Activision shuts down The Silver Lining - UPDATE: Episode 1 of TSL has been released! - by Enchantermon
Enchantermon on 2/3/2010 at 04:35
Activision, now the owners of the King's Quest IP, has decided that they will not honor the fan license granted to Phoenix Online Studios by Vivendi Universal to continue the development of the King's Quest fan game "The Silver Lining." Activision also has shown no interest in drafting a new agreement and has served POS a Cease and Desist letter forcing them to halt development and remove anything related to the King's Quest IP from their website and forums.
(
http://www.tsl-game.com/) TSL Development Team's Letter to Fans
You know, I understand the desire Activision has to protect its IP and everything, but to be honest, this is a really mean thing to do. Eight years of the team's collective lives have been poured into this project, it was nearing completion, and then to drop this on them...
An online petition has been started. It will eventually be printed out and mailed to Activision. A similar petition was sent to Vivendi which resulted in the original fan license, so perhaps Activision will be similarly affected. (
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/savetsl/) Click here to see it.
EvaUnit02 on 2/3/2010 at 06:19
It's true, Infinity Ward president and co-founder Jason West has been given the axe.
(
http://kotaku.com/5483348/)
After crapping all over the PC community with CoD6 there will be no sympathies from me.
Matthew on 2/3/2010 at 11:03
Quote Posted by Enchantermon
I understand the desire Activision has to protect its IP and everything
The sad thing is that revoking this licence does nothing to advance the protection of their IP, as the goddamn licence itself was all the protection they needed.
EvaUnit02 on 2/3/2010 at 12:23
Quote:
UPDATE 12:02 AM: Double Fine's Tim Schafer, who had his own troubles with Activision over the release of Brutal Legend , recently commented on Twitter about what's happening between Infinity Ward and Activision.
"Getting mad at Activision for this kind of thing is like getting mad at an ape for throwing feces," said Schafer. "It's just how the beast communicates."
UPDATE 11:20 PM: It turns out Activision may have showed their hand in this matter earlier today.
In an (
http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1047469-10-1649) SEC filing made this morning, Activision cited a human resources investigation into "breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward."
Based on the information we currently have, at least one of those employees may have included Infinity Ward CTO Jason West. It's possible Vince Zampella is the other unmentioned employee.
"This matter is expected to involve the departure of key personnel and litigation," read the filing. "At present, the Company does not expect this matter to have a material impact on the Company."
source= G4 article
In all serious though if this leads to an exodus of IW developers to form a new indie studio, it could be a win situation for both them and gamers... unless they focus on casual nonsense for Iphone, social networking sites and DS, etc.
Matthew on 2/3/2010 at 12:27
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
focus on casual nonsense for Iphone ... DS
Still a win for some of us :cool:
mothra on 2/3/2010 at 14:14
IW doing an indie spin-off studio ? Wow, I can already see their next game called "counter-warfare" incorporating state-of-the-art spawn-wave triggers and shouting of serious men in the background while "keeping it real". boo-yah. also: CW1 will be released by Ubisoft, features matchmaking for 4v4 servers, needs an always-on connection and will go unsupported as soon as the first expansion pack comes out, required to further play the game since the original vanila servers will shut down due to "community demand" ;)
gunsmoke on 2/3/2010 at 14:28
Quote Posted by Enchantermon
Activision, now the owners of the King's Quest IP, has decided that they will not honor the fan license granted to Phoenix Online Studios by Vivendi Universal to continue the development of the King's Quest fan game "The Silver Lining." Activision also has shown no interest in drafting a new agreement and has served POS a Cease and Desist letter forcing them to halt development and remove anything related to the King's Quest IP from their website and forums.
(
http://www.tsl-game.com/) TSL Development Team's Letter to Fans
You know, I understand the desire Activision has to protect its IP and everything, but to be honest, this is a really mean thing to do. Eight years of the team's collective lives have been poured into this project, it was nearing completion, and then to drop this on them...
An online petition has been started. It will eventually be printed out and mailed to Activision. A similar petition was sent to Vivendi which resulted in the original fan license, so perhaps Activision will be similarly affected. (
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/savetsl/) Click here to see it.
Why don't they just do like the Dark Mod? Just remove any true references to King's Quest and make it a 'generic'/new ip game that is extremely similar, but not a breach of contract?
Ostriig on 2/3/2010 at 14:30
I read about that on Kotaku. I don't even care about the game, but I thought it was an incredibly dickish move. After eight years and an agreement with the previous IP owner, these twats kill it off just a couple of months before it's supposed to ship its first product. Activision is really fucking depressing.
And I loved Schafer's comment on the Infinity Ward malarkey.
