SQ7.org on Hold

[kkkkkkk]

http://forum.spacequest.net/viewtopic.php?t=874

Good Afternoon-

Unfortunately, The SQ7.org project is being put "on-hold" for the indefinite future.

I know that this is the last thing that you'd want to hear, particularly after what CUC did to the original SQ7 project, but the current legal environment doesn't leave us much choice. Vivendi has decided that we need to either shut down, or sign over the work of the community to be used by them however they want.

As many of you know, the SQ7.org project has been arguing with Vivendi for the last few years about exactly how to resolve the SQ7 situation. Vivendi doesn’t have any interest in preserving the series- They’ve turned down every offer we’ve sent, and their lawyers have made it clear that their objectives are to remain in control, even if that means never releasing another game.

I’d like to thank the many people who have stayed with us for the last 7 years as we’ve worked on the project. We’ve all invested our time, hopes, and dreams in SQ7. Some of the most fun I’ve had in the last 7 years has involved Space Quest, from our first team meeting with Josh, Diane and Liz at Johnny Rockets to go over the community-submitted plot ideas, through the week-long cram-sessions to make proposals that Vivendi might accept, we’ve all put a lot of ourselves into Space Quest. With a community that’s survived for so long, and so powerfully, I’m certain we’ll be able to see Roger rise again.


Space Quest 7 is about 85% complete, depending on how you measure- The engine works, and has played through a test-game we build for it. The background Artwork is nearly all rendered, and the story is complete. We were able to expand the original storyline that Josh gave us, and flesh it out to include over 10 different locations, across three acts. We’ve worked with some of the best and most talented designers, artists, and composers that I’ve ever had the pleasure to know, and their work has made SQ7 far superior to many titles released in the last 5 years.

We’d still like to release Space Quest 7 in the future, and we’re continually looking for ways to do so. We’ve sent Vivendi proposal after proposal- We’ve offered to make the games commercially, or non-commercially, with their help or without it, but they aren’t interested in moving forward, unless we give them the complete copyright to all of Space Quest 7.

This isn’t an acceptable arrangement for a great many reasons, not least of which is that we’ve promised we wouldn’t. It’s a bit of an open-secret that many of the people who have worked on SQ7 have credits elsewhere in the game industry, and we’ve promised that the SQ7 work would never fall into the hands of a commercial game studio- Particularly Vivendi.

We can’t simply change the name of the character to “Bob Wingbat”, and release while avoiding their trademarks.
Space Quest 7 is heavily woven around the planets and existing characters that make the series so enthralling- We’ve build our game to extend the legacy, and trying to untangle that now wouldn’t be fair to the game, or the people who would play it.
Secondly, this wouldn’t help our legal situation.
In the recent discussions involving the book “Peter and the Starcatchers”, which is an unofficial sequel to Peter Pan, it was argued that even though the names and places were changed, it was it’s intent to be a sequel, and so it fell under the legal code as a “derived work”.

My advice to any aspiring fan game creators is to avoid any press at all cost. Avoid announcing if you can. Don’t publicly recruit, if you can avoid it.
Part of the reason that SQ7 has always tried to avoid interviews has been to stay under the radar- We’d been offered print interviews in PC Gamer and others, but we wanted to avoid getting well known enough that Vivendi would have to act.

Other fan games that were being developed took a different approach. For better or worse, they went bigger, faster. This had huge advantages in increasing the speed of development, but by getting mainstream publicity, they had the effect of forcing Vivendi to respond.

It is my personal belief that Vivendi has no interest in shutting projects down. For the most part, they’re businessmen, and their primary job is protecting their investments. They’ve paid a lot of money for the Sierra back-catalog, however indirectly, and they don’t want to allow anything which has the potential to damage it.

What we can say, is that we’re making a difference.

The continued development of the Sq7 project, and the SQ community were primary motivators behind the recent release of the SQ collections, and licensing the old Space Quest games to Gametap. In part, this act had the effect of renewing the trademarks on Roger Wilco and crew, which stopped an attempt we were making to legally obtain them, but more, Vivendi has been shown that we still care, and we’re still willing to fight.


