Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

8-Year Fan-Made Game Project Shut Down By Activision

Posted by Soulskill on from the of-doors-and-ways-out dept.

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."

6 of 265 comments (clear)

  1. Boo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's good to know who are friends of gamers. Activision clearly isn't among them.

  2. Never build a house on another man's land... by JPLemme · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...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.

    1. Re:Never build a house on another man's land... by canajin56 · · Score: 5, Informative

      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
    2. Re:Never build a house on another man's land... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No doubt. And if you don't actively attempt to defend your trademarks... you can lose them.

      So basically these fan devs picked a fight with Activision and put Activision's back up against a wall.

      Very, very stupid on the developers part. I can't blame Activision at all.

      I may be putting too much faith in the summary but it specifically says they were licensed by Vivendi.You can't lose your trademarks by giving specific groups permission to use them. Quite the opposite, this demonstrates control over the mark. In any event, it's hard to see how getting permission from Vivendi, and then discussing with Activision once they'd taken over Vivendi, represents picking a fight.

    3. Re:Never build a house on another man's land... by Mathinker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > ... you're in a pretty favorable legal position.

      Except when the other party has lots of money and you don't. Welcome to the realities of our legal system.

  3. Re:Exposure to the back catalogue? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Activision may be worried about cannibalizing their anticipated back catalog sales with the recently announced GOG.com deal. The Kings Quest games are in the process of being re-released on GOG.com. Kings Quest 4+5+6 went up for sale less than a week ago. http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/king’s_quest_4_5_6