The Silver Lining - Cease and Desist

[waltzdancing]

I have posted links to the save TSL site and to these forums in the comments section on the Joystiq article. Reading the comments, it appears that there are people really wanting a new KQ game. Every person who contributes is hopefully one step closer to a release.

Thanks SurfnSwells. We are going to keep on top of Activision and hopefully they will change their minds. I'm keeping tabs on the petitions and hope to have a response back next week, I don't really want to call again unless I have too, I think I was driving the operator nuts.  Hopefully the petitions will start some kind of talks again, that is the first step in my opinion.

[liggy002]

Waltz, it is great that the team continues to persist.  I can only hope that the remaining chapters will be released as well.  An incomplete King's Quest game with no ending would ruin the franchise.  I'm just being honest about that.  I'm sure that the team will overcome that obstacle as well, I have faith in them.  I also hope that the release of the remaining of the Chapters have a place in their talks as well.

[Petra Rocks]

Another thing to remember is that if the rumors about Activision selling the Sierra IP are true, in a little while you might be negotiating with a totally different party whether or no Activision grants you any kind of fan license, in which case what they do or don't grant you is actually more or less irrelevant.  Not that it hurts to move now, but even if Activision is impossible, it might be possible another chance will open up in the future.

[crayauchtin]

Another thing to remember is that if the rumors about Activision selling the Sierra IP are true, in a little while you might be negotiating with a totally different party whether or no Activision grants you any kind of fan license, in which case what they do or don't grant you is actually more or less irrelevant.  Not that it hurts to move now, but even if Activision is impossible, it might be possible another chance will open up in the future.

If Activision is looking to sell and POS is looking to buy.... I see an equitable agreement coming our way!

[Petra Rocks]

Assuming it can afford it. 

[waltzdancing]

If Activision wants to get rid of the Sierra IP, then they might take the first offer. If POS wants to buy it then they need to look for some type of financing until the sierra IP can start generating revenue and TSL will also be a nice income for them as well.

[Erpy]

Mind if I inquire to the origin of the rumors that Activision wants to get rid of the Sierra IP?

As to the first offer thing...that might depend on what that first offer is. I don't think they'll ever be so desperate as to sell the Sierra IP below its value.

I'm not certain how much they'd ask, but when Ken Williams sold Sierra, he got 1.5 billion for it. So let's say the price of all Sierra IP would be about 33% of that by now. That's still 500.000.000 bucks. Most Sierra classics are sold for bargain bin prices between 5 and 20 dollar. That probably includes the last two Leisure Suit Larry games by now. How exactly would you ever make that kind of money back?



(oh goody, I'm post 666)

[Yonkey]

I'm not certain how much they'd ask, but when Ken Williams sold Sierra, he got 1.5 billion for it.

Mind if I inquire to the details of that transaction?   Was that based purely on the value of the IP at the time, or was it more to do with the sale of the company itself?  I always assumed it was the latter.

[tessspoon]

*squeee* new plot bits!

Need. game. now.

 

[Erpy]

I don't know the details myself, though obviously that sum was for the company itself. I have no idea how much of it was the solid stuff like the office building and interior and how much was the intellectual property, distribution rights and goodwill associated with the IP. Ken himself might have a better idea.

That said, now you're here anyway, would you be adverse to clarifying whether the Joystiq article was talking about a commercial license or actual franchises? The article itself has conflicting parts about that.

[blahmoomoo]

You may also want to keep in mind that the Sierra IP may include newer games too.  It appears that some games published by Sierra after being purchased by CUC are still part of Sierra while others have been transferred to Activision.  However, purchasing the IP of all the old Sierra franchises may be negotiable, if Activision refuses to only sell the King's Quest IP alone.

Of course, a commercial license would likely be cheaper, even if the KQ IP could be purchased by itself, since Activision could negotiate a slice of the profits or give themselves some other advantage through the license rather than give up all rights to KQ.  Though it would be nice if they were like "ah, whatever, here's the KQ IP for a reasonable price."

