Activision Reneges On King's Quest Fan Project Shutdown

[Tom Goldman]

Activision Reneges On King's Quest Fan Project Shutdown


Activision dismantled Phoenix Online Studios' long-awaited King's Quest fan game earlier this year, but has recently changed its mind on the matter.

After King's Quest [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/98739-Activision-Kills-Long-Awaited-Kings-Quest-Fan-Project] fan revival in development for nearly a decade, fan outcry may have brought it back to life. Phoenix Online Studios has announced that The Silver Lining is back in business.

Phoenix Online had worked out a deal with Vivendi to develop The Silver Lining under a non-commercial fan license, but when a merger transferred the King's Quest property over to Activision, the deal fell apart and Activision served Phoenix with a cease-and-desist. Despite The Silver Lining's eight year development cycle, Phoenix was forced to shut the project down.

A huge effort was put forth to bring The Silver Lining back to life, and it appears to have worked. Phoenix and Activision reached an agreement to release the game as a free downloadable episodic series, with Episode 1: What is Decreed Must Be to be released on July 10. More episodes will follow throughout 2010.

The Silver Lining is a continuation of the stories told in the highly beloved King's Quest adventure game series created by Roberta Williams for Sierra Entertainment in the 1980s. It spanned eight games told from the perspectives of various members the royal family of Daventry, with King's Quest V and VI bright examples of the best adventure games of the 1990s. The best ones that frustratingly allowed you to fail or die anyway. A hint book wouldn't be a bad idea if you go back to try them.

The Silver Lining marks the return of feather-capped King Graham as he strives to save his family from evil. Keep an eye on The Silver Lining's website [http://www.tsl-game.com/] for the release of each episode.

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[fenrizz]

I am glad to see that Activison changed their mind on this one.
No good can come of shutting down a fan project.

 

[deth2munkies]

Cool, although I don't really see how Activision could have stopped them...I mean with all the WoW private servers with alternate patches and Pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies servers out there, if they make it, they can find ways to get it to people regardless. But it is nice that the soulless giant did something good for once.

I also had King's Quest V on my Windows 3.1 when I was a little kid (read 5-6) and couldn't figure out the 3rd or 4th thing I was supposed to do, so got quickly bored of it and went back to Putt Putt Saves the Zoo.

 

[Sebenko]

Meh, this just reeks of a desperate attempt to not look so ridiculously douchebaggy.

Like that devil guy giving a man a banana to make up for being a dick.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

What I wonder is why these companies even bother with cease and desist orders when it comes to these fan game projects. Why don't they instead hire the team that working on it, give them some better resources to work with, then sell the finished product as an official game and potentially make a profit off of it? Win-win. After all the fact that there are devoted fans willing to devote their free time to these projects should show that there's a market for it.

 

[The Great JT]

Yeah, Activision, I know you probably hear this a thousand times a day, but...

 

[The Random One]

Of course, the only reason Activision did that is that, between its evil DRMs, the whole Infinity Ward brouhaha, and, well, Bobby Kottick's existence, they just can't afford to do anything else the public perceives as evil. They're grasping at scraps.

I guess you could say all that evil...



had a silver living.

Spoiler

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

 

[Trivun]

This is brilliant news, and definitely sets a great precedent for future fan-made game spinoffs too. I hope that this will inspire other fans to contest the shutting down of their fan projects now, we've seen too many great ones stopped in the past few years, and especially the past few months, so it's good to see someone finally fighting back, and more to the point, winning.

I never played any of the King's Quest series, being too young to know about them back in the mid-Nineties. That said, I've heard great things about Roberta Williams' stuff, and I've been a Sierra fan ever since I played the first Half-Life, so I might possibly give this a try, and potentially look into picking up the older games too if I can find cheap copies or find somewhere to download them for free completely legally...

 

[Caradinist]

...Holy shit!

This is great stuff. I was hoping something like this would happen. It seemed that Activision had no plans to even work on King's Quest now that they have the rights, so the Cease-and-desist order infuriated me.

But i'm glad through some thought and fan outcry, they actually reconsidered such a bullshit move on a fan-made game that's been in development for so long.

 

[theultimateend]

Am I the only person who wonders why gamers so desperately seem to NEED a villain?

Why can't there NOT be some evil behemoth company?

Oh right, because we wouldn't have something to ***** about constantly.

Go Activision, be good.

Just because its an easy example: Nobody necessarily wanted a "perfect bad guy" like Hitler to ever exist. But because he existed, people reference him a lot as a massive prick.

Activision exists, nobody really asked them to, but they do. Thusly you'll find they get referenced a lot because of the things they do.

Same could be said about other companies who don't know what they are doing when they drill a highly toxic substance beneath the most important resource on the planet...but I digress.

 

[scnj]

Now make like Valve and hire them.

 

[The Lost Big Boss]

Activision reputation +1

 

[Johnnyallstar]

Oh hell yeah! I signed up their petition and everything. I still remember when I was little playing the first King's Quest.

 

[Nurb]

Awesome... I wonder if the humor will be the same quality as the earlier ones.

OLD LAMPS FOR NEW... OLD LAMPS... FOR NEEEEWEHH

 

[Booze Zombie]

So this is what Activision meant when they said "improve their image"?

 

[Darktau]

Hey! It looks like activision just started up their public relations department! (still not buying your products, nananananana)