KQIX Project shuts down

[Zanthia]

...and I had just recorded my lines for Nymph #1 last night, too... I'm so depressed, I can't even blink. :[

Like everyone else, I was really looking forward to this game, and I never thought in a million years that it would be shut down.  I can honestly say this is one of the, if not THE most ambitious fan projects I have ever witnessed--and it was all the more impressive because it was actually going to HAPPEN.  Despite Vivendi supposedly just "doing what's in their best interest", I think your guys got handed a raw deal.  It's unfair, and they obviously don't get that all their doing is pissing off the very audiences they want to sell to.

I just want everyone involved to know that I truly appreciate all the incredible efforts put forth to make this game a reality, and I hope with all my heart that somehow, KQIX can be salvaged into a game that can be released without legal action being taken.  I don't know about everyone else, but I would gladly wait for however long it needs to take.  I wish all of the KQIX crew all the luck in the world, and I'll continue to follow you whereever your creativity takes you. 

[Yonkey]

The reason you received a cease and desist letter is because you are using the name "King's Quest" which is trademarked. 

Actually, we changed the name to "KQIX" a few months ago.  The title of the game isn't what Vivendi has issues with, because had that been the case they would have simply asked us to rename it.

[WThunder]

Hey you guys always did an amazing job.  Thanks for all your hard work and dedication to the project. Keep exploring those other options and keep creating games!!

[awesomeasapossum]

Please....please....please...try to make this so it will work. Maybe you could buy the rights. I know I would donate $65 dollars to the cause. PLEASE! This is going to be the worst Birthday i have ever had. It's this Saturday. Oct. 8. I love you guys. Please work this out.'

[Elessar]

What about the options you were discussing in this thread? Is there not anything you can do to keep the game with it's plot?

[sivvrianBARRY]

In my American History class a few weeks ago, we were talking about a law that states that if you do something for X amount of time without rousing any complaint, then you become legally able to continue the action regardless of whether or not there are complaints. For example, if you've cut across someone's lawn on the way to school every day for the past X amount of time, the owner of the property can't all of a sudden legally stop you from doing so.

Similarly, as I understand it, and this is where I think you could really get somewhere, companies have to actively police their trademarks in order to be able to enforce them later. The reason I am aware of this is that recently WWE has been cracking down on the most miniscule of infractions upon their trademarks. They are doing this to set a precedent, so that if someone (like the new up and coming wrestling promotion TNA) used their trademark, they would be able to shut it down. Supposedly, a court will not grant you exclusive rights to your trademark if you have been lenient with them in the past. This is why WWE is cracking down on seemingly harmless stuff, so that they still retain their legal rights if something big happens.

This is where the theory could work to your advantage. If you wanted to, and had the time, money, and resources to do so, you might be able to take Vivendi to court, stating that throughout the past 4 or whatever amount of years, you have been working hard on this game, that Vivendi has been aware of, without any kind of complaint.  Additionally, Vivendi explicitly allowed AGDInteractive to use the very same trademarks you want to use. Since Vivendi has shown this lack of interest in exclusiveness of the King's Quest trademark, they forfeit their rights to police it now. I don't even know if this could work, just putting it out there.

Damn, if I was working on this game, I'd be so bummed out. I'd probably be like Jon Stoll, just too drained to start on anything new again. Hopefully you guys can salvage it, either by going through a legal process or buying the official rights to KQ (which would be awesome, and I'd definitely contribute as much as I could to the cause).

Thanks to whoever reads this, hopefully it is somewhat informative.

[REYES]

Well i don't post very often as you can tell, i normally just pop in and see how things are going.  With that being said i wish i was posting for a happier reason.  

All i have to say is.....well i can't say what i want to....

As far as i can tell the only reason that vivendi has to send a C&D is that 1) they are re-releasing all the kq's or 2) they are going to make a new KQ.  

As a business/corporate view point (which i am all too familiar with) fan-made/independent projects are good for business as they are not a paid for service.  The independant developer isn't making any money off of it and the project actually will boost future sales of the copyright holder's projects.

My personal opinion is that I WILL NOT buy a sierra/vivendi  KQ project unless the C&D is withdrawn, i hope many more will take that stance as well, hopefully Vivendi will get the message.

[Yonkey]

What about the options you were discussing in this thread? Is there not anything you can do to keep the game with it's plot?

We weren't discussing any options in that thread, we were just saying why it's unlikely that they would try to shut us down.  Obviously, we were wrong...

[RHK]

This is really upsetting to me.  This would be completely understandable if you stood to profit from this, or you were desecrating the King's Quest name.  Of course, neither of those are the case.

There's no reason to hate Vivendi

I think any company would have done exactly the same to protect their own interests.

I couldn't agree with this any less.  In my opinion, they owe you a great debt of gratitude.  If indeed they do plan to release an official game, you have essentially done all the marketing they need.  You've proven to them that there is still interest in the series, and that a similar project may be profitable to them.  Shutting down your project at this point in development is shameful, and in my opinion, just plain bad PR.  I've heard the name Viviendi tossed around before, but don't know much about them.  However, with this news, I will make it a point NOT to buy any games from them, including a King's Quest sequel.

