Replay Games Kickstarter / KQ/SQ/LSL Rights

[BagginsKQ]

Why would it still be going?

It's another essentially dead IP from the glory days of Sierra...

I'm not sure if its seen a rerelease in years... Not even under Vivendi... No one knows if the rights were kept or sold off to other parties... Maybe the Coles retain some of the copyrights, as they have used elements from the games on their School for Heroes (including use of some of the characters, races, places, from the games, but sometimes radically reimagined), which is copyrighted to Transolar Entertainment. But apparently do not have rights to the games themselves... School of Heroes website is currently closed for renovation, and there is a promise of a text based adventure/rpg? game version in the future maybe by 2013. Sounds like a MUD type thing... They are also working on a classic adventure apparently, but haven't released any names or information on it yet.

They were also at one point going to attempt to release a series of novels based on the Quest for Glory series as well, but that fell through.

This may be an issue of copyright limbo, where two parties share the copyrights, and its unclear who has rights to what.

See also;
http://www.destructoid.com/quest-for...e-135372.phtml

[KatieHal]

Speaking of resurrecting Sierra IPs and such, Jane Jensen has a new studio and kickstarter as of today as well

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...-2012-2013-csg

And she's said she's definitely interested in doing GK4 at some point (albeit it won't be one of the studio's first releases).

[thom-22]

Originally Posted by jonathanfrisby

this may be the only chance Sierra gets -- and I'll put my faith in Al Lowe / Josh Mandel / Paul Trowe / Scott Murphy to eventually become the best possible custodians of these games... even if it looks thrown together right now.

See, this is exactly why I made the criticism I did about the Replay quote in your opening post -- they're leaving people with the implication that this is the resurrection of Sierra. I'm skeptical that there's any truth in the statement that they're "in the middle of negotiations" for KQ etc. and the info on the Kickstarter page now seems to imply otherwise. Even if they have such ambitions, they have no business talking about licenses they don't have.

I feel really bad for Larry fans that they didn't keep the focus there. The video was good but I think Lowe should get out in front on this, give the impression that his vision and initiative are driving it, and share a little more about what remake/reload/re-imagining of LSL1 really means.

Originally Posted by KatieHal

Speaking of resurrecting Sierra IPs and such, Jane Jensen has a new studio and kickstarter as of today as well

Interesting ideas and well presented. I hope she and the studio are successful.

[KuroShiro]

Originally Posted by BagginsKQ

Why would it still be going?

It's another essentially dead IP from the glory days of Sierra...

I'm not sure if its seen a rerelease in years... Not even under Vivendi... No one knows if the rights were kept or sold off to other parties...

...

This may be an issue of copyright limbo, where two parties share the copyrights, and its unclear who has rights to what.

On the bright side, if absolutely nothing is done with the trademark for a certain amount of time (not the case for KQ, SQ etc. as they have seen releases on Steam + GoG), then I think the trademark lapses and could be reclaimed by the original creators. Then again, I'm not a lawyer so I could be wrong.

[thom-22]

Trademark is not the same thing as copyright. Copyrights are sustained for a long time in most places and then ownership doesn't "revert" to anyone; it goes into the public domain. Original creators as I think you meant it have no legal standing. If they created the work while employed by or under contract to some other entity, that entity owns the IP and the individuals that actually developed it have no claims on it.

[BagginsKQ]

Ya, you have things where the company is doing something with the IP, still earliest manifestations of that IP ultimately go into the public domain... See early 1930's Superman tv shows and cartoons as an example.

Sometimes big companies (see 'empires') like Disney fight to retain control (through special case laws and extensions), see Steamboat Willie...

It takes something like the life of the creator + 70 years for something to go into public domain in general (assuming the creator has rights to his own works)... But companies have gotten around that under certain cases...

There were times in the past when people didn't properly register their copyrights and things ended up in public domain... See Night of the Living Dead... But thanks to Disney's rabid band of lawyers, changing the laws, and making it easier for creators to protect their works and dispute things (but probably only if they have the money to do it )...

[KuroShiro]

Originally Posted by thom-22

Trademark is not the same thing as copyright. Copyrights are sustained for a long time in most places and then ownership doesn't "revert" to anyone; it goes into the public domain. Original creators as I think you meant it have no legal standing. If they created the work while employed by or under contract to some other entity, that entity owns the IP and the individuals that actually developed it have no claims on it.

I'm aware of the difference between trademark and copyright. It's a bit complicated. What I'm saying is that the name "Quest for Glory" could be obtained and become usable again even if the copyrights on the games themselves did not expire. See: Why Brian Fargo can make a sequel to Bard's Tale, and now Wasteland via Kickstarter (EA never used the names), but cannot release the original Wasteland as incentive (EA owns it). I'm not saying it's *likely*, but due to the differences between trademark and copyright -- you can't copyright an idea, individual words, a title, etc.; trademarks must be used and defended unlike copyrights -- it is possible to have a spiritual sequel as long as it doesn't use content from previous games (a bit of a bummer I suppose).

[Chyron8472]

Originally Posted by Irishmile

Ooooh I really liked Freddy Pharkas as well...

I did not.

[blueskirt]

Originally Posted by KuroShiro

(a bit of a bummer I suppose).

Only if you intend to mess around with the established continuity or take liberties, voluntarily or not, with the execution. If you can and do imitate the tone, atmosphere, writing and graphical style, type of humor, of gameplay, of puzzles, and in true Sierra fashion, set your game in new locations, with new characters and villains, you don't care what your game is called, with just a bit of targeted promotion your game will find its intended audience, you may even make money out of it.

