Finding the Silver Lining

by Dan on March 1, 2010

A bit of buzz from Kotaku and Joystiq this morning concerning The Silver Lining, a fan-made sequel to the King’s Quest series that has been in the works since 2002. As the stories note, the team at Phoenix Online Studios was hit with a cease & desist in 2005, then Sierra changed its mind and gave them special permission about five months later. But two years after the rights have changed hands, a new C&D has been issued and the project has been shut down.

Naturally, this means Activision is evil — just  another case of King Graham versus horrible monsters. While some game publishers and developers are more enlightened than others, saying “hey, stop using stuff we own” is hardly unique to Activision. C&Ds are issued by entertainment companies every day for any number of reasons (I suspect strongly that if someone wanted to make their own sequel to Mirror’s Edge or Monkey Island, they’d be told to stop, too).

But people have come to me asking my opinion and/or to explain Activision’s logic. I can’t do that; I just woke up from a 10-day international business trip. I didn’t call any of the lawyers or ask for a statement. Instead I’m going to shoot from the hip with my own points. I’m not speaking for the company on this one.

I don’t want OneOfSwords to turn into “let me defend this unpopular action” but I think I will this time, because there’s a few things that factor in here that are worth mentioning, whether you agree with them or not:

1) The King’s Quest series was dormant when these fans took up their sequel project — arguably, that’s WHY they took it up, right? Well, last week saw the reissue of KQ 4, 5 and 6 on GoG.com. To me this seems to counter the “but they weren’t using it anyway” arguments; a license in use is a license worth protecting. Does this move suggest Activision might be planning to create its own KQ sequel? I honestly don’t know, and haven’t heard any such talk yet, but other times I’ve seen companies circle the legal wagons, it’s because they have plans. Joystiq noted over a year ago that Activision had no plans to do anything with the license, even though that’s in direct opposition to the existence of the KQ six-pack that Activision offers on its own digital download page. Anyway, have your plans changed at all in the last 15 months, or are you still waiting in line to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button?

2) The fan license was granted in November of 2005. Quoting Pheonix Studios: “Recently, however, ownership of the Sierra IP changed hands and became the property of Activision.” To be fair, the Activision/Vivendi merger happened in 2007. I know making a game takes time; making a game with volunteers takes much, much longer, as the Wikipedia timeline suggests. The team said they were aiming for a spring 2010 release, but…well, how long should a fan license like that last? What were the terms of this agreement? Was this fan license agreement totally open-ended and without any sort of limits? This will sound very, very cruel and I don’t want it to, but if you are going to enter a business agreement — even a friendly business agreement — you are still conducting business. There are certain realities to that, and this looks like one of them that could have happened at any time. Things change.

As a fan of the old Sierra games, I was thrilled to see that unique license granted and have been waiting like the rest of the world to see what they were working on. But it’s pretty clear that this has nothing to do with the creative output and effort of the Phoenix team and everything to do with intellectual property law. It’s not evil, it’s business.

3) So that leads to my big question: Why not remove the King’s Quest elements and make it an original IP? KQ was always about fantasy and fairy-tale storytelling aspects; that isn’t owned. Remove the direct relations to the KQ universe and none of that work will be wasted. You can give up and walk away, wasting eight years or work…or you can realize that this frees you to make your OWN game with your OWN rights that you OWN. Yes, this will delay the game further…but after eight years, will nobody wait nine or ten?

Do I wish Activision had found another way around this? Sure, and lots of “what if” scenarios come to mind. But Phoenix spoke with the lawyers for months before shutting down; I am betting some of those what-if ideas were discussed and not found to be feasible. But “make it your own” seems like the most proactive thing of all.

Ultimately I guess I do not understand why they would stop instead of change. I mean, your studio is called Phoenix, for crying out loud.  Your game is called The Silver Lining. Please, look for it and bring that game out as the labor of love it was always intended to be. Ultimately, is this about your work or someone else’s license?

