Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition Pulled From Stores

[Steven Bogos]

Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition Pulled From Stores

The "contractual issues" have also impeded the launch of Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition.

Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/10076-Baldurs-Gate-Enhanced-Edition-Review] halted.

Trent Oster, president of Overhaul Games, made the following statement on the Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition website [http://www.baldursgate.com/]:

Dear Friends of Baldur's Gate,

We recently removed Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition from sale on Beamdog and the Apple App Store. We've taken this step at our publishing partner's request as we attempt to resolve a number of contractual issues.

Unfortunately, until this matter is resolved, we are unable to release the latest Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition patch or Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition for Android.

This also prevents the launch of Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition. I sincerely apologize to the series' fans and promise we are working diligently to remedy the situation.

Regards,
Trent Oster
President, Beamdog & Overhaul Games

If you have already purchased the game on either of the stores, you will still be able download and play it. Oster is unable to divulge further details on the legal situation, but states that Overhaul is extremely unhappy with the situation and is doing its best to work past it.

He is unable to offer an ETA on when (or if) Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition will go back on sale.

Source: Baldur's Gate [http://www.baldursgate.com/]

Permalink

 

[funksobeefy]

wait, they didnt have permission to change the game from the start? fools

 

[Abomination]

wait, they didnt have permission to change the game from the start? fools

More like the IP owner didn't care until they had made enough money to be fiscally sueable.

 

[funksobeefy]

I thought from the beginning of the enhanced edition it was being made by the same people. Well copyrights must be enforced I guess

 

[Scars Unseen]

Well that blows. I already bought the PC version, but I was going to pick up the Android version too when it came out.

 

[Some_weirdGuy]

wait, they didnt have permission to change the game from the start? fools

Where does it say that?
having legal issues could mean many many things outside of them simply not getting permission to change the game.

For example, it could be something as small as some artist claiming copyright over a single element on, for instance, the box art, which is unrelated to the game itself but may have been done under contract for Bioware, so does not extend to this use by Overhaul Games. (or maybe even there was no contract and it was always infringing, but the copyright holder only now decided to take action, which has certainly happened before in a number of IP cases)

Or any number of other things. IP law can be a finicky thing.

 

[Arawn]

Well this is suprising. I was actually looking forward to the Baldur's Gate II enhancement. Kinda hoping they'd do the same for Icewind Dale too. The way that letter sounds makes me thing they'll never see the light of day. Or at least not this year. You know how court cases can be; these things take time. Alot of time.

 

[Kiya]

Personally I wasn't all that impressed by the Baldurs Gate Enhanced Edition with it's awful replacement movie and new portraits that to me, clashed with the original style of the game, so I wouldn't have been wasting my money on their version of Baldurs Gate 2. On PC at least I would much rather stick with the originals and hunt down the community patches for them.

Sad for those who wanted the games on their iOS and Android tablets though.

 

[Scars Unseen]

wait, they didnt have permission to change the game from the start? fools

Not true in the least. If you had followed the development of BGEE, you would know that a lot of work went into negotiating the contract between Beamdog, Atari, Hasbro and EA. Apparently now someone either changed their mind about something or believes that Beamdog didn't meet part of the contract.

On the forums they said that EA had nothing to do with this, so that leaves Hasbro and Atari. Given that Atari has already been kind of a dick in this deal(put the game on Steam without any input from or notification to Beamdog), my bet is on them. Hopefully they can get it worked out soon.

 

[Kiya]

Atari also filed for bankruptcy protection a few months back so that might have contributed to putting a spanner in the works. They are due to have a bankrupcy auction of their assets next month - http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/23/4358348/atari-seeking-2-2-million-in-bankruptcy-auction

 

[Alluos]

Damn.
I was meaning to buy it for a good week or so now to play it with my friend who already owns it, looks like that's uhh... an unlikely prospect now.

 

[Doom972]

It's still available on Steam, so apparently Atari can still publish it. Could it mean that Overhaul is in a legal dispute with Atari? I recall reading about them delaying the Steam patches because making the game available on Steam was Atari's decision alone, so it could be assumed that there's some problem between them.

Personally I wasn't all that impressed by the Baldurs Gate Enhanced Edition with it's awful replacement movie and new portraits that to me, clashed with the original style of the game, so I wouldn't have been wasting my money on their version of Baldurs Gate 2. On PC at least I would much rather stick with the originals and hunt down the community patches for them.

Sad for those who wanted the games on their iOS and Android tablets though.

I feel the exact same way. I don't think that the price they charge for it is fair either. By the time it got to Steam I already replayed my retail copies of both games and lost interest in it.

 

[Kahani]

In other news, the many other fan-made patches that do exactly the same things, except usually better, that have been around for years and don't cost anything, are still all available.

 

[elvor0]

wait, they didnt have permission to change the game from the start? fools

Where did you get that idea from? It could be anything. Legal Mumbo jumbo is a bollocky clusterfuck. I find it very unlikely they would've gotten to this point and this far down the line without having permission the change the game.

 

[Knight Templar]

Thats a shame, I was hoping to pick that up in a few weeks.

Personally I wasn't all that impressed by the Baldurs Gate Enhanced Edition with

That seems to have been a common opinion of the game, made me place getting it on the back burner.

 

[VanBasten]

One can get BG and BG2 for 5$ each on sale at GoG for the next two weeks, so if anything it's doubtful they would have sold any copies now even if they were available for purchase.

 

[GAunderrated]

One can get BG and BG2 for 5$ each on sale at GoG for the next two weeks, so if anything it's doubtful they would have sold any copies now even if they were available for purchase.

Done and done. I was going to wait for both enhanced versions to go on sale before I got them, but this just sold me them. Plus I saw all the mods that they did with these games and wow.