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Games Entertainment

Vivendi Shuts Down Indie King's Quest Title 44

Posted by Zonk from the not-every-day-has-a-silver-lining dept.
edwardmolasses writes "An ambitious King's Quest fan game, in development since 2000 and nearing completion, has been shut down after a cease and desist letter from Vivendi Universal Games (formerly known as Sierra Entertainment). King's Quest IX: "Every Cloak Has A Silver Lining" was to be an alternative ending to the popular King's Quest series. The first chapter was to be released this winter. Some project stats: 40+ volunteer staff spread over five continents, 2000+ page script, 9 chapters, 450 characters, original theme music, and voice acting. Some screenshots can be seen here."
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Vivendi Shuts Down Indie King's Quest Title More

Vivendi Shuts Down Indie King's Quest Title

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  • Nostalgia (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MyLongNickName ( 822545 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @06:36PM (#13743264) Journal
    Anyone else remember the original King's Quest? If I remember correcectly, the worked with a palette of 16(?) colors. I believe the authors weree innovative in using pixelation/color combinations to make it look like they had 256 colors to work with. Of course, my memory isn't so great, and my numbers could be off.

    It is amazing how much fun I could have with such cheesy graphics, and low memory requirements. Somehow, I think games became less fun when the imaginatino requirement got removed.

    Don't get me started on Zork.

    • Re:Nostalgia (Score:2, Interesting)

      by etherlad ( 410990 )
      You're misremembering somewhat.

      The original King's Quest (1983) was one of the very first games released for the (at the time) brand-new IBM PC. It was fantastic for the time, but looking back it's painfully obvious that it was sixteen colours. (Screenshot [brasslantern.org])

      Several years later (1990), they re-released it with newer graphics, but it was still 16 colours. This is probably the one you're thinking of. 1990 was also about the time they switched over to VGA (256 colours), so all subsequent Sierra remakes got the V
      • Yep, and it fit all in one 1.44Mb disk :)

      • Re:Nostalgia (Score:3, Interesting)

        by MyLongNickName ( 822545 )
        Here's a snippet of what I was misremembering:

        After "Sammy Lightfoot," someone told me that there was a way on the Apple to determine when video-blank occured [the brief period between frames that occurs roughly sixty times per second]. If that moment could be determined then other animation techniques that would be much faster could be employed. By combining the page flipping with the now discovered perfect timing, it was possible to display several more true colors on the Apple; up till then, the "twenty-

      • The IBM PC version of KQ1 was 4 color CGA. If you had a PCjr. or Tandy you could get 16 color EGA mode.
        Check out this [if-legends.org] website for details.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Nostalgia (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Remakes of both KQ1 and KQ2 (plus music and voice packs for both games) can be downloaded from http://www.agdinteractive.com/ [agdinteractive.com] (the group that did the remakes.) No poking around on IRC required and for what ever reason, Vivendi seems to not care about this group's work as much as the KQ9 group's not even finished game.

  • Transforme it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by imr ( 106517 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @06:43PM (#13743310)
    Change all problematic art and release it.
    And dont forget to change the script to include some kind of parody of vivendi, like in shrek. You know, you need to hit them at the heart of their soul.
    But with retractable batons inside [thepiratebay.org].
    • They have a soul?
    • And maybe rename it to Qing's Kwest. :)
    • ...and change the name too. I suggest Monarchs Mission, every cloak has an Ag lining...

    • Re:Transforme it (Score:4, Insightful)

      by warmgun ( 669556 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @09:07PM (#13744137)
      Change all problematic art and release it.

      That would seem like a daunting task. Judging from the screenshots of the first chapter, the game may take place in numerous settings from the older games (especially 6 "Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow", arguably the best one). The "art" in this case seems to be most of the 3d models and textures. Removing King's Quest from this project would remove any reason to make it, IMHO. I really hope this gets sorted out somehow. I loved the the King's Quest series and Vivendi's end to the series, King's Quest 8 Mask of Eternity, was a travesty. I seriously doubt Vivendi is going to make any profits from the King's Quest brandname, so why not let it go ahead? It's not like they were trying to make money. They don't even have ads on their site!

      Whilst writing this, I realized what's going on: http://www.gametap.com/ [gametap.com]. Sierra, aka Vivendi, has got some games on there it seems, but no adventure games of yore. So let's see how this plays out.

  • This can hardly have come as a surprise... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Senjutsu ( 614542 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @06:50PM (#13743365)
    They didn't honestly expect a big conglomerate to do the nice thing and not notice them, did they?

    That said, all they need to do is change the project name to Qing's Kuest and tweak the art-work.
  • Who says development has to stop... You just have to be less public about it and give up your name as the author. Distributing all your works source (with or without a GPL/BSD type license since legally its a moot point) wouldn't hurt either. Although, I do suspect that when most groups get a cease and desist letter they publicly announce they have to cease and desist just to get the sender off their backs.
    • Not sure the GPL really would help. Possibly if you just want to get the game out there, but if your main goal is to avoid legal action, then having already spread your work in a fine mist across the world and making it effectively impossible to stop the problem at its source may just be interpreted as begging for harsher treatment.

  • Ahh.. good ole King's Quest (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Datamonstar ( 845886 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @07:03PM (#13743437)
    Man, that brings up some fond old memories. I remember saving my allowance for the collector's edition on CD-ROM and the happiness that ensued once I finally got it. Many a time imitating the narrator's voice: "Sir Grham eats the cookie..." And Roberta Williams is the first game developer I rememeber knowing by name. Part 3 was my favorite, although the lovely graphics in part 4 were breathtaking to me at the time. Man, I, for one, would have quickly bought a copy of the indie game had it stayed alive. Long live the king.

