Quote: Original post by ChurchSkiz

Quote: Original post by LockePick

Quote: It was also the only option that allowed them to continue working for the past 5 years, better that then nothing, right?

Sure, and "better than nothing" is exactly what they got. The problem is that "nothing" is not a particularly high bar to shoot for.

Didn't we just have this entire discussion recently? Everyone should be well aware that 'fan projects' that involve remaking or imitating games is a bad idea and totally unnecessary. Nothing was stopping them from cutting ties with the King's Quest franchise and just making a similar style of game. People clone games all the time (see: Dante's Inferno).

I agree. Being a KQ fan myself, the story was never that compelling to me. They could have made a point and click style clone and called it Prince's Adventure and I don't think anyone would have cared.

And anyone is suppose to care anymore about some fan made clone of King's Quest?

Whenever I hear that someone is doing "Fan art", especially "Fan Fiction", the first thing it screams to me is "Not smart enough to pick their own character names."

True, there is some great fan art out there, and writing 'in style' is a great exercise that I've done many times as projects to improve my creative writing skills, but it still doesn't make the bulk of it worth even as toilet paper. Fact is most that gets printed is done on really bad paper you don't want to use anyway.


If they are dedicated, then rebrand the game, pick through existing assets and use what they can, delete what is clearly "King's Quest", and move on to actually DO something.

Quote: Original post by frob
What you CANNOT do, however, is take other people's IP. I wouldn't call that draconian, just common sense. Even my young children know not to touch what isn't theirs.

Sorry, but when children draw crayon pictures of spider man, they don't know that they are stealing. "IP" isn't common sense to a child, it's a concept that we're indoctrinated with later in life.

Quote: Original post by rian carnarvon
Well, just thought I'd post it here since the team started out on Gamedev and we all have a vested interest in how aggressively restrictive companies are becoming. Glad I drummed up some discussion, although I did remember Gamedev as having a less draconian attitude back in the day.

The new policy is to delete any help wanted posts that are possibly infringing someone else's IP. A KQ help-wanted post wouldn't be tolerated here any more :/

Quote: Original post by rian carnarvon
....we all have a vested interest in how aggressively restrictive companies are becoming.

Nothing restrictive about it at all. The team was free to make their own game, come up with their own characters/world and do whatever they wanted with them. - it's the dream of most developers working in the industry to do their own original idea. Instead they chose to take someone else's hard work just because they liked it.

When the project started they were repeatedly warned that the project might be shut down. They knew right from the start and chose to continue on with the project. To their credit they actually managed to resurrect it once and get a signed agreement with the IP owner. However in a situation like this the IP owner will always retain the right to terminate and that is exactly what happened.

Instead of finding a parking bay and putting money in the meter these guys parked on a yellow line so they could pop into McDonalds and get a burger - now they are whining that they got a ticket and how draconian the traffic warden was.

Zero sympathy, sorry.

Quote: Original post by Talroth
And anyone is suppose to care anymore about some fan made clone of King's Quest?

I care somewhat. At least, I felt a bit sad when I heard the news that Activision shut the project down not only for the team but that I wouldn't get to play the game. Nostalgia for old abandoned adventure game series still lingers.

Quote: Whenever I hear that someone is doing "Fan art", especially "Fan Fiction", the first thing it screams to me is "Not smart enough to pick their own character names."

Mostly I see fan art and fiction as just another way for fans to appreciate something they like. And in cases where you want to experiment with more mechanical details of artwork or writing it's a boon to use an existing work as a basis.

That said, I also agree that the main issue with fan projects is that unless you're prepared and lucky enough to get a proper agreement then there's always the risk that the rug under your feet can be pulled at any time. For something like a single piece of fan art or a short piece of fan fiction, pulling the project isn't that big a cost. But for any large project, and most computer games qualify, then it becomes much harder to justify the benefit of shanghaiing someone's IP over the cost of scrapping the whole project.

And with King's Quest, that's especially true. A typical King's Quest game consisted of an entirely new world cobbled from a whole bunch of public domain fairy tales and stories. It's not that hard to make an adventure game in the same style that doesn't infringe on the KQ IP.

So yeah; it's sad, but it underlines why lengthy fan projects are worth avoiding.

Quote: Original post by rian carnarvon
Well, just thought I'd post it here since the team started out on Gamedev and we all have a vested interest in how aggressively restrictive companies are becoming. Glad I drummed up some discussion, although I did remember Gamedev as having a less draconian attitude back in the day.

Ah well, I'm sure it's every developers dream to work for Bobby "Taking the fun out of game production" Kotick after all nowadays. Just protecting their IP, no need to get into the deeper, more discomforting issues of how it reflects on the industry as a whole.

You're intentionally misinterpreting.

I actively boycott Activision because of their destructive business practices and I don't really think there is any substantial problem with making fan games. This topic has nothing to do with either.

