Renzatic on 19/4/2006 at 21:23

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Should've used the Lode Runner Championship engine. It lets you display more gold bars on the screen.

Huckeye on 19/4/2006 at 23:03

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How much would obtaining the rights to Thief cost someone? I am assuming a rather large number due to marketing greed, but in reality the Thief franchise, for all intents and purposes, is sitting in the back of someones basement overun with cobwebs and mold. while it is technically an asset the current owner has no plans or uesefulness left in it. Its the intalectual property equivalent of trying to hold onto a 386 PC so someone else doesnt use it to get rich.

All that being said, and knowing that its owner would probably unGodly overprice it, does anyone have an opinion on a dollar amount. Or even better have an experienced guestimate on what intellectual property like that might be worth?

sparhawk on 20/4/2006 at 10:45

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That would be an quite interesting mod. :)

deadman on 21/4/2006 at 20:13

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Foolhardy as it may seem, and I know such threads are more or less worthless (hence, I obviously am wasting my time), the saying "under the radar" seems to apply. Unless we were such fools to remake the three games (or any therein) in a newer engine and try to market the thing, Eidos probably couldn't care less.

One slight blurp appears in the thought that, appearing on a newer engine, it'd be quite possible for those who don't own any of the games to be able to play them. As such, it becomes quite the exercise in futility, especially assuming interested modders would care for their own hides (most do), and that Eidos would rather see more money in their coffers (they undoubtedly do). One can repeat the logic of being "under the radar" again at this point, but it only sounds more foolhardy than the first time.

At the end of the day, this is all merely speculation. Who can say how Eidos would react? As it's unlikely we'd ever get a response from anyone with the authority to offer one, we can only each choose their own path, hopefully influenced by a good dose of common sense.

I've personally been mulling over the possibility of getting the source code for Thief 3, so we don't build so many tragically-beautiful FMs on the engine (in spite of and not because of the screwed-up aspects of the engine), but again, who from Eidos will respond to any inquiry? History repeats itself; once more, we're left with an inferior game engine. Achievements will be all the more noble because of it, but the limitations remain.

Oh, and if fans especially started hinting at buying the franchise, assuming the voices were loud and consistent enough for Eidos to hear, you can be sure someone would say "Oh, they still care about this? In that case, you can't have it!" akin to a toddler finding newfound worth in a toy coveted by the other, where it would lay in disuse otherwise. That, or it could be a catalyst for them to try to get yet another game made, and after Thief 3 (which was decent in spite of itself, yet didn't reach the achievement the earlier games found, imho), I think the jury's out on how many of us would be receptive to that possibility.

Huckeye on 21/4/2006 at 21:05

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I was mostly asking if anyone has had experience in the past with this? Maybe an educated guess could be made if someone had some experience with other titles and we could compare the titles to see how much higher or lower it might be.

The reason I am asking is I have nothing to reference it to. I'm guessing the rights to a game that they have officially retired to the has-been dungeon would easily be worth hundreds of thousands U.S. to a few million to the owner. But I dont know how far I've underestimated on this.

I also assume that if any life is left then the price is infinitely higher, Like trying to buy Age of Empires or Unreal tournament from their respective licensors (impossible, would be my guess here). those titles are obviously true assets to their companies. My optomistic side (which rarely shows itself) thinks that since Thief's book has been closed it should be 'obtainable' by an interested party willing to fork out $. It would be a humorous moment to get the owner to explain why they won't make any titles with it and then show a big fat money bag to see them try to explain how important the franchise is to them and how they could barely part with it.