The problem is most people cannot resist revisiting old stuff, tweak something they didn't like, leave their mark in their game or miss the subtleties of the originals.

King's Quest wouldn't be any less fun if it featured a new knight, king, queen, prince or princess every new chapters if the tone and style remained the same. Police Quest needs neither Sonny Bond nor Lytton like Police Quest IV and Blue Force proved. Space Quest and Quest For Glory you could even get away with them being sequels without the title, since the main characters are generic blonde, change uniforms every games and both series allowed the players to enter their names.

There's really an untapped market for Sierra commercial spiritual sequel for anyone, any team skilled, determined and willing to aim for perfect imitation, perfect faithfulness to the original games and interested in making a living out of it.

[BagginsKQ]

Police Quest IV wasn't very 'police questy' imo... It lost the sense of humor... Felt completely different, much darker and depraved... The characters aren't really rememberable (usually you see them as pixellatede blurry masses). It might as well been a new game series altogether...

Police Quest 5 and 6 then switched genres even!

Space Quest and Quest For Glory you could even get away with them being sequels without the title, since the main characters are generic blonde, change uniforms every games and both series allowed the players to enter their names.

Only in the first two AGI versions of SQ... The remake of SQ took away the character name creation option.

A good example of spiritual sequel is the comparison between System Shock and Bio Shock series.

[blueskirt]

Police Quest IV was visually awful, dark and edgy in a bad kind of way, crazy anal when it came to following procedures and filling in paperworks, and I certainly preferred the traffic/police officer day to day job aspect of the first games over the clues collection and witness interrogation, but it didn't feature Lytton or Sonny. I'm not saying it was a good game, but it was still a Police Quest game. Police Quest is about following police procedure to the letter, it doesn't really matter whether your character's named Sonny Bond, John Carey or Jake Ryan.

Only in the first two AGI versions of SQ... The remake of SQ took away the character name creation option.

I know, and the beauty of it is you can play it "we were so faithful we brought back this aspect from the old games", and you know full well what any fans of Space Quest will name their generic blonde haired space janitor after, and you're not infringing on anyone's trademarks and copyrights.

Really, the main difficulty is staying away from Monolith Burger, Starcon and Vohaul, away from Erana, Ad Avis, Liontaurs, Kattas, Spielburg, Shapeir and Mordavia, away from Sonny, Lytton, Daventry, the Green Isles... while understanding all the subtleties of the originals and remaining faithful to their style. But if you can do that, and we know just how huge the fanbase for remakes and fangames is, how many download they gather, you could earn a living out of making the games that you like to make and you like to play.

Remakes would still be a financial dead end for indie adventure games designers, but "non copyright and trademark infringing spiritual sequels" fangames would not. And we know the lack of financial reward tend to be a killer when it comes to these type of games. When you can ask for donation, create kickstarters, quit your day job after a couple of success under your belt and work on these games full time, things are very different.

Man look at the time, I should have tried to catch some sleep an hour ago.

[Anakin Skywalker]

We've had remakes already...Why not sequels?

[Sande]

Well in their kickstarter page it says they would like to do new Larry game but Codemaster ( who own the rights ) wants to first see if there is any interest for Larry and they want replay games to prove themself first with a remake. Also the thing about them being in production of Larry and just jumping in on Kickstarter for more money is a lie.

Well more info on all this for those interested is here. Also some nice Stories about Sierra days

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=d5zom_UtgRE

[Lambonius]

Asking the creator of Leisure Suit Larry to "prove himself" before "granting" him the rights to his own series = EPIC FUCKING FAIL.

[KatieHal]

Doesn't sound like they're talking about making Al Lowe prove himself, but the studio Replay Games.

[thom-22]

It's not about asking Al Lowe to prove he can design games. It's about asking Replay whether they can deliver and support a game on multiple platforms and generate a profit from the Larry franchise. It's a legitimate question.

[wilco64256]

Originally Posted by Anakin Skywalker

We've had remakes already...Why not sequels?

Well for one thing remakes are WAY cheaper to make because pretty much all of the writing and general game design is already done. Unless you add/change lines or add some new locations you're basically starting right off the bat with a complete game design to work on. That saves a TON of work in the development cycle.

[tomimt]

Originally Posted by thom-22

It's not about asking Al Lowe to prove he can design games. It's about asking Replay whether they can deliver and support a game on multiple platforms and generate a profit from the Larry franchise. It's a legitimate question.

Indeed. While I am a pledger, it's still a valid question to ask: can they really deliver quality product. The game might end up sucking big time and tarnish the rest of the fame Larry had after Lovage trumped it to the ground.

Only thing I can do is to hope, as Replay has a lot hanging from this. If they fail the company will most likely fail as well.

[Irishmile]

its all going to depend on the amount of money they get.. they have all the right elements needed to make a great game.. They have Al and Josh to write, and they have some pretty decent artists and background artists.. But all that will go to waste if they do not have the money to actually make the game.

[Anakin Skywalker]

Originally Posted by wilco64256

Well for one thing remakes are WAY cheaper to make because pretty much all of the writing and general game design is already done. Unless you add/change lines or add some new locations you're basically starting right off the bat with a complete game design to work on. That saves a TON of work in the development cycle.

But this is a remake of a game that already got a remake.