The game looked great at E3

Didn't Activision drop the game and abandon the IP? I seem to remember them doing that. They flatly refused to publish because they thought the game was a joke and no one would buy it. Didn't that happen or am I just crazy? So they kicked it out because they thought it would suck and now they are pissed because it never really did. What kind of craziness is this? Activision screwed up. They should just eat this mistake and move on.

Rediculous. I remember last year when Activision expressed no interest in this title due to the lack of annual franchise potential. Now that this game is being shown, and looks amazing, is seems like a sour grapes situation.

From what I've seen, Brutal Legend looks like GOTY material (based solely on my tastes). If someone were to design a game just for me specifically - it would be Brutal Legend. I think about this game every day, and can't wait for Roctober 13 to actually play it. I wish Double Fine the best of luck in rightfully winning this suit.

This reminds me of when Fox sued Warner over the rights to the Watchmen movie. You'd think the suits would handle these things better, yet here we go again.

I am actually glad the EA has this one now as they have the legal team to beat Activision on this law suit crap. Activision just needs to leave Tim Schafer and Co. alone. They worked really hard on that game.

I really hope EA and Double Fine come out on top from this situation. Any other result would be a pretty damaging blow to the creative process. A publisher should not be able to hold a game or IP in limbo for an indefinite amount of time.

Unfortunately even if in the end Double Fine does make it through to publish the game they're in a tough spot. Activision can probably rack up enough court costs to sink Double Fine or at least strain them during the proceedings.

It's not a proper graphic adventure so i hope it just gets cancelled

"Didn't Activision drop the game and abandon the IP? I seem to remember them doing that. They flatly refused to publish because they thought the game was a joke and no one would buy it. Didn't that happen or am I just crazy?"

Well apparently it didn't happen quite like that or there would be no lawsuit.

No comment on the game as I haven't seen any previews. All I know is that I want Jack Black in less of my entertainment, not more.

I already barely buy any Activision games, but I think from now on I'll go out of my way to boycott them, if their place in the games industry is to actively attempt to screw over everybody else (players and developers alike).

Tim Schafer Responds To Activision's Brutal Legend Lawsuit

http://kotaku.com/5279255/tim-schafer-responds-to-activisions-brutal-legend-laws
uit

"Hey, if Activision liked it, then they should have put a ring on it," Schafer said. "Oh great, now Beyoncé is going to sue me too."

ROFL

If it was like most Work for Hire deals I would think that the original publisher still owns the assets and IP even after termination of the relationship. They may or may not also own the tech. I would think Activision would have some compensation coming for initial investment unless Double Fine somehow had the most amazing sweetheart deal ever. Then again EA is about as litigation averse as anybody in the industry so they must believe they are not exposed.

It does seems like a punk move on Activision's part to fight it now at the end and not before as soon as EA announced they had picked up the project.

This time, as much as I don't like Activitsion, I am willing to bet that Double Fine breached it's contract with Activision by failing to meet progress deadlines and requesting additional monies resulting in Activision being able void it's publishing agreement and avoid having to pay more money to have the game finished. This allowed Activision to avoid continued investment in the game but at the same time retain a position to reap royalties even though it did not have to fulfill it's role as a publisher. Probably Activision is not happy with the publishing agreement between Double Fine and EA and believes at Double Fine is offering EA too much of the royalties that would have been Activision's if Double Fine had not breached the original agreement.

I am sure that Activision is just up to it's old tricks of making money through litigation and not through the development and publishing of games. This way Activision gets to recoop it's original investment and obtain significant royalties without having to plunk down the requested 7 million nor taking on additional expenses essentially stepping out of the risky nature of a straight publishing agreement.

Instead Activision told Double Fine to just step off and find somebody else to take the risk of completing the game but still make a lot of money.

It is likely that the original publishing agreement was not very well written and allowed Activision to act this way if Double Fine failed to meet it's deadlines.

However, if we all recall it is not surprising that Double Fine probably did not have a great contract with a publisher because at the time Brutal Legend was being shopped Scafer was on the ropes from a number of poor selling, but critically acclaimed projects.

I hate Activision.

Steve, Activision should not be entitled to the full royalties of their original contract with Double Fine. And they have a lot of explaining to do as to why they waited until the game is pretty much finished before springing this law suit. It seems like bad faith dealings on the part of Activision.

If Double Fine did indeed breach the contract by not meeting certain deadlines, then Activision should have sued for a breach of contract a long time ago. How long ago did Activision drop them? If they did not resolve the rights to teh game back then, then wouldn't they hit some sort of statute of limitations?

Once again, as with all legal news stories, there aren't enough facts given to us.

Wish I had more of the facts surrounding what's going on here, because what little information I *do* have right now suggests scorched earth publishing tactics. Not necessarily done intentionally but certainly that appears to be the outcome that's being aimed at now, eugh.

It doesn't look like ATVI considered public image when pulling the trigger on the suit. First rights or not, it looks like a two-faced take-back.

It's now a no win situation. Either 1) the game's release gets tied up in court, Activision is seen as the bully or 2) Activision settles/loses in court and they're seen as an purse-lipped power monger. Either way, it leaves a bad taste in the mouths of industry-savvy gamers, which is the game's audience. It would only get worse for them if the game becomes a hit.