There is no reason to say “Activision killed our game” if it’s not their game.

That’s my opinion, anyway.

  • http://twitter.com/litrock Matt

    Well, there is a reason to say they killed the game. Because … you know, they did. It sucks, but I'm not going to hate Activision for it. Square Enix pulled this on the Chrono Trigger 3D project, too, which was an equally lame move. Doesn't mean I stopped buying their games or some nonsense.

    That said, it's still pretty poor form. It's not as if Activision is going to make a new King's Quest game in the next three years. I'd be willing to put money on that.

  • http://twitter.com/reddjoey Joey Mock

    Dan,

    Thanks for the comment, especially shooting from the hip. I don't think anyone expects you to defend your boss, but we want to see if we can squeeze you for information and help you with damage control a bit.

    It's only reasonable that a new IP owner would want to take steps to protect the IP they “just” paid for, after all failure to protect once opens up the doors to all kinds of legal problems.

    I hope this developer gets it together and makes something out of this

  • http://oneofswords.com/ Dan (OneOfSwords)

    But did Activision kill the *game* or simply kill the licensing agreement? That's my point; their effort/creative output/playable code and Activision's license strike me as related, but separable. If they want it, anyway.

    They have a vocal support group. Is that group going to stop supporting their efforts if it doesn't say KQ? I think those fans will have their back regardless of whether it's a KQ project or a Silver Lining project.

  • http://twitter.com/Aeshir Joshua Trombley

    I wholeheartedly agree with your opinion about making it their own game. Hopefully the ties to King's Quest don't run too deep to separate the backstory/content.

    However, I do think it is thickheaded of Activision to be so controlling about this, and simply kill it (unless business agreements really did conflict that much). Fan-made projects like this keep interest in old, stale franchises and their communities alive between releases, and help sell copies on services like GoG even years after a series is long-removed from any chance of being brought back. If Phoenix isn't planning to profit off this, then the free publicity garnered by Activision from a project like this is good thing for everyone concerned.

    For those wanting to hear a little more on this subject, I suggest listening to TalkRadar 51.

    I KNOW, I know. TalkRadar isn't exactly known for being a well of intelligent discussion, but this time it holds true. This episode is from when the makers of a Chrono Trigger fan project were sent a Cease and Desist from Square Enix. The situation isn't exactly the same, but many of the same principles hold up.

    http://www.gamesradar.com/f/talkradar-51-all-sa…

  • oberonqa

    There is a petition available for fans and supporters of The Silver Lining over at http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/savetsl/

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/T6LFMP2HOYPYX44CO4LCZH6WXE Jeremy W

    That would be my concern. That it is SO tied to the world, lore, and backstory, that separating that out and making it “its own game” would result in a very disjointed, shallow story.

  • Sendian

    I'm a bit divided on this – but I lean more towards POS than Activision in this instance. The adventure game genre was all about highly-developed and immersing *storytelling*, and so in a real sense, a fan-based game derived from the KQ IP is more along the lines of a complicated format work of fanfiction than the way it seems be be portrayed… which is taking someone's idea, creating a game, and implying that it was your own work.

    Also, TSL does not really continue the KQ saga, or attempt to steer the series' plot in any particular direction in a practical way. When the last Official installment of Kings Quest was released, all the principle characters in TSL had been removed from the flow of the main storyline. If it wasn't for the game starting and ending in Daventry, and a few brief cameos of the family that made up all seven preceding installments, there would be no real link between KQVIII and the rest of the series outside the publisher and the game title. TSL, as I understand it, is a work of fan fiction that suggests what might have happened to the royal family between KQVII and their apparent decline in KQVIII which is never really explained. It also suggests possible explanations for what seemed to be plot holes or suggested plotlines that ran through multiple installments but were either abandoned or perhaps unintentional.

