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8-Year Fan-Made Game Project Shut Down By Activision
An anonymous reader writes "Activision, after acquiring Vivendi, became the new copyright holder of the classic King's Quest series of adventure game. They have now issued a cease and desist order to a team which has worked for eight years on a fan-made project initially dubbed a sequel to the last official installment, King's Quest 8. This stands against the fact that Vivendi granted a non-commercial license to the team, subject to Vivendi's approval of the game after submission. After the acquisition, key team members had indicated on the game's forums (now stripped of their original content by order of Activision) that Activision had given the indication that it intended to keep its current fan-game licenses, but was not interested in issuing new ones."
They're not building on it, they had a license. Activision reneged. This is terrible news, AGD is sure to be next on the chopping block, with their fully licensed remake of Quest for Glory 2.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
That last bit about "Subject to approval" is a loophole... all Activision has to do is reject the final product, always find something wrong with it to deny approval.
Sort of like gets done with iPhn Appstor
Vivendi acquired Activision, not the other way around.
A) Fix the summary. Because it's Vivendi that acquired Activision, not the other way around.The first sentence should say: "Activision, after being acquired Vivendi,..."(or something similar)
B) With KQ in mind, what the summary should say, is "Activision, having become a parent company of Sierra,..."
C) Since Vivendi is still the owner of Activision (Vivendi owns ActivisionBizzard and ActivisionBlizzard owns Activision) there should not be any talks about changes of ownership. They may shuffle around their IP, but it's still owned by Vivendi.
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My truck is like a series of tubes.
I think the problem is, per the original agreement, the game was always subject to the Vivendi's approval before release. Now that the IP belongs to Activision, the game is theoretically subject to their approval. All Activision needs to do to kill the project dead is to refuse to approve anything.
It's a crying shame, because the TSL guys were cooperative and accommodating every step of the way. They sought out a license in the first place, and complied with every change requested of them without complaint (they dropped the "King's Quest" name from the project a few years back because Vivendi/Sierra weren't willing to grant a fan license on the trademark, for instance). But I suppose, in the long run, it's not unexpected.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."