How tightly do Lucasarts and Sierra hold on to their old licenses?

[Armakuni]

I'm wondering as it would be totally kick ass to have episodes based on some other old adventure games series. I know this is probably totally unrealistic but hey a guy can dream

I'd love to see episodic Monkey Island games, perhaps get Ron Gilbert on the team.. that would be a dream come true for me!

Or Space Quest episodes.. that would kick ass too! Or Quest for Glory.. or Gabriel Knight! Gabriel Knight episodes would be so damn cool!

What old series would you like to see continued as series? I realize it's very unrealistic but theoretically speaking what would you like to see?

[abdallah]

Simon the sorcerer.. Those games were brilliant.
And Outcast. There was a sequel in the works but after Infogrames died, so did the sequel.

[AdamG]

Sierra is extremely protective of their licenses. They have let a few Space Quest and King's Quest fan games be made, but otherwise they keep a tight grip on them. I don't know much about how LucasArts handles theirs. I doubt either company would object to someone buying licenses to their old games though.

[numble]

From Bill Tiller at Autumn Moon Entertainment:

http://www.adventure-eu.com/forum/in...p?topic=1056.0

Lucas won’t sell their IPs. I know from several people have tried buying some. And they tried to buy some of the lesser known ones too. My guess is Lucas won’t sell because it is not their policy to sell. I think they don’t want to set precedent and they don’t want to spend their management time and lawyer time contemplating each offer to buy a LEC license. SO they just say not to all offers out of hand.

But what I’d like to see is a Monkey Island game designed by Ron Gilbert, written by Tin Schafer, Check Jordan, and Jonathan Ackley, animated by Larry Ahren, and the backgrounds done by myself. Now that would be a fun game to work on. Never going to happen.

-Bill Tiller

[ShaggE]

Originally Posted by AdamG

Sierra is extremely protective of their licenses. They have let a few Space Quest and King's Quest fan games be made, but otherwise they keep a tight grip on them. I don't know much about how LucasArts handles theirs. I doubt either company would object to someone buying licenses to their old games though.

You don't need to own the license if your making a freeware title, right? (I'm making a fangame based on the Blood license) I mean, isn't it like fanfics? As long as there's no profit being made...

[LuigiHann]

You might not need to pay them, but you need their permission. Otherwise, not only can they stop you, but they are legally obligated to do so, in order to protect their copyrights.

[ShaggE]

I whipped up an e-mail to Atari to obtain permission, thanks for clearing that up for me, I'd be pretty pissed if I got a cease and desist letter after months of development lol

[TribeHasSpoken]

Originally Posted by ShaggE

You don't need to own the license if your making a freeware title, right? (I'm making a fangame based on the Blood license) I mean, isn't it like fanfics? As long as there's no profit being made...

Definitely not true. I'm a member of the team of The Silver Lining, a King's Quest fan game. We were shut down by Vivendi in September 2005, though they allowed us to continue work on the game in November following negotiations.

[ShaggE]

If worse comes to worse, I'll just use the Chewbacca defense on 'em.

[AdamG]

What's that, "RARRRLL?!"?

[Josh]

I was at a bookstore earlier tonight and saw complete collections of Kings Quest, Police Quest and Leisure Suit Larry for $20 (well, complete except for the Swat games and most recent Larry endeavor) didn't notice Space Quest though. So it's clear that Sierra is still interested in holding the licenses to their games. At least they're putting them out again with Windows XP computability.

[doom saber]

Originally Posted by Josh

I was at a bookstore earlier tonight and saw complete collections of Kings Quest, Police Quest and Leisure Suit Larry for $20 (well, complete except for the Swat games and most recent Larry endeavor) didn't notice Space Quest though. So it's clear that Sierra is still interested in holding the licenses to their games. At least they're putting them out again with Windows XP computability.

Actually, the recent collections are not complete since they are missing the original sci versions of the first games. I guess they decided to remove these since there is no point of having the originals with the remakes. Larry is missing part 7 because Vivendi did not want to put an ao rating on it because of the easter egg at the end of the game and dunno if the laffer ulilities and casino are included.

As for Vivendi releasing them with xp Compatability, sadly no. It is only the games with dosbox.

[Armakuni]

Yeah those collections are pretty bad. If you want good collections you should look for the "Roberta Williams Antology", "Quest for Glory Anthology", "Leisure Suit Larry Ultimate Pleasure Pack" and an older Police Quest collection. You can find them on eBay often.. they can be quite expensive sometimes though.

[doom saber]

I have th old police quest collection, the old lsl greatest hits and misses, and qf antholoy(the one that was released before the collection with the qfg5 demo. Only my qfg collection survived while the rest died by unnatural causes.

the old collections are better than the ones that were released by Vivendi since they have demos, interviews and trivia. I doubt Vivendi has those

Unrelated, but Vivendi is releasing love for sail on mobile. However, it a new game or remake since you are not the original Larry, the format looks different even though it is an adventure game, and sprites that look like Ken Williams and Al Lowe are in it even though they didn't work on the game.

[Maratanos]

Sierra I could see doing it.

Oh wait, they already have...

Caesar IV

[Hero1]

Originally Posted by numble

From Bill Tiller at Autumn Moon Entertainment:

http://www.adventure-eu.com/forum/in...p?topic=1056.0

Well that about wraps up those ideas for a maniac mansion/monkey island game *sigh*

[NatsFan]

Originally Posted by laffer

I'd love to see episodic Monkey Island games, perhaps get Ron Gilbert on the team.. that would be a dream come true for me!

I really would not like to see Monkey Island episodes. There didn't need to be any games after CMI, EMI was just redundant.

Besides, I think don't think that LucasArts are very likely to let other companies use their licenses, the only reason that Telltale got the rights to Sam & Max was because LucasArts's license expired.

[numble]

Originally Posted by Hero1

Well that about wraps up those ideas for a maniac mansion/monkey island game *sigh*

I think the option to license the IPs from Lucasarts (as in, it still belongs to you, but we'll pay you royalties, so you make money out of nothing) might still be open though. I interpret Bill's comment to mean Lucasarts is unwilling to give up ownership of IPs.

[jp-30]

Yeah. LucasArts won't sell the rights to their games, but as we know with Star Wars & Indy Jones, they're open to having third parties develop games using their licenses which they then publish.

Same as Telltale using the CSI license to make games for Ubisoft.

The old interview with Dan regarding the LucasArts licenses is still very positive.

Game Informer: A lot of those LucasArts franchises are still very popular – you spoke about Day of the Tentacle. Is there a chance you’ll be able to wrangle a few more of those away for more episodes? Are you working on that at all?

Dan Connors: It’s definitely on our minds and it’s definitely something we think about. Maybe I can give you more information a while from now. It’s definitely something that makes good sense to everybody. For them it’s the same thing. For them it’s "What’s the business model? What’s the retail model?" It’s not their type of game – it’s not Star Wars, it’s not with the movie, with the lightsaber – an action game. When trying to do the two things at the same time it makes it challenging. They’ve been trying to figure out the right solution, and hopefully Telltale is part of it.

[Armakuni]

Originally Posted by NatsFan

I really would not like to see Monkey Island episodes. There didn't need to be any games after CMI, EMI was just redundant.

What I had in mind is getting Ron Gilbert on the team and going back to the end of MI2 and continue from there.