue any more ST TV shows or movies. Could this be because the latest series isn't as good? Could it be that the movies/TV programs have become less popular?

And Activision wants Viacom to continue to invest in a less-than-profitable franchise so Activision can continue to ride their coattails & sell a few games?

Lame.

Re:Ok....?

[fm6]

No, Activision just wants Viacom to fire that idiot Berman, and hire some decent writers!

Viacom probably doesn't care much about the Trek franchise any more, because it's part of that big white elephant known as UPN. Paramount started UPN because it had a theory that studios should own networks. (Same theory that made Disney buy ABC and Time-Warner start The WB.) I've always suspected that they cancelled TNG, despite high ratings, just to get out of syndication contracts that prevented them from moving the show to a network.

Now Paramount is part of Viacom, which owns CBS. They'd unload UPN if they could, and they're not going to give it much attention in the meantime. But if they could be forced to spare some attention for this tiny part of their empire known as Star Trek, they could make some changes that would bring the fans back.

StarTrek died the day it turned it into SF

[DrSkwid]

The original StarTrek was cowboys in space.
It died the day they turned it into Science Fiction.

"What must have happened is a shift in the space time continuim" yawn

It must be a non story because there's nothing on here about it

All a big shame because I was really looking forward to being Nelix' apprentice and learning to fry insects in the MMORPG. Maybe I can be a space gardener instead!

Re: Preposterous

[DrWho520]

Could Starter or some other athletic wear manufacturer sue Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neil, Allan Iverson or Jason Kidd because their respective teams did not win the NBA championship? A loosing team does not sell merchandise as well as a champion...it has noting to do with whether the jacket falls apart or not.

More proof,

[DuckDuckBOOM!]

as if more were needed, that corporations now consider legal strategies at least as important as those of their product lines. Any day now, I'm expecting archaeologists to unearth documentation of a lawsuit brought by Giuliano deMidici against Leonardo DaVinci on grounds that his later works weren't quite up to Mona Lisa standards, thus depriving his patron of revenue through reduced attendance at his showings.

Sheesh.

Activision should sue Interplay

[NetDanzr]

After all, Interplay has had the Star Trek license since 1993, when it published Star Trek: 25th Aviversary. Over the next almost 10 years, Interplay managed to create a very narrow niche - sales of Star Trek games were never really good; in fact, very few ST games made it into the Top 10. So if anybody is responsible for relatively low sales of the games, it's Interplay.

That's not to say that low sales are wrong, but Activision should realize that it acquires a highly profiled franchise, which will not appeal to the same number of people as games like The Sims or the Command & Conquer series.

Re:OT: Patrick Stewart through with Star Trek

[Poofat]

I can't say that I blame him. Star Trek:TNG was never about action, and thats all people want to see anymore. Nemesis tried to be successful by making a good movie, instead of action and cool effects.

The same can be said for Insurrection. I really liked that movie (though alot of people didn't), it and nemesis were more like episodes than movies.

Re:Quality of Games

[Gr33nNight]

Elite Force 1 and 2 were both good, but thats a rare occurance with Trek games. 95% were ass, the rest were good. If it was the otherway around, you wouldnt see them suing anyone.

Re:Amazing!

[HardCase]

No, you am just American. The Brits consider a collective noun (like the name of a company) to be plural, so "Activision are" would be correct.

So since /. has adopted this idiosyncracy of the British, how come they don't include an extra U in certain select words, e.g., colour? For that matter, why isn't a truck a lorrie, a subway a tube and a television a telly? Shouldn't they be substituting C for S in a select number of words, e.g., defence?

Obviously I'm too senstive to this whole affair of what constitutes "proper" grammar, but my English teachers always told me that "a" group of things was singular because there is only one group. Thus, "a" company may have a gazillion employees, but it is still "a" company.

Sure, the Internet is an international collective (oh crap, should that be "the Internet ARE...?) of individuals and companies, but since /. is an American organization (err...ARE an American...?) and its (their?) viewers are predominantly American (or at least American English-speakers), then shouldn't its (their?) grammar rules reflect American rules of grammar?

I guess it could be worse...at least we don't speak French (a joke, dammit, a joke!)

Oh, and for what it's worth, "am" does not agree with "you"...not even in Britain.

-h-

Whaddaloadacrap!

[parliboy]

Part of Activision's statement in the article says that the suit is being filed because Viacom has let two series end since they signed the contract.

In other words, they are suing because DS9 and Voyager ran for "only" seven years apiece.

I call Shenanigans right there.