The best outcome for ATVI is they win the suit, the game is released, ATVI gains short-term revenue but the long-term reputation takes a hit with unknown lasting effects. Seems like a risky prospect for a publisher that isn't exactly short on income.

Well not all is lost.

Every game website on the planet is writing about this and that is some great publicity for Brutal Legend.
When the game does release there is a lot of 'good will' towards brutal legend and its developer and that won't hurt sales I would think.

You know Activision has a case. It's like if this was a building, they paid carpenters and plumbers and so on to build it, but then they told the architect they were going to let him go and cancel the building project. If the architect then goes off and starts selling the building to some other company, that's kind of like overstepping his bounds.

It's like selling the Brooklyn Bridge. Do you even own it, buddy?

(This is what happens when you don't have a rights reversion clause in your contract.)

All of this depends upon the exact wording of the contracts involved... and unfortunately, we don't have access to those contracts.

Nobody here has enough information to base an informed opinion upon.

"The only time you need a lawyer is because of the actions of another lawyer. And no matter what the outcome, two lawyers get paid."

It's fascinating to read some of the insights here (particularly Steve Roger's).
Is there some website that monitor's the street cred of corporations?

While i sneered at Fox suing WB over watchmen, i didn't really care.
With Activision threatening to block a Schafer title, I find myself very clearly thinking "Guess I won't be buying any more of that Guitar Hero franchise." (i switched to rockband, but figured i'd pick up subsequent GH titles when they were available cheap/used. Now it feels like a statement to say "no i'll be doing my damndest to avoid all Activision releases from now on. And badmouth them to my friends.").
Maybe this is just a sign that I'm a bigger nerd for games than movies. (or maybe this will fade in a week). I guess they aren't as bad as Monsanto or Comcast. Or maybe i'm just not well enough informed...? bleargh.

@Matt Allmer: This game isn't targeted at gamers. It's targeted at metalheads, which while it likely includes many gamers, doesn't mean that many of those gamers actually know the difference between "publisher" and "developer". You place way too much faith in the education of the masses.

Ah yes, fun with publisher politics and legalities.

Played Brutal Legend at e3 this week and I came away more than impressed. EA has done a wonderful job marketing the game and we all know Schafer and co. deserve to make an impact with this one. For those of you who have not play Psychonauts do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of this gem on ebay or double fine's site.

On a side note I am amused that EA is seen as the Good Guy here and Activision the Bad Guy which certainly reverses their long standing roles of at least the past two generations of consoles. This reaffirms my belief that it is always easiest to hate the Biggest Guy in the room. While EA is certainly not happy about falling to #2 the plus side is it is hard to be seen as a Bully to someone bigger than you. Imagine how perceptions would change if Midway was the original publisher who was now suing EA (as highly unlikely as that is).

@Mike,
I don't think its so much about size as it is about action.
EA used to be all about the money, and they got a lot of bad rep for cashing in and not treating their employees very well.
But they have since changed the way they make games and just focusing on high quality titles that sell well.

At the same time you shouldn't judge the companies and their games just on the corporate antics and Drama. Each studio tries their best and the talented people try to make the best game they can with the budget they have available.

Activision is just trying to recoup the lost opportunity by striking out.

"But they have since changed the way they make games and just focusing on high quality titles that sell well."

Or have they just changed the face they put outwards to non-EA folks?

I can't wait to see the contract in the legal proceeding docs- I do hope Gamasutra publishes it.

@Ang
I did not mean to imply that Activision would for certain get full royalties. Sorry if it seemed that way. I did find an article that explained that Activision and Double Fined could not reach an agreement to extend the deadlines for development milestones. This means probably that they could not come up with a figure between cash needed to extend development and the upfront money/royalty split. The article explained that with even though no agreement was reached that Activation felt that Double Fine had no legal right to contract with another publisher.

Of course I don't know exactly the facts but I know enough plus my experience as an attorney to lay out a good guess of what is going on. How it will turn out I of course don't know.

I doubt that Activision missed any statute of limitation deadlines, depending on the circumstances it could be 3 years or even more. I didn't mention any ideas of bad faith as a defense to the lawsuit, but again, I doubt that will win the day, it is really hard to run that defense up the flag pole successfully.

@warren
Thanks for you kind words.

How did Activision go from the first game developer to give it's programmer's credit right on the box to this filthy mess? And that architect example above wins the worst analogy of the week award.

@David Mata:

I'm not an authority on the topic really, but going on what i've heard from the two people I personally know that work at EA Studios (One at EA Montreal and the other at EA Mythic), EA's come a LONG way internally from the days of the EA Spouse thing.

That is, however, just entirely subjectively anecdotal, so I can't say I'd put *too* much weight on it.

@No one:

I can't help but think Activision's going to end up regretting this. They have been turning into the old EA a bit of late, and that's unfortunate. It seems like it's been happening(perceptually) slowly ever since they picked up Blizzard-- like getting WoW revenue under their belt has bred some arrogance. Dunno, I don't think I could support that too well, it's just sort of an impression with how they've acted of late. You've got this, their handling of Guitar Hero once Rock Band entered the scene...