[waltzdancing]

I have looked around for an article stating that Activision wanted to sell Sierra however they were all dated 2008. I think since Activision is selling the games on GOG now that they might want to keep the IP around. We just have to sit tight and let Activision make the next move before we can plan our own next move. Chess is a game that takes time and we've made ours, now we just have to wait.

[Dan]

Here you go Neil.  The sad story of Sierra On-Line.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Entertainment

From the article:

Sold to CUC

"In 1996, CUC International, a membership-based consumer services conglomerate, aggressively sought to expand into interactive entertainment and in February 1996 offered to buy Sierra at a price of approximately $1.5 billion. The company was sold to CUC on July 24, 1996. Immediately after the sale closed, Ken Williams stepped down as CEO of Sierra. Ken stayed with the software division as a Vice President of CUC so that he could provide strategic guidance to Sierra and began to work on CUC's online product distributor, NetMarket. One year later, Ken and Roberta left CUC."

I hope this story ends with a Silver Lining being released for all the fans.

[TheReturnofDMD]

I'm not certain how much they'd ask, but when Ken Williams sold Sierra, he got 1.5 billion for it.

Mind if I inquire to the details of that transaction?   Was that based purely on the value of the IP at the time, or was it more to do with the sale of the company itself?  I always assumed it was the latter.

The entire company was sold in July 1996--so 1.5 billion was for the WHOLE company, including IPs, physical studios, etc.

(Posted on: April 03, 2010, 08:51:55 PM)

I don't know the details myself, though obviously that sum was for the company itself. I have no idea how much of it was the solid stuff like the office building and interior and how much was the intellectual property, distribution rights and goodwill associated with the IP. Ken himself might have a better idea.

That said, now you're here anyway, would you be adverse to clarifying whether the Joystiq article was talking about a commercial license or actual franchises? The article itself has conflicting parts about that.

I had heard Activision would be willing to sell each IP separately--For example I heard at one point a buyer was looking to buy the IP to Space Quest; Codemasters purchased Leisure Suit Larry.

[waltzdancing]

Codesmasters didn't buy the IP. When Activision and Vivindi merged, the title was dropped and codesmasters picked it up. That was according to an article that I read. I think it would be cool is POS could buy the IP, but we need to wait and see what they say first

[RollingStone]

According to this page, written in Ken's own words:

"I did make a call to see if Sierra could be bought back, but have no idea how I would raise the $500 million or so it might take."

Obviously, that's a lot less than $1.5 billion, so I guess that means the company's monetary value has gone way down since it was sold.

[waltzdancing]

That i.5 billion was for the building too. POS just wants Kings Quest and I think Activision might want to work something out. Like I said before, I am following up on the petition letters and if I have the time, and if Yonkey has not been contacted yet, I will start to ask more questions. Money talks and I think if Activision can be persuaded to grant a commercial licence, which I don't think the fans will have a problem raising some of the money, they will see how much money they can make from this game and all they did was gain, they spent nothing on it. I hope they see that with this deal.
I hope this made sense to those who read it.

[Petra Rocks]

I have no idea where the rumors originate, I imagine I must have hear them here since I don't read anything relating to Activision otherwise.  Anyway, before any of this buying talks means anything you'll have to get an actual price quote from somebody, not try to guess based on what a different package of IP's and other buildings and what not sold for over a decade ago.    Until then it's just wind in the grass, as we say. 

[Erpy]

Anybody considered that the difference in costs between a commercial license and buying a well-known franchise is probably enough to hire a team of industry professionals to replace the game's visuals and programming with something that matches today's technological demands? How much would the bragging rights of owning a franchise really be worth?

[waltzdancing]

I hope Activision will grant a commercial license but  even if they don't maybe they will sell just the Kings Quest IP, they have already ripped apart the franchise when they dropped some titles when the merger happened. Like I have said many times, we just need to wait and see.