    As far as simply recreating TSL as an independent game without referencing the KQ series, I don't think impractical is sufficient to describe the suggestion. I don't know about the original successive two chapters (that were, to my knowledge, originally abandoned), but the first chapter exists almost entirely within the lands featured in the later KQ games. Aside from having to re-record the voice-over dialogue – assuming the original voice cast is still available – the character models and the vast majority of the game environment would have to be completely replaced, possibly even a good portion of the game's musical score, depending on how heavily it borrowed from previous scores as well.

    What does get me a bit about the whole thing is that aside from the interest in the recently-republished series games like these tend to stir up, is the fact that there are scores of sites out there dedicated solely to text-based fan-fiction that nobody seems to bat an eye at. Entire stories that completely defy the logic established by the original work flood the internet, that nothing much is ever said about to my knowledge. I guess I have difficulty understanding how adding visuals to it suddenly creates such a big conflict of interest.

  • Sendian

    Incidentally, the C&D order is not why there are people that think Activision is evil. I think it has more to do with finding a title that sells, milking it longer and harder than the Rocky movies ever thought about doing by flooding the market with countless sequels and expansions full of increasingly inane fluff, and ensuring in any way possible that a “50 dollar game purchase” becomes “500 dollars worth of overall spending”. Wasn't that how that guitar nonsense was described in an interview by the CEO?

  • Graham

    The voice acting alone makes changing the characters and places an infeasible solution. Furthermore, the entire plotline of the game is tie up loose ends from the first seven installments and explain Connor and the basically unrelatedness of Mask of Eternity. As far as conclusions go, that wasn't one.

    Activision has made the King's Quest games available, this is certainly true. They are doing more with it than has been accomplished in more than a decade (other than fan remakes). In that sense, I could see why they would be looking to protect the IP.

    However, in all of my life, I have never been able to play one King's Quest game and say “Oh, that was fun, what will I play next?” It's an all or nothing deal for me and most people I know of who've played the games agree. Which means, by releasing a new one — even a free fan-made new one — sales increase. Plus, there's new people introduced to the franchise. Plus the regular sales that happen anyways. Not to mention, the current popularity of Telltale Games indicates that the adventure genre is coming back.
    So, in other words? TSL was almost certainly going to make Activision money, NOT harm their IP.

    Let's be serious for a moment — I play several Activision games (ok, they're Blizzard games but they're still owned by Activision!). Even if Activision does make another King's Quest, it's going to be Mask of Eternity all over again. A brand new game that has nothing to do with the rest of the series and that's not even similar in gameplay.

    What I'm trying to say is that they just don't get it. And if they did they would understand that, while legally within their rights, this move was simply not a good idea for this IP.

  • ~B

    “I hope this developer gets it together and makes something out of this”

    That's an incredibly unfair statement considering they've had “it together” for 8 years already!

    “You can give up and walk away, wasting eight years or work…or you can realize that this frees you to make your OWN game with your OWN rights that you OWN. Yes, this will delay the game further…but after eight years, will nobody wait nine or ten?”

    That's just not that realistic. So, you say games take time and volunteer games much longer. It's been 8 years and they were finally looking at making their initial release–what you ask is that they redo textures and modelling, rewrite the script, redo the voice acting, etc. You are not asking them to flip some magic switch that filters out all that is King's Quest from the game: you are asking them essentially–TO MAKE ANOTHER GAME. Oh, and simultaneously–you are asking them to destroy with their own hands everything that they wanted this game to be.

    No, Activision did not kill a license. If the C&D isn't removed, they killed a game and a dream.

  • RadialSkid

    The face of copyright is changing worldwide, and Big Media is powerless to stop it. Companies are finding out the hard way that just because they technically CAN use the legal system to alienate their fans, doesn't mean they SHOULD. Ask the recording industry about that one: Their “sue 'em all” campaign hardly earned them any new customers. Do any music fans, even those who don't trade music online, actually say “I love the RIAA?”

