Quote: Original post by TheBuzzSaw
It disgusts me seeing people attack this team of fans and make statements such as "they spent 8 years stealing the IP"... right, because building custom code, custom assets, and a custom experience have absolutely no value whatsoever. It's all in the IP. There is definitely value in IP too, but overvaluing IP is what leads to so many bad games all the time. Publishers think the IP alone will carry it to success.

I think you completely miss the point of myself and several others who are knocking them for 'stealing' the IP.

Is the experience worthless? No.

But could all that experience have been gained by Not using another's IP? YES!

And that is the point. They needlessly illegally infringed on someone's copyright, then entered into a very shaky agreement so they were not longer infringing on copyright, and then they had that right pulled out from under them. Boooooo-Hooooooo.

All this drama would have been avoided if they had Simply started with their own IP from the beginning.

Quote: Original post by Way Walker
I think a lot of people in this thread defending Activision agree with the point being made here, so they recommend that the team retain the value in building custom code, custom assets, and a custom experience by replacing Activision's IP with IP they have the legal right to use. If this option seems less appealing, that just highlights the value in Activision's IP. If giving it the name "King's Quest" makes the project more appealing than calling it "Royal Fairy Tale Mash-Up" or "King Arthur's Adventure in Fairy Land", then that shows part of the value the King's Quest brand has been providing the project.

I know that the IP has value, but I just don't like the perception that this team had some dark and dirty tactic of using the KQ IP to gain some free fame. I understand the motive perfectly: they honestly WANTED to make a KQ game because they love the KQ series. I've wanted to do that with many games growing up. I wanted so badly to build a "better Final Fantasy 4" as a kid.

It's not that this team could not have built its own IP. They certainly could have, but it makes perfect sense that it be a KQ game. Using the KQ IP directly implies that the game is inspired by the mechanics and story. I disagree with any notion that fan usage of an IP "ruins/damages/dilutes" that IP (unless it is somehow specifically designed to do so).

I'm not saying the team should have done what they did. I'm just saying that I understand why they did it, and it is ridiculous for anyone to flag them as "dirty rotten IP thieves". An IP thief would be someone who TRIES to pass off an IP as his own.

Quote: Original post by TheBuzzSaw
It's just silly to continually refer to these acts as somehow malicious.

Noone said that their actions were malicious. They were retarded.

Quote: Original post by TheBuzzSaw
I know that the IP has value

I don't think you fully realize what an extreme value a brand name has for an AAA franchise (or any other well known mass market product). Actually, the implementation quality is secondary to borderline irrelevant. Brand recognition is orders of magnitude more important. People don't buy products because they're good. They buy products because they're well known, often without any regards to quality. That's sad, but that's how mass marketing works. And it explains why brands (and all IP that comprises the brand) is amongst the highest valued assets of a company.

Quote: Original post by Yann L
Noone said that their actions were malicious. They were retarded.

I saw mention of "stealing IP for 8 years" among other things. It was implied several times that this project was a malicious attack on KQ IP.

Quote: Original post by Yann L
I don't think you fully realize what an extreme value a brand name has for an AAA franchise (or any other well known mass market product). Actually, the implementation quality is secondary to borderline irrelevant. Brand recognition is orders of magnitude more important. People don't buy products because they're good. They buy products because they're well known, often without any regards to quality. That's sad, but that's how mass marketing works. And it explains why brands (and all IP that comprises the brand) is amongst the highest valued assets of a company.

I understand good and well the value a brand has, but you seem to think that that value comes out of thin air. When a particular brand puts out enough garbage, the brand becomes tarnished, and no one likes it anymore. When a brand puts out quality, the value increases.

KQ games don't come out anymore. What is Activision protecting? The last KQ game came out in 1998 according to Wikipedia. Even if using someone else's IP could somehow be construed as "stealing", there is nothing to be stolen. KQ is 12 years in stasis. Seriously, Activision should find something better to do with its time.

Quote: Original post by Yann L
I don't think you fully realize what an extreme value a brand name has for an AAA franchise (or any other well known mass market product). Actually, the implementation quality is secondary to borderline irrelevant. Brand recognition is orders of magnitude more important. People don't buy products because they're good. They buy products because they're well known, often without any regards to quality. That's sad, but that's how mass marketing works. And it explains why brands (and all IP that comprises the brand) is amongst the highest valued assets of a company.

As a simple example of it:

How many people want to buy the next installment of Final Fantasy, even if they don't know what the game is about?

I haven't seen much of Portal 2, but I certainly want to play it.

What about the next Starcraft? Look at how many people drooled in anticipation, even before any official announcement.