    • Re:Ahh.. good ole King's Quest (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You wouldn't have had to buy the indy game. It was going to be a free download. The thing I don't get is why there is any debate at all about what to do now that Vivendi has contacted them. Their FAQ already said that should these kind of issues arise they would consider changing all the names of people and places and keep moving forward.

    • Re:Ahh.. good ole King's Quest (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I can't be the only one that jacked off while looking at Roberta. Hot damn, I'm getting a woody just thinking about her now!

  • A sad state of affairs. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SpiritMaster ( 869780 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @07:12PM (#13743486)
    While I have to salute the KQ9 [kq9.org] team for their graceful acceptance of the end of their project I can't help but think this is just another nail in VU's coffin of respect. First of let me point out that while VU does own the rights to KQ shutting down non profit organizations that operate purley for the enjoyment of gamers is just another way of saying 'we don't care about our gamers unless they pay us for the priviledge'. Even this to some degree is disproved by the lack of patches many of their games need yet never seem to get. Assuming for the moment their reason behind the shutdown is because they may have a sequel coming, there is no reason that one must cancel the other, since i'm sure both could be enjoyed equally.

    In addition to KQ9, SQ7 [sq7.org] may also be next to come under the axe, although they are apparently in talks with VU [vugames.com] and Phoenix Online Studios about this new turn of events. All this being said I hope that VU will come up with a slightly better reason than 'because we said so' since it only encourages people to see VU as another namless corporation that is more concerned with grinding out endless titles for the sake of money. At the end of the day however VU is, as VU does, and it seems it will continue to follow the Microsoft creed of 'if its original, buy it up and make more money'.

    • Agreed. The only thing they accomplished with this is showing what kind of pricks they are. This project has been going on for a long time, and now that the team have done all this work and about to release, VU decides to shut them down? If they had a problem with this, they could have said so right off the bat.

  • Who to Contact (Score:4, Insightful)

    by koko_99_2001 ( 921295 ) on Friday October 07, 2005 @09:21PM (#13744216)
    I've sent an email to Vivendi's tech support. They told me to email: games.comments@vugames.com Guys, PLEASE send your complaints on what Vivendi did to the KQIX project to this email address! Hopefully, we'll let them know how much we all support this project and they'll be willing to come to an agreement with the team!
    • Yes, I did send a comment in. Hopefully, there will be enough people to get VU to realize that they just can't be jerks about thier stuff. As far as I know, they aren't even developing for that series anymore. If so, why do they hold on to it like that when you can't even buy it from VU either?

  • Would be horrible if Pirates STOLE the source code (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Confessed Geek ( 514779 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @12:58AM (#13745056)
    Wouldn't it be TERRIBLE if the source code was STOLEN by Software PIRATES and put on a P2P network! All those years of work Free to download for anyone without any control by the original authors...

    All those people out there using the software and the people who volunteered all their time for the love of the game wouldn't be able to do a thing about it! How tragic.

  • Wow, what jerks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Drachasor ( 723880 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @01:03AM (#13745071)
    So, Vivendi doesn't want KQ9 to be made. I can understand that. I might disagree, but I can see their corporate view. (Even though the popularity such a game generated might help Vivendi sell an official KQ game in the future).

    What amazes me is how vile a tactic Vivendi used. KQ9 was in development since 2000. 2000! That's 5 or 6 years of work done by 40-odd people. After all this work, when the group is almost finished, Vivendi then decides to tell them they can't release it. Thus essentially turning 5+ years of work into a waste of time. This just seems evil and cruel.

    For those that don't care about the immorality of this, it also is horrible from a marketing viewpoint.

    I didn't even know this project existed a day ago, but I'm going to avoid Vivendi products in the future after this.

    -Drachasor

    • Re:Wow, what jerks (Score:2, Interesting)

      by blckbllr ( 242654 )
      This may seem a bit overdue, but it seems like there could be a viable defense of "laches." "Laches" is a legal defense whereby the defendant (e.g., the makers of KQ9) states that because the plaintiff (e.g. VU) knew of the ongoing activity and did not take action to stop it, that the plaintiff cannot now claim that there has been violation. Unfortunately, this would probably require that the defendant show that the plaintiff "knew" that the defendant was engaged in some sort of unpermitted activity. "Kn

    • Re:Wow, what jerks (Score:3, Insightful)

      by CFTM ( 513264 )
      To be fair to Vivendi, you must take in to the account that most fan projects never make it as far as this one did. As a large corporation, it was probably on their radar but why pay the legal hounds when 9 out of 10 of these things end up folding on their own. I would have loved to see the game released but they paid for that intellectual property and they have to perserve the brand name. KQIX could have released and been a terrible product; no matter why Vivendi did their name would be tied to that pro
  • They own the IP for a franchise they developed/paid for.

    Why wouldn't they expect to make a profit from this franchise since they invested in it?

    Why should Vivendi allow another party to exploit its franchise without any way for Vivendi (the franchise owner) to benefit?
  • The screenshots look great and I have a lot of respect for the people who contributed to the project but... When has a project like this reached completion? The Chrono Trigger remake looked even better and that one met the same fate. Five years of hard work and devotion? That time and creativity could have gone into an original product and then no one could tell them to cease and desist. Sigh...

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