We sent a 60-page proposal to Vivendi, with the theme of returning the games to “prominence and profitability.”
We pitched the idea of professionally remaking the games in the early Sierra catalog, and bringing them to new platforms. As we did, we started to talk about the idea of starting a professional game studio, with the goal of making a wide variety of games in the adventure genre and others. We received some interest, but ultimately Vivendi is more interested in protecting what they have, then risking anything at all for the chance to make the titles worth more.

For now, Vivendi seems to think that’s safest to do nothing- To let Roger and his crew rest, slumbering in the night. We couldn't disagree more.

In May, Matt and I signed the paperwork to formally create Darkened Sky Studios. Demonstrating the power and flexibility of the Slage engine, we are nearing completion on its first commercial project - a re-release of the storied online collectible card game, Chron X.

With "Chron X 2" and perhaps a few other projects under our belt, coupled with my recent credit on Take Two Boston's "BioShock", we're working to gain experience, enhance the engine, make industry contacts, and in short, build a brand Vivendi can't ignore when we next come knocking.

I'm sure that given time, another fan team will create another Space Quest title, and release it without any fanfare. I wish them luck, and good fortune. I know that Roger will see his last romp through the cosmos, and that the world will see him again. With any luck, we may have the chance to build a Space Quest game commercially down the line, or come to an agreement that Vivendi can accept.

Leslie Balfour once said to remember Roger settling down with Bea, and raising a family some place quiet. I prefer to think that someplace out there, he's picking up every slimly mold infested piece of junk he can fit in his pockets, knowing he'll need them all for his next adventure.

Colin "For now." Davis

[Erpy]

Ouch! That's painful. Especially since they've been working so long on trying to reach a compromise. It's a shame too that the project gets put on hold while they seemed to have been making fairly good progress. (although if the engine and backgrounds are completed, but not the animations and the scripting, I wouldn't go as far as to say it's 85% done, more like 40%...based on my own experience. But I digress)

Sorry to hear that, guys. If you're not gonna continue, I at least hope you have lots of good experience behind you that will serve you well in the future.

[Boogeyman]

I think that they should just defy Vivendi, and keep working on the project.

[Gronagor]

If they were anonymous, perhaps continuing would have been an option, but since they've been in contact with Vivendi and their lawyers for some time. it would be stupid.

I'm just hoping they get over the dissapointment and make a mature decision. If they really did achieve as much as they say they did, it would be a waste to let all the work simply dissapear.

[Erpy]

I think that they should just defy Vivendi, and keep working on the project.

And what would you suggest they do if VU files a lawsuit against the members of the team? I assume we all know the odds of winning a lawsuit from a corporate giant.

I agree with Gron that it's a waste to let the fruit of years of work sit in the freezer, possibly permanently, but I doubt this was a split-second decision. If anything, the team's decision is to be respected, even though I would have liked to see things take a different turn.

[antonyo]

I agree with Gron that it's a waste to let the fruit of years of work sit in the freezer, possibly permanently, but I doubt this was a split-second decision. If anything, the team's decision is to be respected, even though I would have liked to see things take a different turn.

There's not a lot of different turns possible. They complete it, put it in the freezer and wait for the situation to change or they release it and get sued.

[MacGyver]

Hmmm I hope the KQ9 folks obtained permission from Vivendi to make the game.

[Erpy]

They did. They have a similar agreement as we have and the SQ7 team was also offered. That agreement bluntly states the game can be completed and distributed without worry for legal troubles, but Vivendi gets legal ownership of the game.

For the SQ7-team, this was not an option because several team members presumably contributed under the condition that the project would never be turned over to another party, particularly not Vivendi. Hence, the only options left were ignoring VU and completing the game independantly (which isn't a real option, as VU WOULD take action and they would know at least one team member...they don't negotiate with anonymous people) or putting the project in the freezer while waiting for a moment where circumstances would allow for better negotiations.

[Kurdt]

This is really sad, but as some have said it also really can't be helped. The thing about bureaucracy is that it takes a VERY long time, especially when you want to get something done that's pretty much unheard of. While I'm quite confident that we haven't seen the last of this, I'm sure that it will be quite some time before we see anything more of this.

