King's Quest Fan Project The Silver Lining Is Back

LoTonah writes "After eight years of development and a Cease & Desist from Vivendi, King's Quest fan project The Silver Lining is back in action. From the website: 'We are extremely happy to announce that our project, The Silver Lining, will definitely see the light of day! In a wonderful turn of events, Activision reached out to the Phoenix Online team a few months ago with a desire to revisit their decision regarding The Silver Lining. After negotiations, the C&D has been officially rescinded, and Phoenix Online has been granted a non-commercial license to release The Silver Lining! Our team is ecstatic about this, and as hard as we've worked for eight years, it's the tireless belief and support of you, our fans, that has made this possible.' The first episode of the project is due to be released on July 10."

Re:Hmm...

[Dragoniz3r]

Probably a combination of not having to pay for the fan-made remake, nostalgia from when we played these games as children, and delight at seeing a long-dead game formula we loved revived. Try getting a good adventure game like the old Lucasarts point-and-click adventures. It's not EA or Activision stepping in to give us what we want. It's the indies. That's why people love indies.

Re:Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

So why is it that it's bad that EA or Activision makes constant sequels and remakes to games but then everyone has these orgasms over fan-made games that are just remaking and rehashing old games?

Because, it's clearly out of love that a fanmade project is finished. Fans are rabid and serious about doing a sequel justice.

When big companies often make remakes and sequels, it's { often } just a cash grab. You can feel that the title is lifeless. I could give you a long list if you were really interested.
 

Protecting IP

[Enderandrew]

In the early days of the web, Fox was trying to threaten every X-Files fan page for violating their trademark. Lucas threatened to sue every Star Wars page out there. Companies felt it was their duty to protect the IP. They didn't realize these fan pages weren't stealing money from them, but rather were adding value to their brands.

Fan pages and fan projects are free advertising. Any company who sues a non-commercial fan project is idiotic at best, and doesn't like receiving money from their customers.

If only Square/Enix would do this...

[Lendrick]

Although really, they'd rather release shitty new games and duplicates of their old games on different systems.

Gotta keep killing those fan games. You can't really ruin a good video game franchise with fans jumping in there and making better stuff.

Like being happy of getting tax rebate

[noidentity]

Sorry, but this seems sort of like people who get happy over a tax rebate. IP is an unjust usurping of what you can do with your own real, physical property. In this case, the fan team simply gets to do what they should have been able to do in the first place.

Re:Protecting IP

[innocent_white_lamb]

Don't know if I'd call that free. He did pay to have those clothes made, didn't he?
 
Does he sell retail? (I have no idea.) If not, then he's not the one bearing the cost of the shoplifted item -- the retailer is.