The issue is that there is absolutely no reason to have had this game tied to King's Quest other than earning meritless publicity off of others' work and I could have told you that 10 years ago. They knew better and they went ahead anyways.

The only sad part of this is how they actively decided to set themselves up for failure.

Quote: Original post by LockePick
The issue is that there is absolutely no reason to have had this game tied to King's Quest other than earning meritless publicity off of others' work

Quote: Original post by Talroth
Whenever I hear that someone is doing "Fan art", especially "Fan Fiction", the first thing it screams to me is "Not smart enough to pick their own character names."

Wow... You guys are really insulting of passion!!

Quote: Original post by Hodgman
Wow... You guys are really insulting of passion!!

That is not an insult of passion.

Passion is wonderful.

I've been passionate about my own projects, and I love it. I've seen others passionate about their projects and it is also wonderful.

Be passionate.

But make your own IP.






You need to be absolutely clear on something:

**THEY KNEW THE WHOLE TIME THEY DID NOT OWN THE IP**

That makes all the difference in the world.

They were told on the GD.net forums when they started that it was not their IP, and yet they went ahead with the project.

They developed it for three years under full knowledge that it likely violated IP rights, and they still went ahead.

They were shut down once. Yet they still forged on.

They managed to get a temporary exception, and still went ahead for several more years, knowing it was not a permanent license.

They used the brand name for 8 years, for free. That was extremely generous. The group didn't manage to release anything in that time frame, but that is not the fault of the IP owner who gave them years of free usage. The group still benefited from the Kings Quest branding.

Now the free license is over, and they complain.



Companies gain and lose licenses all the time. This group had a free ride on the Kings Quest license for eight years.

If they want to continue to use the brand name the need to negotiate a license deal just like every other game company.

It has nothing to do with passion. It has nothing to do with dedication. It has nothing to do with greed. It has nothing to do with the virtues of the game industry.

It has everything to do with ownership of trademarks. The company owns the trademark. They can do what they want with it. The group had a license to use the trademark, and they did so. Now they don't. They either need to get a new license to use it, or they need to rebrand it. It is a very basic legal concept.

Well, it took me the better part of 5 hours to pin down exactly what was bothering me so much when I created this thread.

It's not that the IP owner shut them down. I understand the need to protect IP and copyright, and arguing against that is just silly and petty.

It's the nature of this IP situation in particular. If Sierra or Roberta Williams held the IP and had issued this, I would be on the same side as the fine people in here saying that the team was a bunch of idiots.

However, that is not the case. The IP has changed hands 4 times in the past decade, and came into it's current ownership through a mergers and acquisitions deal as just another old asset on a list, one that Activision almost certainly has no intention of resurrecting in the near future. For all intents and purposes, as far as Activision is concerned it's a dead series with the same value as the office furniture they got from Vivendi's offices.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I understand the protection of an IP when it is being actively capitalized, or when it is in the possession of the original creator or their family (in the case of novels, for example). But when an IP is just being hoarded away by an entirely unrelated entity and seeing no use, it seems petty and greedy.

The best analogy would be if Saul Zaentz, after buying the LOTR IP in the 70's, had instead used his legal position to aggressively shut down any 3rd party work expressing any relation to the Lord of the Rings and hoarded the IP in his vault, as opposed to actively putting the IP to use and introducing LOTR to new generations through various mediums.


This whole rambling thought is most likely quite confusing, and I fully expect to be laughed at by the "Tough Luck" grognards that have already appeared here. Just thought I'd explain why the situation disturbed me when I really have no connection to the project in the slightest.

Quote: Original post by rian carnarvon
For all intents and purposes, as far as Activision is concerned it's a dead series with the same value as the office furniture they got from Vivendi's offices.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I understand the protection of an IP when it is being actively capitalized, or when it is in the possession of the original creator or their family (in the case of novels, for example). But when an IP is just being hoarded away by an entirely unrelated entity and seeing no use, it seems petty and greedy.

It may seem petty and greedy, that's fine. There are a lot of laws that affect trademark expiration, and those probably came in to play.

They had the license for free for 8 years. They benefited.

But there seems to be a very simple business case here to license it. The group has a ready-made game, branded appropriately, with a ready-made audience. Just add some negotiation and business savvy, and Activision gets 'free' money. There is a very small cost to them (it never is free) but the ROI could be fairly large.

I don't know if the group did the requisite legal steps to transfer rights from all contributors. If the group didn't, then the project likely will naturally die due to lack of leadership. If they took the steps, then nothing prevents them from negotiating a new deal.

That's why I have zero sympathy for the group. Quit whining about losing the license and do something about it.

Corporate trolls that he and his bunch are, I'm really not surprised. They don't care, they just want to make money, end of story. And yeah, to expect anything less from them would be naive.