And you know what? That's okay. It seems to me that Darkened Sky Studios is going to shape itself into a very cool production house. The first thing I thought was, "Gee, I'd like to be involved with that." They can go out and make other adventure games and make them good, bringing some attention back to the genre, and then tackle this giant the way it deserves to be tackled. I'm quite optimistic about the future. It's looking quite bright.

[Alliance]

This is such a huge shame. SQ7 was such a big project, and I was so looking forward to it.
Would a fan petition do anything at all?

[Kurdt]

The thing of it is that they were offered the same deal AGDI and KQ9 were, but it was something they weren't willing to take. Therefore, I don't see what a petition would do as it would probably only succeed in the same deal being put forth again.

[rich_eter]

Oh man, that really sucks. It was in fact finding the SQ7 project back in 2001 that led me to ADGI (then Tierra) in the first place.

I hope some sort of resolution can come from this as I've really been looking forward to SQ7.

[Quest For Glory Fan]

why can't those creators just suck up the pride and hand it over if it means releasing the game?

[Kurdt]

Well, from my understanding, there are certain unnamed people (but it's been heavily hinted at that they may actually be ex-Sierra employees) who signed on to work on SQ7 under the condition that Vivendi will NEVER own their work. Therefore, they made a promise and they plan to keep it. That's very admirable of them. They never sought out the limelight and usually rejected interviews that came their way (I know this because I tried to interview them myself and never got a response) and I really REALLY respect that. You don't make a game for accolades. You make a game for people to enjoy it.

I still think we'll be able to enjoy this game someday. There's been some really good talent behind it and I have confidence they'll find a way.

[Anonymous Game Creator 2]

You don't go into making a game based on somebody else's IP without having the expectation that it may be shut down at some point. After all, there's a high possibility of that occurring.

I have to admit that we were probably a bit naive when we first started working on KQ1VGA; we didn't realize it would be as popular as it was, and while we stated our ultimate goal was to get the attention of Vivendi, we viewed that as sort of a pipe dream which probably wouldn't happen (but would be cool if it did). Though, we weren't really prepared about what to do in such a situation where Vivendi would take notice of the game.

Eventually Vivendi DID take notice and we were just fortunate that they made us an offer, rather than shutting us down. While I still think that QFG2VGA's downloads will be a good opportunity to prove to Vivendi how popular those old adventure games still are, I no longer think it will have the kind of impact on them to start reviving Sierra's old "Quest" franchises. And judging By Magna cum Laude and KQ8:MOE, I think that's probably a good thing. Vivendi no longer employ the kind of staff who are passionate about adventure games, nor know how to make them well. It's better to let those old games rest in the past, leaving us with fond memories, rather than reviving and mutilating them as 3D action-based abominations!

The best we can hope for is for other development groups to perhaps someday obtain a commercial license from Vivendi to make future sequels to those old games. But as the SQ7 team has proved, doing so may be  easier said than done.

But at the end of the day, Vivendi own all of Sierra's IP.  They won't license dissenters or disagreeing developers with their property; they'll require complete compliance to ensure 'quality control', and this is the only thing that will result in success when negotiating with them, I think. The way I see things, if developers are truly making a game for the adventure gaming crowd, and they do not expect anything in return (and they know the possible implications of working with someone else's IP without prior permission) then what does it matter if they license it over to Vivendi or not?  In the end, fans will still get to play the game and see all their hard work put into it.

Sure, Vivendi would be within their legal rights to profit off the team's work (though, I doubt they would, since they're now aware of how much kick the fan-base has when it comes to boycotting them for such decisions); and even if they did sell it, people are only assuming that they wouldn't give the developers a part of the profits for their work. I'm sure that even Vivendi understands that it would be downright immoral to do that, and that it wouldn't sit well with a large number of people.

Having the work seen and played by thousands of Sierra fans, in my opinion, is better than letting years of work go to waste. If you want to make a game that Vivendi can't control, then make your own games. But if you're going to make something based on their IP, then be prepared to either throw all the work out OR sign and make it the property of Vivendi. Ex-Sierra employees would already be familiar with this proceedure, as they did exactly this when they worked for the old Sierra (i.e. Al Lowe not owning the Larry rights, and the Coles being unable to obtain the QFG rights), so really, why would Vivendi, a much more corporate company than Sierra, ever do things differently? I just don't see them changing their terms on that.

