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Activision Shuts Down King's Quest Fan Sequel
by Chris Remo [PC, Console/PC]
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March 1, 2010
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Online-based development team Phoenix Online Studios has canceled The Silver Lining, its long-in-production King's Quest sequel, following a legal threat by franchise owner Activision.
The current incarnation of The Silver Lining has been in the works since 2002, and was intended to serve unofficially as the ninth entry in Sierra's long-dormant adventure game series. Midway through development, the team adopted an episodic release model. According to a note posted on the game's official site, the first episode had been completed when the publisher revoked the team's existing freeware license.
Phoenix was granted the fan license by IP owner Vivendi, which owned all assets of the former Sierra Online, in late 2005 after several months of negotiation. In compliance with the license's terms, Phoenix changed the game's title from King's Quest IX: Every Cloak Has A Silver Lining to simply The Silver Lining.
Since then, however, as the result of the merger between Vivendi and Activision, Vivendi Games came under Activision management. As the site now explains, Activision "reached the decision that they are not interested in granting a non-commercial license to The Silver Lining, and have asked that we cease production and take down all related materials on our website."
According to the site, all development has been halted, and all materials related to the game, including the company's web forums, have been taken offline at the request of Activision.
The Silver Lining had long been one of the most well-known projects in development by the amateur adventure game community -- a surprisingly vibrant scene, perhaps in response to the relative scarcity of modern commercially-developed adventure games.
Roberta and Ken Williams, Sierra's founders and the creators of King's Quest, supported the project in an unofficial capacity; they had long since ceased to be legally affiliated with the Sierra brand.
"What the future holds for us, as individuals or a team, we cannot say," the team wrote. "We have an amazing development team, however, filled with talented and hard-working individuals, and we hope the teamwork and rapport we’ve developed won’t go to waste. We hope that when we do know what the future holds for us, our fans will be there to enjoy what we can give them still."
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Instead of just abandoning the work Phoenix Online put into this, can't they change the assets and the story just enough so that it's not King's Quest and release it under their own title?
Or is this the Activision standard "If it does not make us money, then kill it" attitude?
Since when did our audience become the enemy? And how exactly are we going to maintain the moral high-ground when it comes to piracy and DRM when legitimate forms of fandom are stomped on? I've always wondered why there's an almost adversarial relationship between gamers and developers. This kind of explains it.
Good job, Activision. And Kotick? Make sure you greenlight that King's Quest sequel post haste, hmm?
Well... let's think about this... My naive, corporate-devoid mind thinks:
1. Here's a bunch of people, who love the King's Quest franchise, so much that they're willing to work, for FREE, on the game. And everything I see says that it looks to be an amazing game, at that.
2. Oh, I'm sorry, you're working on that KQIX of your own, release date set to be... when, again? Clearly a conflicting interest with your need to sustain yourself as a company.
And all I can conclude, is... "Not only are not hiring them, or just saying 'here, we'll sell it for you and give you a nonexistent cut of our nonexistent profits,' you're... shutting them down entirely?"
I'd pay a lot of money to know what the heads of Activision were so worried about. Trademark infringements matter when, you know, you're marking your trade, not a long-dead genre you couldn't possibly be planning on reviving.
Boo, Activision. Boo.
While I don't think the fan project posed any real threat to Activision's IP, I can understand why they wouldn't hire those developers to actually develop a real game. Given Activision's slate of games over the last couple of years all the way through to 2011... They don't see a new King's Quest game as a worthy investment. They see the brand as an old IP that has value to the nostalgia niche market. But given that the brand is relatively unknown to what is their traditional markets (teens and 20's) and that (to them) point & click adventures are dead, a new game in the series has no perceived value to them.
King's Quest holds a very special place in my heart. But let's face facts. Even if there was a more vibrant market for point & click adventure games, the franchise was driven into the ground as Sierra (via parent companies) got purchased many times over. The vast majority of gamers out there know nothing of the series. And these gamers are too sophisticated (having started with PlayStation and/or Nintendo 64) to grasp what made these games so great. It's like trying to get someone born in the 1980's to watch silent films from the turn of the prior century.
So instead of being stuck in the past, let's use what we liked from King's Quest to develop tomorrow's games!
Good luck to them I say, I just wish all their hard work and effort was spent on their own IP which they could realise without all of these issues. I'd love for a rebirth of the point and click adventure genre.
Could it be done? Sure... but such an effort would be like making an entirely new game and it wouldn't be The Silver Lining anymore.
I would also like to point out there is a movement to reverse the Cease & Desist. Information about this movement can be found at http://savetsl.co.cc/?cat=1
Thank you for the kind words and support of The Silver Lining.