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Save The Silver Lining Petition

Started by oberonqa, March 01, 2010, 12:26:29 AM

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oberonqa

Save The Silver Lining Petition is now up and active at the following URL:

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/savetsl

Here is a copy of the actual petition:

Background:

On February 28, 2010, Activision issued a Cease and Desist order against fan developer Phoenix Online Studios, who has been hard at work on The Silver Lining, an unofficial sequel to the venerable King's Quest series. Visitors to the game's website, located at http://www.tsl-game.com are now greeted with the following letter from the development team:

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To Our Fans:

In 2005, Phoenix Online Studios received a Cease & Desist letter from Vivendi Universal, the owners of the King's Quest IP, in regards to our work on The Silver Lining. We complied with the request, and over the months that followed, we were able to work out a non-commercial fan license with Vivendi that allowed us to continue our work on the game.

We have spent a lot of time recently reworking the material of The Silver Lining into episodic releases, with the first out of a planned five episodes completed, and submitted for review, and had hoped we would be able to bring our game to you, the fans, in the Spring of 2010.

Recently, however, ownership of the Sierra IP changed hands and became the property of Activision. After talks and negotiations in the last few months between ourselves and Activision, they have 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.

As before, we must and will comply with this decision, as much as we may wish we could do otherwise.

We cannot say enough how much we appreciate the support we have had over these years from our fans. Without you, we would never have gotten this far. There would be no game to develop, and no one to develop it for. You have been amazing and steadfast, and we will always remember that and appreciate it more than we can say.

Sadly, after eight years of dedicated work and even more dedicated fans, The Silver Lining project is closing down.

What the future holds for us, as individuals or a team, we cannot say. We have an amazing development team, however, filled with talented and hard-working individuals, and we hope the teamwork and rapport we have developed will not 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.

Again, thank you all so much for everything. This has been a long and crazy road, full of more twists than we could have anticipated, but more triumphs and wonderful memories than we could have ever hoped for. And for that, to all of you and to everyone on our team, we will always be grateful.

Thank You,

The Silver Lining Development Team

In compliance with Activision's request, most of our forums are coming down. However, we are keeping a few new, empty forums open so fans can stay in touch with one another and with us. Please visit: http://www.postudios.com/blog/forum/index.php?topic=8394.0

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As many of you will recall, back in 2005, Phoenix Online Studios was issued a Cease and Desist by Vivendi Universal for the development of King's Quest IX. After a lengthy petition and review process, Vivendi Universal granted the developer a limited non-commercial license to develop their game, which was renamed "The Silver Lining".

However, with Activision's recent acquisition of Viviendi Universal's properties, the fate of The Silver Lining came into question yet again. Today that fate appears to be sealed. The Cease and Desist issued by Activision calls for the immediate cease in production of the game as well as taking down all related materials from the game's website. At this time, the game website has been taken down and the bulk of the game's community forums has been taken down by the development team in an attempt to comply with the order.

What We Want:

We, the fans and supporters of The Silver Lining, hereby request that Activision, the current Intellectual Property (IP) holder of the King's Quest brand, retract their Cease & Desist order and allow Phoenix Online Studios to finish development of The Silver Lining. Furthermore, we, the fans and supporters of The Silver Lining, hereby request that Activision, the current Intellectual Property (IP) holder of the King's Quest brand, grant Phoenix Online Studios the ability to present a finished product to them for review prior to releasing the game in accordance with the terms of the non-commercial license that was originally granted by Vivendi Universal in 2005.

We, the fans and supporters of The Silver Lining, acknowledge the importance of ensuring brand integrity and acknowledge Activision's right to ensuring all products based on one of their Intellectual Properties (IP) should be of the highest caliber in terms of quality and content. We, the fans and supporters of The Silver Lining, ask that The Silver Lining be allowed to finish it's development and enter a fair and impartial review process by Activision to ensure The Silver Lining meets these expectations of quality and content.

Those who sign this petition are fans and supporters of The Silver Lining project.
 
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Haids1987

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Perpetually. ;D
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oberonqa

 
Chronicling the history of Sierra through the conversion of it's premiere magazine into an easy-to-use, searchable wiki format.

crayauchtin

Oh, I didn't see this thread before. :P

The Petition is written superbly, Oberonqa, and I think it's perfect in that sense. However (as I said in the C&A thread), online petitions often don't seem to have the kind of impact that offline petitions have even in this Internet age. Would we be able to take your writing and turn it into the kind of campaign that was used in 2005?
http://www.savekqix.bravehost.com/
I would be perfectly willing to have everything mailed to me and to send out the final package of petitions.

Of course, we could also try the online petition first and if that doesn't work, try the offline one as Plan B. I think doing both at once seems like a bad idea though.

(Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, a good example of what I mean is what happened when SciFi canceled Farscape -- the online petition had no effect but when the offline campaign "Crackers DO Matter" began (along with a coinciding offline petition), SciFi softened and eventually created a miniseries to give closure to the fans... although this may have had to do with the number of stale crackers they also received in the mail....)
(And yes, I know because I participated in both petitions and the letter-writing -- although I did not send crackers with my letter...)
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oberonqa

Might be something we can discuss.  Shoot me a PM with what you have in mind.
 