    Of course they don't. Because they're as greedy with their legal privileges as they are with money. Activision had nothing to lose by allowing this project to continue. No one was going to confuse a self-described “fan sequel” for an actual Activision property.

    Although I've never played a King's Quest game, and knew nothing of this project prior to today, the idea that these poor developers' work has been for naught disgusts me. These are the FANS of the same property that Activision sells, for crying out loud! If not for them, NOTHING would have been sold in the first place!

    Activision has certainly lost at least one customer, and likely will lose many more until they wise up and shape up. Our digital society is rapidly losing tolerance for this sort of corporate pettiness.

  • Graham

    I should add, part of the upset over this C&D is not JUST about the game. The C&D also demanded that the entire website be removed — including the forums. Throughout the eight years of this project, the KQ fan community has been on these forums — most of the posts have nothing at all to do with TSL. It's really just fans of KQ on a forum. And all those memories, all those threads in deep discussion — GONE. Which is more than a little upsetting.

    On top of that, I'm not entirely sure that demand is even legal. The forums were not the project in question, they were public discussion. I'm not positive on this, but I'm pretty sure it's illegal to end public discussions. Even if it isn't, it's definitely rude.

  • Waltzmaster

    In since it is THEIR Game! The IP does solely belong to Activision that includes the characters places and anything else, but the story is theirs. This project has been in the works for EIGHT years and to not atleast show it to the people is an insult. POS was granted a fan licence in 2005, it had the righ tot pull the plug at any time however, most people were expecting a previous agreement to be honored. It wasn't. Activision showed a poor move because this project is so huge it could only bring them money, and that is what every company loves. Where was the logic? Sure Activision has a reputaion of no fan games, but so did lucas arts and they bent the rules one and are making profit on a total leap of faith. Activision, this is what we need now, and act of faith on your part. Don't crush the hopes of many people who have been waiting for this game. Please reconcider this decision, or at least tell the fans your reasoning without dancing around the bush and trying to shurg us off. We need to know, why?

  • Jonathan

    The basic facts: Activision/Vivendi did nothing with the King's Quest IP for the last 12 years, the TSL game won't harm the King's Quest IP in any way, and this decision harms not only the devoted KQ fans but also Activision's image.

  • http://oneofswords.com/ Dan (OneOfSwords)

    At the risk of being rude and callous…they have “had it together” for eight years but have not released the game. I know they are working on it, and like I said, I know it takes time. But after eight years I would be MORE dedicated to seeing it completed, one way or another.

    Having tried to create my own games in the past, I am not asking them to flip a magic switch, and frankly, I resent you putting those words into my mouth. What I'm asking is for them to rework what they have done, salvage what they can, and build on the base that they have established. I'm asking the team to step back, look at what they've done, look at what they would have to do, and assess whether it's worth it. If everybody feels it's worth continuing, then it is. If everybody feels it's not, then it's not. But either way, that is the team's decision. They brought it this far; it's up to them to decide if it's worth going any further.

    How badly do you want that game and dream? The path is not easy. But it's theirs to walk if they want it.

  • http://oneofswords.com/ Dan (OneOfSwords)

    To play devil's advocate: These “facts” about it harming the KQ license are not facts at all, but strongly held opinions. I happen to agree with you; I don't see the downside of letting this project continue. But it's not a fact that it would have no negative impact, any more than it's a fact that it would have no positive impact. It's only a fact that Activision owns the KQ IP and the fan team does not. The team can, however, choose create its own IP. That is a fact.

  • http://oneofswords.com/ Dan (OneOfSwords)

    Agreed there. I do not know what the actual legal bits suggest — the game content I can see, but why remove the discussion? Maybe there were game elements shared within those forums and the way they chose to remove it all was to nuke it from space. But definitely agreed on the rude part.

  • phil

    Yes! Graham! I am not sure if the C&D demands entire website and forum to be remove! There several games forum that make fan-made game such as: AGS forum!

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