I hope SQ7 is released some day and that the team has success in their negotiations. But I do think they should reconsider the offer Vivendi has already made them if they truly wish to continue the series for the benefit of fans. Good luck to the team!

[Kurdt]

Well, I believe one of their scenarios involved attempts at actually purchasing the copyrights themselves, though I still don't see how that could be made to be thought plausible at any point in time. I mean, perhaps it's the naivete thing AGD2's talking about, but then again if there are professionals working on this, what's their excuse?

The ex-Sierra people I could somewhat understand, though. For one thing, they've already been burned by big corporations taking their work when they didn't expect it to be taken (re: naivete). For another, the market was completely unrecognizable when Sierra was big. It was just getting on its feet, for one thing, so Sierra sort of made things up as they went along.

Thirdly, I get the impression that most of the people who worked for Sierra were never "really" professional game designers as we think of them today. As I learned from interviewing Scott Murphy, most of the people that came on board at Sierra had absolutely no prior experience with a computer EVER, not even to write Word Processor documents or such. One funny story I heard about Jim Walls (creator of Police Quest) is that the first meeting he had with Ken Williams, he sat down in front of a computer like your grandma and asked him where the "on" button was. For some (and probably those who don't work in the biz anymore and probably work on this game), it was only ever a hobby that grew into something other, and when Sierra folded they went on and did something else, like the years they spent as game designers were like a crazy youth. People like them don't have the knowledge or the degrees to work in the computer gaming business these days. Therefore, it wouldn't be entirely out of the realm of possibility that they don't know what they're talking about.

[Anonymous Game Creator 2]

I guess it makes sense for a company to hold onto its copyrights, as even if they never intend to make more games in a particular series, those rights can still be sold for big money further down the track.

The value in the sale of those rights is likely worth far more than any sales  a once-off game could bring in - even if said game ends up generating millions.  Therefore, I don't think Vivendi would ever consider selling the independent rights to anybody. They might be willing to license the IP out, IF someone had a proven track-record, funded the entire game themselves, and also cut Vivendi in for a percentage of the profits. But that's a long and arduous road to follow in order to make a game based on someone else's IP.  I think Vivendi would only sell the rights as a "will not separate" deal along with the sale of the Sierra publishing branch of their company. After all, the value of "Sierra" as a company would decrease significantly if it no longer controls the rights to the intellectual property which made it famous. (It's the same reason why Disney fought tooth and claw to save Mickey Mouse from his encroaching copyright expiration).

In regards to the ex-Sierra employees involved in SQ7 and what they were thinking, we can only postulate. But from what I hear, things were already bad at Oakhurst Sierra (under the old management) for the last few years as the working environment grew more and more corporate. I can understand why any ex-Sierra workers involved in SQ7 would be afraid of history repeating itself and being burned by a corporate company once again, although the risk of Vivendi hunting down fan-projects has always existed, and nobody who works on a fan-game can claim ignorance of that fact.  Even if Vivendi didn't intervene and the SQ7 team released their game without incident, the very fact that the game was freely available would be all the evidence Vivendi needs to file a lawsuit against them (regardless of whether the game was generating income or not). So any ex-Sierra workers involved in the project are implicating themselves by merely contributing to the game in the first place. In fact, what's ironic is that signing a contract is the only thing that would give them guaranteed legal protection.

I think people do realize what they're getting themselves into when they involve themselves in making fan games. What makes the difference is knowing the reality of the situation from the outset, and then weighing up whether it's worth releasing the game under Vivendi's control, or giving up and wasting all the time and effort.  For me, the first option is the only choice I'd consider, even if the only option was for Vivendi sell our remake. If I put the past 7 years into making a game, only NOT to have it released in the end... then I'd find that far more of a betrayal and a waste of time than anything else.  The experience and having a product 'distributed' by a big publisher also acts as good advertising for future endeavors, so the developers of fan games don't walk away completely empty-handed.  Obviously though, different teams will feel differently about this.  I just think it's a shame that if the SQ7 team were far along with their project, they'd throw in the towel.  We haven't found Vivendi difficult to deal with, and if the SQ7 project received the same kind of treatment as we're getting, I don't see any problem with why they shouldn't move ahead.

