Winslow?!

[Harald B]

Sam is not owned by LucasArts. They just had an exclusive video game license for while; nowadays not even that.

[PedsterUK]

I should've said Max....... Now you know I don't play S&M much (man, that sounded so wrong!).

The reason I thought LA owned it is bcoz Steve Purcell created them, and LA hired him, so I assumed he gave them rights for future games n stuff.

[Harald B]

Well it's the same with Max. Thankfully Steve is pretty wise about keeping important rights to himself. Otherwise we wouldn't have had the last three seasons of Sam & Max games.

[furrykef]

Originally Posted by RAnthonyMahan

Well, when he first walks up to the table he did say "Gentlemen."

Yeah, I made a post on the Steam forum for this game asking if I was the only guy who couldn't resist adding "DUN... DUN... DUN DUNNNNNNN" after the "*ahem* gentlemen". Everybody pretty much said, "Um... yep, you're the only one."

[Guhndahb]

In the Giant Bomb Quick Look of Poker Night, the Telltale guys pointedly did not call him Winslow. They said something to the effect of "anyone who has played Telltale games will recognize him, but that's all we're allowed to say about that". (I'm badly paraphrasing as I watched it a couple days ago.)

[doom saber]

Originally Posted by coolsome

Well lots of TTG charecters have the same mold as Winslow.

Winslow is also the only generic-lookin important TMI character, which could be the reason why he was used

Doubt tt could use Morrigan, however

[Dr_Worm]

Originally Posted by Guhndahb

In the Giant Bomb Quick Look of Poker Night, the Telltale guys pointedly did not call him Winslow. They said something to the effect of "anyone who has played Telltale games will recognize him, but that's all we're allowed to say about that". (I'm badly paraphrasing as I watched it a couple days ago.)

They probably said that so they didn't spoil anything and keep it a surprise. And if they insist the player would recognize him, then they're implying he's the same person.

[robotman5]

that was a pretty cool thing to add Winslow in the game.

[Irishmile]

You will never see a staff member of TTG say.... YUP that was Winslow...

Obviously for all of us it so totally is.

[ShaggE]

I'm surprised TT didn't have him pointedly stare at a map on the wall and smile while giving the opening tour. It would have been a perfect way of confirming his Winslowness to fans, while still making him "Generic Host With Winslow's Voice and Model" to the litigious types.

[Ripcord]

Originally Posted by Harald B

How sad. Do they believe LA's lawyers will go "Well he has the same voice, face and build as Winslow, but this is Telltale so that doesn't mean anything."? What a world.

Why do you guys think Telltale doesn't own the rights to characters they created? That'd be unusual, even when designing a game based on licensed characters (Guybrush, LeChuck, etc)

[doom saber]

Originally Posted by Ripcord

Why do you guys think Telltale doesn't own the rights to characters they created? That'd be unusual, even when designing a game based on licensed characters (Guybrush, LeChuck, etc)

In comics, the publisher loses the rights of a character if the character was first introduced in a license comic like Gi joe.

However, it appears to not be the case in gamming. For those who remember, TT could not use any of the charaters from Hit the Road since LA owned them. I guess Winslow is 0wned by TT

[Teeth]

Rare lost the rights to all of the Donkey Kong Country characters when they joined Microsoft. Even though they created all but one of them. They got to keep the characters from Diddy Kong Racing though, apart from Diddy himself.

[furrykef]

Different licensing deals work differently. It all depends on what's in the contract.

In the case of Donkey Kong Country, it was probably still developed by Nintendo, with Rare just being the developer. I'm guessing it's not too uncommon for publishers to get all the rights to the stuff that goes into a game, and probably especially common when the game is developed around one of the publisher's IPs.

Also, in the case of Donkey Kong Country, it makes sense for Rare to give up the rights to the other characters since they're all part of the Kong family. It'd be hard to use a character like Funky Kong without Nintendo's permission.