Slashdot Mirror
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."
... who is surprised by this? Lots of fan projects have been shut down in recent years. Chrono Resurrection, Crimson Echoes, Halogen, etc. Anyone working on a fangame at this point and not taking drastic measures to ensure that they are not infringing on trademarks or copyright gets zero sympathy from me when they get their eventual C&D.
It's a sad catch-22 that to drum up interest in your game project you need to base it on an existing franchise. As long as people are willing to latch onto any small glimmer of hope that their favorite nostalgic game will be remade in modern times, there will be fangames. And they will be shut down.
IANAL, but everyone has to be on their toes these days.
Phoenix Online Studios appears to be a hobbyist collective, and as such is not afforded legal protections of a corporation (Inc., LLC, S-Corp etc) -- an entity protected by the law to pursue profit-making ventures. It's not surprising that they caved to the cease-and-desist because the individuals in the collective could be named and pursued vigorously in a lawsuit.
If they were a for-profit company and entered into an agreement with Vivendi and Activision failed to honor it, they could be sued for breach of contract. Yes, yes, there was a fan license granted by Vivendi whose terms remain unpublished. Chances are there is a severability clause that they signed to and forgot about. Oops.
People who give freely into free and open source projects have to really understand that they are giving away their labors as charity -- but more importantly they have little recourse and motivation to dig their heels in without having the protections of a corporation trying to make a profit.