The Silver Lining - Cease and Desist

[Tage7]

What DOES infringe on the copyright!

That should be able to change. You should turn it into your own IP. I'm sure characters looking like kings and princesses is not their property.

Change a few names and garb colors, and names of places.

Think of what Bohemia Interactive did

and the Farcry/Crysis split.

You would have to break from the initial project while you change the assets, and try to emerge without any mention of this project.

The character names and likenesses, the locations possibly including several map layouts, and the background story that TSL's story is intimately woven into. Whether all of these would hold up in court as infringing materials or not is debatable, but it is still a difficult task to alter any of these materials whether separate or altogether. I am not, however, debating the fact that it may very well come to this if they want to release the game. I'm just saying it'll take a while to achieve.

[fred]

hi,
Will you keep the mailing list in order to advise fans here and there of any possible further action you'd like to do ?

[Exeron]

I've been watching this site for 3 years now. King quest and all of the other sierra products been in my family for the last 20 years.
I'm french Canadian and all those "quest" series are the reason I now write to you in english.
I was thrilled to see that some independent producers were doing a new king quest. I actually was cheering.
After this, I have nothing to say but f*** EM'. It's not gonna be king graham, its gonna be king Mogram..........
I am gonna boycott any activision product from now on and I encourage you to do the same.

[koko_99_2001]

Hey Cat, out of curiosity, any idea how many letters you sent last time?

(Posted on: February 28, 2010, 11:19:37 PM)

holy shnaps I've never seen so many guests. broke the record of most online with 121. If only it was because the game was released, not ended.

I know it was under 200...I want to say in the 160s? And I only collected petitions for 2 weeks.

[mo]

I'm another of the (clearly many) enthusiasts of this project who never got around to joining the forums or participating beyond anticipation and occasionally checking on the site.

My respect and deepest sympathy for the whole team. This is truly a shameful move by Activision. Yet another company which seems has completely lost touch with the heart and soul of their industry - fan enthusiasm. As if we needed another big company to demonstrate that they are within their legal right to treat people like crap.

Companies with their heads screwed on might see the sort of fan enthusiasm which results in nearly a decade of hard work and a persisting community as an asset, a resource to be nurtured. I guess with so much coin rolling in from the big franchises they don't feel the need to include things like respect and generosity in their business model. They don't feel the need to respect fans of older or smaller IPs which brought the industry to the heights it has reached today.

They are a souless machine. In honesty, Activision have been dead to me for a long time. How about we stop throwing money at these fumbling colossi and support indie devs and the few bigger devs who give a damn. Enough supporting monopolic corporate filth.

[koko_99_2001]

What will happen will happen and I have absolute faith in Yonkey, Cat, and the development team.  I know they will do what is right and I am absolutely positive there is more to come.

Hear, hear.  If the team can get through this once, they can do it twice.

You guys are wonderful *smiles*

[mo]

Sorry to have projected such negative energy on here! I just find this stuff maddening. You guys have my full support. Should you ever develop your own IP and release anything commercially, I'll be among the first to buy it.

[Vanderhoth]

I think I might cry. I've been waiting for this game since I first read about it at least 2003. I'm a developer and work on my own simple hobby games so I know how much effort would go into a game of this size. I hope Phoenix doesn't let this set back ruin future projects.

I'm so sorry.

[Erpy]

To the folks suggesting a leak...last time I heard, Contract Breach is still an offense most companies take seriously. (a lot more seriously than copyright infringement) I personally would never ask another person to open himself up to litigation just for my own personal enjoyment.

As for changes, this one came up a few years ago as well. Seeing that TSL was a game purposely modelled after the KQ franchise, it's not so easy as changing a few names. Not to mention the fact that since Activision already owns TSL in a legal sense, continuing the game without their consent (with or without references to existing IP) would be near impossible without redoing stuff from scratch.

[Buster]

I just want to express my sadness over this deed done by Activision.
However, I do not want the team to go out and leak the game.
The team needs to act within the law by fx. this petition and negotaite further with Activision.
The easiest way for us consumers is to abandon all Activision/Blizzard games in the future at least for as long as it takes for them to rethink the the Cease and Desist.
To our friend who keeps on with the leaking part, you should instead give the team support in their efforts to get up running again.

[Guest I guess]

Hey is this the game that the smoker guy who used to be an admin at Daily Click helped make? The one whos rich girl friend bought him a PSP and like 10 games for christmas years ago?

