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

OT: Patrick Stewart through with Star Trek

[GuyMannDude]

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.

A few weeks ago us.imdb.com had a brief blurb stating that Patrick Stewart had formally decided that Nemesis would be his last Trek. He said he was bitterly disappointed with the poor reception of the film and he thought it was actually quite good. Apparently he's pissed off enough that he's vowed never to do another Trek. He said that he was sorry that it would have to end on a low note but that he had lost all interest. Sorry I don't have a link.

GMD

What they should do

[The Analog Kid]

is to stop trek for about 5 years, fire Berman, and his other buddy, and come back with fresh new ideas. Enterprise doesn't seem bad though, just I wanted it to continue in the future, future not 150 years, though the termporal cold war is an intresting idea so we can have some connection to the future. Though if they did that Activison would still be suing them.

for a good Trek movie, get the script...

[dpilot]

from just about anywhere but the USofA.

This past weekend my wife and I went to "Bend It Like Beckham," a wonderfully fun movie. At the same second-run theatre we saw that Matrix2 was there already, and XMen2 had been playing for a few weeks.

I'm convinced that it's a general problem with American business. First off, IMHO they believe that "business" is more important than other factors like talent and originality, and that a good manager can manage anything into profitability. Second, I don't really believe that they're even good businessmen, because a good businessman is willing to take a risk and make it work, or accept the consequences of failure. It's perceived as less "risky" to follow a franchise than to try something original, hence the collection of sequels and comic book adaptations.

Gee, these sound like the same problems hounding the music industry - promoting "safe" rehashes of the same old stuff.

But of course it's not really "safe", because movies are bombing and music sales are down. Oh wait, we can blame that on Internet piracy!

The real issue is that it depends on what you mean by the word, "safe," and not in a Clintonesque way. There's "safe" in the media boardrooms and meeting rooms, and there's "safe" in the marketplace. These days, there's little correlation.

Actually, "safe" in todays marketplace should mean taking risks, and that means that sometimes you'll bomb. But is that any worse than today's sequelmania? Consider that today's sequelmania is producing dismal results, is a bomb or two really that bad when originality will probably also bring some HITS?

Plus, as others have said, big budgets and special effects do not necessarily correlate with a good movie. "Bend It Like Beckham" looked pretty cheap to make, as did "The Full Monty" of a few years back. Good writing and good acting are much more important.

Re:for a good Trek movie, get the script...

[Tediak]

There's a problem with this argument. It seems in the Grand Ol' USofA movie ticket sales have barely anything to do with the quality of the actual film. Overall sales may be down, but the blockbusters are still crap, and definately not risky. Besides, sequels sell, look at The Matrix Reloaded and The Phantom Menace.

Re:It sounds like a legitimate gripe.

[rsmith-mac]

It's more than a legitimate gripe, it may very well be that Activsion is in the right. Obviously, I haven't seen the contract Activision/Viacom signed, but with this kind of deal, both sides usually have to give and take. Activision had to deal with the cost to buy the rights to Star Trek games, and has to deal with Viacom more or less micromanaging projects so that it sticks with the Trek "rules." The converse of this is that if the contract was written up as a partnership arrangement, then something would have to be done to assure Activision that it was worth the effort of the licence, most likely a clause stating that Viacom would make an effort to churn out ideas for Trek that would provide a foundation for Activsion to make games based off of it.

Now, if this is the case(and it's a big if), then Viacom might very well be in violation of their contract. While I think Enterprise is a good series, as game material it sucks, the beginning of human exploration lacks ships, characters, colonies, and other things that lay the foundation for a game. I imagine however that Viacom will take the easy exit, pay Activision off, and possibly void the contract.

Re:Activision should sue Interplay

[Torgo's Pizza]

That's not entirely correct. Paramount had this craptastic idea of shopping out the different show licenses to different publishers. Interplay had Classic Trek for years, Activision had ST:TNG, yet another had ST:DS9, etc. Paramount saw this as a cash cow opportunity to have other houses bid on each series. (This attitude seems to still exist.)

After the terms of the agreements ended, Activision made a concerted effort to consolidate the franchises and bought the rights to the entire world of Star Trek. This way, the Star Trek games could share interfaces, feel and be more cohesive and the games could feature characters from any series. (Before you couldn't mention or use any character from a series you didn't have rights to. For example, Spock couldn't show up in a ST:TNG game.)

I know about this because I was at Ensemble Studios at the time. Activision was really wanting us to do a Star Trek game next after Age of Empires II. They came and did a dog and pony show, gave everyone lots of *nice* Star Trek swag, but in the end we turned them down because we could make more money doing our own game with our own IP rights.

Activision's big enough and ugly enough...

[garyok]

...to take over the Star Trek franchise entirely if they want. What's stopping them? Buy the rights from Viacom and then they could make the shows any damn way they felt like. Decent shows (not sci-fi that's softer than baby shit) would be the best advertising their games could get, if that's what they wanted.

And then they could stop sueing and we could stop tuning into more disappointing episodes (hoping against hope that this will be the turnaround episode were something fun happens).