Contrast those known brands with names like "Tactical Assault", "Rathnir Online", "Nightwatch", "Brak3", and countless more.



Looking over those items, which ones immediately jump at you?

The value of branding is incredible. When a brand has multinational or global appeal, it is even more valuable. Far more than the value of an individual game. That Vivendi allowed the free use of King's Quest by the group was of inestimable value to get where they are today.

Why are you implying that implementation quality is worthless compared to branding and then listing off some of the BEST MADE GAMES ever? Those brands all earned their reputations. You make it sound like they sunk a ton of money into the brands and just "made them valuable".

Quote: Original post by TheBuzzSaw
When a particular brand puts out enough garbage, the brand becomes tarnished, and no one likes it anymore. When a brand puts out quality, the value increases.

KQ games don't come out anymore. What is Activision protecting? The last KQ game came out in 1998 according to Wikipedia. Even if using someone else's IP could somehow be construed as "stealing", there is nothing to be stolen. KQ is 12 years in stasis. Seriously, Activision should find something better to do with its time.

You put the reason for a company to protect its IP and fight against others releasing stuff that is out of the IP holder's control. That is it right there.

When a particular brand puts out enough garbage, the brand becomes tarnished

Now what do you think would happen to a brand if anyone could get up and make whatever crap they wanted to, and stick the brand of another company on it? Random people with nothing to do with the holders of the IP get this "GREAT IDEA!", and then we see King's Quest MMO Hockey game written in HTML with Variables! And we'll see 20 of them on the internet, and then when Activision goes to release a real King's Quest game, what then?

"Oh look, another crap kings quest game!"


Or, a group of people get together and keep churning out really really Good "Kings Quest" games. And they're an opensource fan based community, and everything is golden! The games are great, the graphics are beautiful, the story line is punchy and has good twists, and new episodes come out every quarter of the year. Kings Quest becomes the most popular game on the internet with hundreds of millions of fans downloading these great games.

Now Activision goes to release Their new King's Quest game. Surprise! Hardly anyone buys it. And why would they? This other group has been producing better games, and to top it off they're free! How screwed in the head do you need to be to go buy a game when one just as good is there for free?


Just because they have not used the IP does not mean they have no plans to. And just because they currently have no plans to use it doesn't mean they don't get to reserve the right to make plans in the future.

Quote: Original post by TheBuzzSaw
Why are you implying that implementation quality is worthless compared to branding and then listing off some of the BEST MADE GAMES ever? Those brands all earned their reputations. You make it sound like they sunk a ton of money into the brands and just "made them valuable".

And yet that's exactly what happens. Brands can be built and made valuable "just like that", assuming that you invest the right amounts of money. It's called marketing. Large brand owners spend unimaginable sums of money just to make a brand well known. Small brands gain value from reputation, word of mouth and quality. Large brands earn value through investment. Read: advertising and PR. Quality is mostly secondary once the brand is established. It's a nice bonus, but it's optional.

Just look at the mainstream music industry. Consider the absolute shit they're pumping out, and yet consider the number of sales they get from their brands. Or consider large expensive clothing brands, made in China from low quality materials.

Name is everything.

The Silver Lining(TSL) was named that after the agreement with Vivendi which required the TSL group to remove "Kings Quest" from the title in order to prevent what the last few posts were talking about: false brand associations.

More to the 'they were retards, not creative' part... there are very few companies, if any, with 100% original assets. Some companies use heavily 'influenced' IP such as Blizzard (using Tolken ideas, for example), and others using complete 'rips' such as Disney (most of their catalog is simple retelling of public domain stories).

...

I feel for this group even though I agree it was all legal. It doesn't matter if they did it now, 12 years after the last installment of the game, or 300 years from now. Copyright will never expire as long as a certain cartoon mouse generates money in a corporate world. <lament>Without a proper copyright system reinstated, we can only look forward to another gazillion Romeo and Julet remakes</lament>

Using an existing and 'dead' IP and paying homage to it in this manner should be taken honorably. It's impressive that they got such an agreement in the first place (originally). I wish the team luck in what they make next.

Side Note: The 'unoriginal' comments strike me as extra funny since the game this was based on was Kings Quest-- a game that is a collage of fairy tales (Minotaur, Cupid, Harpies..) and with surprise guests such as Dracula, Rumpelstiltskin, and Red Riding Hood.

Quote: You make it sound like they sunk a ton of money into the brands and just "made them valuable".

Lightweight introduction to brands.

Brands are engineered. Everything in consumer market is engineered. Even sales.

To some entrepreneurs, these topics just come naturally, other can learn them.