The greatest homage any of us can give is to work on a fangame to continue the story of the characters we've grown to love.  Of course, Vivendi can't appreciate this honor, as these aren't their characters.  This is Sierra's story.  And as such, if they choose to release a sequel, they don't have the capacity for a story that does justice to the original story and characters.  In my opinion, the best thing they could have done was to investigate what you were doing, examine your story and characters, and invest some time into using what you had planned.  Of course, that would require a true appreciation for fans of the game, as well as a genuine interest in this series.

My advice to you is to keep going.  Change the names of the characters, change their images slightly, change the title, and release the game as you had planned.  I wish you the best of luck, and hope to hear much more from Phoenix in the future.

[Kalous]

I am a freelance video game writer and a publisher with a company I will  not name here.

This decision by Vivendi has outraged me.

You have been in development for years. And now their filthy, greedy hands rip at your hard work.

They are a joke and will be recieving some interesting letters in the upcoming month as we may not be willing to work with them on a future project as originally planned.

Just wanted you to know that Vivendi did a bad thing.

I wish you well.

[awesomeasapossum]

Thank you.

[edwardmolasses]

Hi,

I'm quite sad to hear about this. I was wondering if you have any objection to my submitting this story to digg.com? I think it might motivate people to ask Vivendi to reconsider. I thought i'd ask here first in case you thought it would do more harm than good.

Here's the story i was planning to submit:

An ambitious fan game, in development since 2000 and nearing completion has been shut down by Vivendi Universal Games (a.k.a Sierra Entertainment). King's Quest IX was to be an alternative ending to the popular King's Quest series. Some project stats: 40+ staff, 2000+ page script, 9 chapters, 450 characters (sketches, textures), theme songs...

[smithgdwg]

And people wonder why the adventure genre is dying 

These companies are killing off the last source of people that can reinvent and hopefully turn-around the state of adventure gaming. The companies see no profit in adventure games, so they stop making them. The only other alternative is for fans to create free adventure games, so profit is not an issue. By shutting down this project, Vivendi (the Hell spawn of Sierra) has just killed the adventure genre even more.

I will hopefully try to get the news of this disaster to other gaming websites. People need to know how morally unjust Vivendi has just become.

I for one will be boycotting their products.

[Swiggins]

im confused as to why Vivendi waited so long for the request. wouldnt it make more sense to have asked production to be stopped at the beginning or a while ago, before all the work was put in and the project was just about complete and ready for release??? i think thats a dumb move.


EDIT (By Yonkey): Profanity removed.

[Yonkey]

Hi,

I'm quite sad to hear about this. I was wondering if you have any objection to my submitting this story to digg.com? I think it might motivate people to ask Vivendi to reconsider. I thought i'd ask here first in case you thought it would do more harm than good.

As long as you remain objective about it, sure go ahead.  Our hope is that the more awareness we create, the greater chances we and other fan-groups have.

[zac353]

Maybe instead of just getting shut down by Vivendi, maybe you can try making a deal with them. Try telling them that this game brought in a lot of interested people who wanted to play it really badly, and that maybe they should re consider shutting you guys down, and instead, you guys finish the series, and then Vivendi can distribute them on a CD for a cost, and maybe you guys could split the profit, or maybe they could just keep all of the profit since you guys weren't intending on asking for money for this game in the first place. I don't know if this could work but it is just a thought... Anyways I am really sad about this and I want to wish the team good luck!

                   -Zack

[edwardmolasses]

Hi,

I'm quite sad to hear about this. I was wondering if you have any objection to my submitting this story to digg.com? I think it might motivate people to ask Vivendi to reconsider. I thought i'd ask here first in case you thought it would do more harm than good.

As long as you remain objective about it, sure go ahead.  Our hope is that the more awareness we create, the greater chances we and other fan-groups have.

Thanks, i'll submit then. Regarding objectivity, i'm pretty much using the story i posted above, which is really just describing the facts (there's not room for much more in digg articles).bud

[edwardmolasses]

I've submitted the story, it's at the following address:

http://digg.com/gaming/Vivendi_shuts_down_BIG_King_s_Quest_fan_game

If you want to help to send it to the top of the pile so more people will see it, and you don't yet have a digg account, you can sign up at:

http://digg.com/register

and then digg the story.

Best of luck you guys, this was a big disappointment for me!

p.s. i'm not sure why but it says 'bud' at the end of my last post, please disregard that.

[KingGraham]

I can't believe Vivindi would do that to this website. I admit i was worried about copyright infringement. If you do decide to change the characters, name of the game, etc., how long do you think it would be before it came out?

im confused as to why Vivendi waited so long for the request. wouldnt it make more sense to have asked production to be stopped at the beginning or a while ago, before all the work was put in and the project was just about complete and ready for release??? i think thats a dumb move.

I definetley agree with this. Why not just shut them down from the beggining and save the staff a ton of time. Man, they could have been working on another game!

[awesomeasapossum]

I think that the thing about the law saying that, "after x number of weeks" could actually be used. Is it true that the team asked Vivendi about the project?