Journal Special

[Baggins]

First off, its a shame that you won't be able to present the entire game as you intended. Congratulations on finishing what you have so far. ...and good luck on your future endeavors. Hopefully the rest of the story can be released in some other form. Is Peter Spear still writing the novel?

Secondly the blog says that Vivendi Universal currently owns Sierra.

Actually isn't it Activision Blizzard now? At least sierra.com redirects to Activision's website.

[Yonkey]

Thanks for your support and understanding, darthkiwi.  What you mentioned is actually what will happen.  Once Chapters 1 & 2 have been out for some time and we get a general idea on how people feel about them, we will re-approach Vivendi to discuss a commercial license.  Their response at that time will determine whether the remaining chapters will come to fruition or not.

On the other hand, if the release of Chapters 1 & 2 create opportunities for the team to develop new products, we'll finally be able to pursue those, without having the burden of TSL on our shoulders any longer.

Chapter 3 is the only one that isn't so clear cut as the rest.  If given the opportunity to develop it commercially, it will be a game.  Otherwise, we'll really need to assess how worthwhile it would be to develop non-commercially.  We know for sure that it would have to be made in an alternate format, in order to be released in a reasonable timeframe.  But the bigger question is whether it would be worth the effort or not.  We can't really commit to a Yes or No at this point, because the way we feel today might be very different from how we'll feel 6 months from now.

I know you have said you are going to do original games and you have probably answered this question before, but I can't seem to find it. Are your original games going to be anything like KQ or other adventure games?

We haven't decided entirely on what our first original game will be yet.  All we know for sure is that it won't be based off of any Sierra-related intellectual property.

Is Peter Spear still writing the novel?

We haven't heard from him in a few years, so I'm not sure. 

Secondly the blog says that Vivendi Universal currently owns Sierra.

Actually isn't it Blizzard Activision now? At least sierra.com redirects to Activision's website.

Even after the merge, Vivendi remains the majority shareholder with 52%.  But you're right that the decision-makers the company employs today may be completely different from the ones there 4 years ago.  On the other hand, there is no trace of any classic Sierra game on Activision's site.

[Baggins]

Well, Sierra.com redirects to Activision's site. There are articles on various websites last year about the merger, and how Activision may possibly decide to sell off Sierra and their mobile game departments. Apparently Activision is making the decisions (at least for Sierra).

http://www.edge-online.com/news/activision-set-sell-sierra
http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/03/21/activision-vivendi-merger-not-quite-as-rosy-as-it-seemed
http://www.gamespot.com/news/blogs/rumor-control/909119209/26296584/activision-blizzard-freezing-out-sierra-projects.html

Other than that I don't understand the situation very well.

[Yonkey]

Those articles are 5-9 months old, and don't really say what exactly happened to Sierra after the merge.  In the 5-month-old article, they state that they're reviewing their options regarding the games they won't be publishing.

In any case, we're still going ahead with what we plan to do, and we'll just have to see how things turn out in May.

[Baggins]

Ya, like I said "last year". Not much update after that... I don't think there is any updated news after that really.

Edit:
I checked wikipedia, this is about all it had to say;
On the 9th of July 2008, the merge between Vivendi Games and Activision was complete. Around this time there were articles released stating that if a Sierra product does not meet Activision's requirements, "they won't likely be retained."[2]. Althought some of Sierra's games such as Crash Bandicoot, Spyro The Dragon, and Prototype have been retained by Activision and will be published by them.

During October, Sierra made an announcement stating that they will close their forum servers on the 1st of November 2008 (Which has been delayed for an unknown reason). Most of Sierra's games will not have a forum anymore except for Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Prototype, and Ice Age 2 (which have been retained by Activision [3])which will be moved to Activision's server. [4]

On the 10th of November 2008, Massive Entertainment was sold off to Ubisoft. [1]

Swordfish Studios is now owned by Codemasters.

Sierra's two remaining studios include High Moon Studios and Radical Entertainment, both of which are now part of the Activision Blizzard umbrella.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Entertainment (links to information there)

[Quertan]

Unfortunate...
And completely understandable.

I was just as sad as the next guy to hear that the game won't be released in its completed state. However, I am curious how far your contract with Vivendi goes, since everyone is talking about e-booking or releasing the script or whatall, I was just wondering if Vivendi had given you the rights to produce the entire script in whatever medium it may take.

However, that question aside, if you need an e-book editor, let me know. Let all of us know.
hey, who knows. an e-book beta! (ok, that wouldn't work... I lied)

[Yonkey]

Our license with Vivendi currently is for Chapters 1 & 2, but they have a clause in there which states that they will still own any derivative Sierra IP.  In other words, they would still own rights to whatever we decide to release that is Sierra-based.  Changing the medium is more to benefit us, because doing so would result in far less work and time than building a game.

[Quertan]

all right, but that still does mean that you would have to negotiate with vivendi in order to get the rights to do the continuation...
I guess I can handle that...
barely...