[Kurdt]

I don't know. Like you said, we can only really postulate on what's really going on behind the scenes, and half my info's probably way off base anyway, so...*shrug*. I just hope we'll see this game SOMEDAY. I'd feel pretty damn cheated if all my hard work went to waste as well.

[antonyo]

What makes the difference is knowing the reality of the situation from the outset, and then weighing up whether it's worth releasing the game under Vivendi's control, or giving up and wasting all the time and effort.  For me, the first option is the only choice I'd consider, even if the only option was for Vivendi sell our remake. If I put the past 7 years into making a game, only NOT to have it released in the end... then I'd find that far more of a betrayal and a waste of time than anything else.

That's different, when you gave Vivendi your ownership of Kq1vga and Kq2+, low res old school adventure games weren't very rentable on the shelves and Vivendi had no plan to sell the Sierra collections at that time, they could easily allow you to distribute it for free.

Sq7 is another thing, its quality could compete with other games on a shelve and seeing how LucasArts had no trouble trashing Sam and Max Freelance Police when it was completed at 95 percent, I too, if I was working on Sq7, would rather not give up years of work to a company who could just trash it if it wanted to because "the market isn't ready for point and click adventure games yet". If they gave their ownership of the game to vivendi, it wouldn't mean Vivendi would actually publish it or let them distribute it for free.

The situation may change, vivendi might switch to another owner who will be interested in reviving the old franchize as adventure games and if that happen, Sq7 will be there with a completed game waiting in the freezer, a game that will cost nothing to produce for Vivendi and only require marketting, which will be a much more interesting opportunity for Vivendi than producing or hiring someone to produce a game from scratch.

I was ready to wait another 10 years for this game to be ready, i can wait another 10 years for them to sign an acceptable deal with vivendi.

[MusicallyInspired]

That's too bad. Space Quest can just never get a break it seems....

[Erpy]

Sq7 is another thing, its quality could compete with other games on a shelve and seeing how LucasArts had no trouble trashing Sam and Max Freelance Police when it was completed at 95 percent, I too, if I was working on Sq7, would rather not give up years of work to a company who could just trash it if it wanted to because "the market isn't ready for point and click adventure games yet". If they gave their ownership of the game to vivendi, it wouldn't mean Vivendi would actually publish it or let them distribute it for free.

The situation may change, vivendi might switch to another owner who will be interested in reviving the old franchize as adventure games and if that happen, Sq7 will be there with a completed game waiting in the freezer, a game that will cost nothing to produce for Vivendi and only require marketting, which will be a much more interesting opportunity for Vivendi than producing or hiring someone to produce a game from scratch.

I was ready to wait another 10 years for this game to be ready, i can wait another 10 years for them to sign an acceptable deal with vivendi.

I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it. The point of the whole agreement would be to have the team release it for free, assuming there was no disagreeable content in there.

The situation may change, or it may not. I don't think the stance VU has taken is a stance most other corporations wouldn't also take, so even if Sierra branch were to switch owners, the possibility of the new owner having a more lenient policy, rather than a more strict, isn't all that great. Think about it...wouldn't it make sense for a new owner who just paid big bucks for the Sierra IP to be more protective of it, rather than less?

10 years is a pretty long time, btw. I'm not even sure if anyone of us will still be around here by then.

[Angelus3K]

10 years is a pretty long time, btw. I'm not even sure if anyone of us will still be around here by then.

AGDI 4 Life!! Fo' shizzle!

[Irysh]

Vivendi has merged with Activision to create: "Activision Blizzard".

http://blizzard.com/press/activision-faq.shtml

I guess now's the time to talk to the Activision guys... maybe they'll be a little more inclined to listen to ideas about older IP's such as SQ and KQ series? Not sure if this is the case, but still, it's something new.

[Gronagor]

hmmm... Interesting... this means we now have a few from our community working in the new Activision Blizzard thing.

Very interesting.

More complete document at Sierra:
http://www.sierra.com/uk/home/news/corp ... zzard.html