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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."
It's good to know who are friends of gamers. Activision clearly isn't among them.
...unless you're willing to use it.
I'm not really familiar with this project, but couldn't they just call Princess Rosella like "Princess Rosetta" and so on? It's not like Activision can lay claim to the entire swords and sorcery genre.
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.
So, did they actually get this in writing, with a contract signed by both sides? Would such a contract survive an acquisition?
...they should lose it. Are they still actively marketing this game? Do they still sell it? Is there a new version in the works? IP really needs to have a "use-it-or-lose-it" clause.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Wouldn't some of these fan made games get people interested in some of the originals again? You get enough people into a forgotten series who start asking for more and in turn the rights holder makes a new game of their own in the end with a healthy profit hopefully. Yes, I know... big business doesn't understand this type of thing.
One more gaming company to avoid. EA sucks because of the way they treat their programmers, not to mention milking every last drop out of each year's sports games. Ubisoft just announced draconian DRM. Now Activision is acting like a spoiled kid. They keep this up, and they can cry all they want to about pirates, lost sales, and stolen IP.
They still won't be getting any of my money.
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.
Activision did not acquire Vivendi. The merged company retained the ATVI stock listing, and Bobby Kotick is running the company, true; but VU got more board seats than Activision. If anything, VU bought Activision.
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."