[sissa]

I agree with Oldbushie, Snabbot, and Quertan. An e-book, script, or a Word document would definitely be MUCH better than an epilogue at the end of Chapter 2.

Unfortuanately, it seems, as Quertan said above, that POS would need to reopen negotiation with Vivendi in order to release Chapters 3-9 in any type of format even if it was just a Word document.

What I don't understand is why POS is having to go through all this legal hassle with Vivendi considering the fact that POS is releasing this game for free.

I mean, look at AGDI...they've released King's Quest I, King's Quest II (with signifigant addition of plot changes, more puzzles, better graphics, music, etc. etc.), and Quest for Glory II. And it seems to me that AGDI did not go through all this legal stuff that POS has been dealing with

[Yonkey]

I'm fairly certain that AGDI went through the same evaluation process will be going through for QFG2, and the updated versions of KQ1VGA & KQ2VGA.  The fact that Vivendi's still giving approvals gives us some re-assurance. 

[Farquhar]

Due to my absence I first learned of the decision to only complete Chapters 1 & 2 rather late....

The work that the team has put together thus far is nothing short of breathtaking, work that has quite obviously taken much time, care, and love to create. Thus I can totally understand why the choice would be made. To put as much time into the remainder of the trilogy would surely be a difficult venture without monetary support and resources.

Vivendi would be nuts to not give you guys their full support after the release of the first two parts, but I suppose we can only wait and see.

Either way the most recent journal entry has added excitement and anticipation in regards to the ideas such creativity could bring to life in the form of new original projects!

[J-Rod]

If worse came to worst, is there any chance you guys might would give up the resources(scripts, voice acting, ect.) to group making a less technically ambitious game? Like a classic style 2D version? I'd love to see where you guys go with the story.

[atec123]

If worse came to worst, is there any chance you guys might would give up the resources(scripts, voice acting, ect.) to group making a less technically ambitious game? Like a classic style 2D version? I'd love to see where you guys go with the story.

This question has actually been asked many times.  I will try to find a link to yonkey's answer.

[liggy002]

Atec, here is the link:  http://www.postudios.com/blog/forum/index.php?topic=6626.0

[Yonkey]

Thanks for finding the link, Liggy.

The only thing I'd add to this is that I've been told that Activision (i.e. the current KQ owner) does not grant fan licenses, so it looks like it would not even be possible for another group to continue TSL. 

Also, many of the directors don't like the idea of doing other chapters in 2D.  Besides the technical complications that I previously mentioned, it would change the look and feel of the game, and would be akin to what Sierra did with KQ7 after KQ6.  And even though I enjoyed KQ7 itself, the drastic graphical change made it feel somewhat sub-par.  It did had some pros though, namely better music and auto-recovery on death.

In other words, if we were to develop further chapters commercially, they would be 3D and at least match the style of Chapters 1 & 2, if not look even better.

[Baggins]

Besides the technical complications that I previously mentioned, it would change the look and feel of the game, and would be akin to what Sierra did with KQ7 after KQ6.  And even though I enjoyed KQ7 itself, the drastic graphical change made it feel somewhat sub-par.  It did had some pros though, namely better music and auto-recovery on death.

While I understand what you are trying to say, I'd like to point out that your analogy is flawed.

Graphically KQ7 is vastly superior to KQ6. It has SVGA graphics compared to VGA. Even the sprites are SVGA graphics and therefore a higher resolution than the sprites in the previous game. The main difference between the sprites is that the previous game used a more realistic art style, while the designers decided on a disneyesque style for KQ7.

Your analogy is based on your taste in art style rather than actually an analogy of technical differences. KQ7 is not a downgrade on KQ7, it actually an upgrade technically and graphically (graphics does equate "style").

KQ6 vs. KQ7 would be more akin to Zelda games; Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask vs. Wind Waker. In that series, OOT and Majora's Mask used a more realistic art style, whereas the designers went for a cel-shaded animation style in Wind Waker. Wind Waker is technically superior in every way to previous games, but the cel-shaded style was not to everyone's tastes. The next game in the series Twilight Princess went back to a more realistic style, but the technical side is slightly better than Wind Waker. Both games are more or less gamecube generation graphic technology (though there is a WII version which likely has graphical improvements as well).  In anycase this is an argument over aesthetic choice of the designers, rather than the technical differences between the games.

A better analogy that you could have used could have been Mega Man 8 vs. Mega Man 9. In that series it went from high resolution graphics in MM8 back to the NES 8bit style in MM9. They litterally went retro for old school fans. I haven't tried the new game, but from what I understand its not just a style difference, but literally they went back to old school style of game play as well. So it literally was a technical downgrade.

[Yonkey]

I didn't say the graphical resolution was worse.  I said I felt the graphical change (i.e. the look and feel) was somewhat sub-par, relative to KQ6.