Vivendi Shuts Down Indie King's Quest Title

edwardmolasses writes "An ambitious King's Quest fan game, in development since 2000 and nearing completion, has been shut down after a cease and desist letter from Vivendi Universal Games (formerly known as Sierra Entertainment). King's Quest IX: "Every Cloak Has A Silver Lining" was to be an alternative ending to the popular King's Quest series. The first chapter was to be released this winter. Some project stats: 40+ volunteer staff spread over five continents, 2000+ page script, 9 chapters, 450 characters, original theme music, and voice acting. Some screenshots can be seen here."

Comments

Nostalgia

[MyLongNickName]

Anyone else remember the original King's Quest? If I remember correcectly, the worked with a palette of 16(?) colors. I believe the authors weree innovative in using pixelation/color combinations to make it look like they had 256 colors to work with. Of course, my memory isn't so great, and my numbers could be off.

It is amazing how much fun I could have with such cheesy graphics, and low memory requirements. Somehow, I think games became less fun when the imaginatino requirement got removed.

Don't get me started on Zork.

Re:Nostalgia

[etherlad]

You're misremembering somewhat.

The original King's Quest (1983) was one of the very first games released for the (at the time) brand-new IBM PC. It was fantastic for the time, but looking back it's painfully obvious that it was sixteen colours. (Screenshot)

Several years later (1990), they re-released it with newer graphics, but it was still 16 colours. This is probably the one you're thinking of. 1990 was also about the time they switched over to VGA (256 colours), so all subsequent Sierra remakes got the VGA treatment. (Screenshot)

Re:Nostalgia

[MyLongNickName]

Here's a snippet of what I was misremembering:

After "Sammy Lightfoot," someone told me that there was a way on the Apple to determine when video-blank occured [the brief period between frames that occurs roughly sixty times per second]. If that moment could be determined then other animation techniques that would be much faster could be employed. By combining the page flipping with the now discovered perfect timing, it was possible to display several more true colors on the Apple; up till then, the "twenty-one colors" bragged about by Ken Williams was accomplished through dithering. For example, display one color on one page and another on the other page and flip the pages at perfectly timed intervals and the two colors appear as a brand new color just as yellow and blue when combined produce green.

All that work for 21 freaking colors ;)

A sad state of affairs.

[SpiritMaster]

While I have to salute the KQ9 team for their graceful acceptance of the end of their project I can't help but think this is just another nail in VU's coffin of respect. First of let me point out that while VU does own the rights to KQ shutting down non profit organizations that operate purley for the enjoyment of gamers is just another way of saying 'we don't care about our gamers unless they pay us for the priviledge'. Even this to some degree is disproved by the lack of patches many of their games need yet never seem to get. Assuming for the moment their reason behind the shutdown is because they may have a sequel coming, there is no reason that one must cancel the other, since i'm sure both could be enjoyed equally.

In addition to KQ9, SQ7 may also be next to come under the axe, although they are apparently in talks with VU and Phoenix Online Studios about this new turn of events. All this being said I hope that VU will come up with a slightly better reason than 'because we said so' since it only encourages people to see VU as another namless corporation that is more concerned with grinding out endless titles for the sake of money. At the end of the day however VU is, as VU does, and it seems it will continue to follow the Microsoft creed of 'if its original, buy it up and make more money'.

Re:Wow, what jerks

[blckbllr]

This may seem a bit overdue, but it seems like there could be a viable defense of "laches." "Laches" is a legal defense whereby the defendant (e.g., the makers of KQ9) states that because the plaintiff (e.g. VU) knew of the ongoing activity and did not take action to stop it, that the plaintiff cannot now claim that there has been violation. Unfortunately, this would probably require that the defendant show that the plaintiff "knew" that the defendant was engaged in some sort of unpermitted activity. "Knew" in this context may be constructive (e.g., through notice) or actual (e.g., actually visiting the webpage for KQ9).

Given that the game has been in development for 5+ years, one could reasonably make the argument that VU was not actively monitoring their copyright in "King's Quest" (assuming that copyright violation is the claim).

I do not know whether the "non-profitness" of the activity matters for copright infringement/violation purposes, but I think the "laches" defense would be a stronger claim. My two cents.