[A.R.C.C.]

I joined back in 2006, and I'd been following this since before the re-formation of the team (I think), but I never thought my first post would be in response to news like this.

I grew up on King's Quest, and my first computer experience was King's Quest IV. I learned to read from the KQ4 manual, much to the chagrin of my preschool teachers. To say it influenced my life, my ideals, and my way of thinking is a gross understatement. I've waited ten years for this. I'd wait another twenty if that would actually get us TSL, but I won't lie down before something like this. We have done this before. We need to show them that we're still strong and it wasn't a fluke last time.

I've begun the process of rallying members from some non-sierra fangame-making communities I belong to to sign the petition. TSL was something of a beacon; proof that it could be done and done ambitiously. It's not just important to King's Quest fans, but to fangame-makers and indie developers everywhere. Get the word out! 100,000 signatures should be small fry if we can do that much.

(On an sad note, I recently lost all of the KQ9/TSL music I'd collected over the years in a hard drive failure. I had everything from "Arch Druid," "Alexander" and "Nightmary's Theme" up to "The Day You Were Gone." I'd slay a dragon just for even some of that back. . .)

[tancients]

The only real way to boycott would be to not buy their products -- which is sad because I'm so psyched for Diablo III, Starcraft II, and WoW: Cataclysm.

You might be even more sad to realize that in order to develop Diablo 3, they hired on some of the original Diablo 2 people, and then promptly fired them once whatever task they were needed for was done. This (ActiBlizz) is not a company that cares about it's fans, or even it's own employees beyond making more money.  Have you noticed the slow gradiation of wow into having the beginnings of a cash shop?  It's because they've stopped growing.  They're stagnating on subscriptions, and in some cases even losing.  So the intent with WoW is to milk it for as much money as they can before releasing their new MMO in development.  While the original intent was to keep Activision away from Blizzard, as they were doing fine, the cold fingers of greed always find a way.

More on topic however; perhaps just a little more transparency concerning what transpired between Activision and POStudios?  As someone mentioned, having a lawyer (of which I'm sure there are a couple among the fans anticipating this game) look over the negotiations and such would find a suitable way to resolve it.

Also, Vivendi is still the parent company.  Have you approached them in regards to this?  It isn't out of their hands to enforce their child (Activision) to uphold the agreement for the license.  Just like in any job, sometimes you have to go to your boss' boss to get anything done.  Just because the IP is under activision doesn't exclude it from still being under Vivendi as well.

[Joseph]

Or why don't you offer the workmanship as part of a distribution deal.

Activision FanGame label or something like that, over steam/app stores.

[Yonkey]

hi,
Will you keep the mailing list in order to advise fans here and there of any possible further action you'd like to do ?

Yes.  We will keep you guys informed of any new developments.

[RIDance]

I don't think I have anything helpful to say at all. I'm pretty speechless. And pissed. I've been following this since the very beginning. Sorry this is happening. Please don't give up. I'll be sure to sign/send anything that might be helpful. I don't know what else to say...

[Bludshot]

My condolences.  While it is a shame to see such hard work casually tossed away, I feel honored to witness such dedication to a franchise that I previously did not know existed.  

The staff's work and vision is admirable, and I hope this upset will not discourage you guys from pursuing other dreams.

Thank you.

[ximian]

I personally think the only way to get this back on track is to start a BAN on activision.. $$ talks and a ban of their products will hurt them and make them reflect. Google is your friend start flooding the game forums left and right ...

Bet you it won't take long that Activision will see the light of day ...

You can count me in, i will no longer buy an Activision product ..!

[Z]

You should get some free legal council or something.

Depending on what the terms were of the original licence you may still have rights to it. When IPs change corporate hands they are still legally responsible to fulfill the terms of licences that exist. Unless you breach the terms of the licence they gave you they don't seem to have the rights to take that action.

...but I can't be sure. This is why you should seek some free public legal council, or contact someone that may be a fan or knows a fan and works in IP law.

Good luck!

[Bludshot]

I personally think the only way to get this back on track is to start a BAN on activision.. $$ talks and a ban of their products will hurt them and make them reflect. Google is your friend start flooding the game forums left and right ...

Bet you it won't take long that Activision will see the light of day ...

You can count me in, i will no longer buy an Activision product ..!

That wouldn't work least of all now.  Activision-Blizzard is releasing Diablo III and Starcraft II, highly anticipated games, not to mention WOW expansions.