Chronicling the history of Sierra through the conversion of it's premiere magazine into an easy-to-use, searchable wiki format.

Delling

*signs*

I was going to write up something for an offline petition this afternoon, so if you guys are PMing, I'd like to be in the loop. :)
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atec123

How about having a printable petition you can sign and mail to someone on  this sexy website im making?

would that work?

And about doing an online petition... I don't think there is much of a chance of it working..... never hurts to try it though.

Again, still not thinking straight but...

Ok I will sign this online thingie.....
Quote from: Delling on March 01, 2010, 07:30:16 AM
*signs*

I was going to write up something for an offline petition this afternoon, so if you guys are PMing, I'd like to be in the loop. :)
Cool.  I think we should get a bunch of petitions written and maybe decide  whitch one is best...

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oberonqa

An offline petition is still possible, but might be a good idea to give the online petition some time.  It's in position now and there so articles that pop up on gaming websites can mention it (if they want) and people coming to the forums have an immediate avenue to show their support of TSL. 

Crayauchtin is working on a form letter that people can print out and mail into Activision, which we both think would be a great accessory to the online petition. 
 
Chronicling the history of Sierra through the conversion of it's premiere magazine into an easy-to-use, searchable wiki format.

MangoMercury

I've linked the petition on my Facebook and implored even non-fans to sign it (gotten at least one person I know to do it so far); the more widespread this petition is, hopefully the more signatures we'll get!
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waltzdancing

I have done the same to my facebook. I don't know if anyone has signed yet.

oberonqa

The more the better folks.  Keep up the great work on spreading the word about the petition! 
 
Chronicling the history of Sierra through the conversion of it's premiere magazine into an easy-to-use, searchable wiki format.

dark-daventry

I posted it on my facebook too. I'm going to spread the word about it, and I may even go down to my local Gamestop and implore them to sign it.
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atec123

Quote from: dark-daventry on March 01, 2010, 01:30:48 PM
I posted it on my facebook too. I'm going to spread the word about it, and I may even go down to my local Gamestop and implore them to sign it.
OOH.  That's a good idea.  There is a game stop within walking distance of my house so I might go over there later today.
Official maintainer of TSL in linux via Wine. TSL AppDB page
Maintainer of TSL in OSX via Wine
TSL IRC Chatroom Maintainer
We are the Defenders of Jazz Ballet
People say, when they see us:
Hey, folks! It's the Saviours of Jazz Ballet
Fearless heroes of kick and spin

dark-daventry

Quote from: atec123 on March 01, 2010, 01:32:52 PM
Quote from: dark-daventry on March 01, 2010, 01:30:48 PM
I posted it on my facebook too. I'm going to spread the word about it, and I may even go down to my local Gamestop and implore them to sign it.
OOH.  That's a good idea.  There is a game stop within walking distance of my house so I might go over there later today.

Yeah, I'm good with the manager of my local Gamestop, and one of the employees is a huge adventure game fan, so checking in with Gamestop is a pretty good thing to do. And besides, I have to pick up some new games anyway...
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Gay and proud of it!

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oberonqa

Worth a shot... just be sure to be respectful of the store.  Might be a good idea to print out the petition statement and take it with you... and be sure to talk to whoever is working at the store prior to engaging guests to make sure it's OK to do this.  

I say these things because I work at a video game store as an assistant manager (as you may recall, I got out of the trucking business back in 2008 due to medical problems).
 
Chronicling the history of Sierra through the conversion of it's premiere magazine into an easy-to-use, searchable wiki format.

thegreatpjdj

Just a suggestion: link to the petition on the main forum page and DON'T make people set up an account. The extra step will deter people from signing it for sure.

Hope it works out guys!

dark-daventry

Quote from: oberonqa on March 01, 2010, 01:37:22 PM
Worth a shot... just be sure to be respectful of the store.  Might be a good idea to print out the petition statement and take it with you... and be sure to talk to whoever is working at the store prior to engaging guests to make sure it's OK to do this. 

I say these things because I work at a video game store as an assistant manager (as you may recall, I got out of the trucking business back in 2008 due to medical problems).

I was actually just thinking of getting the store employees to sign it more so than getting customers to sign it. I don't have the time to stand around and get people to sign it. I have homework to do tonight...
Founder of the (new) Left Handed Alliance Of Left Handed People (LHALHP)

Gay and proud of it!

Avid Adventure Game fan

mateo360

I can't remember I said this already or not, but the Sierra Help files website had a topic on this and I got the petition link up there.
\  |  /SUN           "For Peace and Justice!"
-(   )-KNIGHT     "A Solider in Blazing Armor!"
/  |  \POWER!    "Solar Knight!"
        BUILD UP! "In the Name of the Sun, I will destroy you!"

oberonqa

Nice!  Thank you Mateo!  I have to leave to goto work here soon and it puts my mind at ease to know that there will be others out there keeping the torch lit while I am at work.

Thank you thank you thank you.  :)

(Posted on: March 01, 2010, 01:38:10 PM)


There's also been some Twitter activity about the petition on the #kingsquest and #activision sections....
 
Chronicling the history of Sierra through the conversion of it's premiere magazine into an easy-to-use, searchable wiki format.

Oldbushie

I've signed it. Thank you so much for spreading the word, I did my part. :)
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