Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition - Short Talk with Trent Oster

Myrthos

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Rock Paper Shotgun briefly talked to Trent Oster about the recent events related to Baldur's Gate Enhanced, Baldur's Gate 2 Enhanced and Baldur's gate 3.

“The prognosis [for resuming work on Baldur's Gate] is mixed,” he admitted to RPS. “Best case, we can sort this out soon. Worst case, this could be in legal hell for a while. I like making games, but this contractual dispute bullshit keeps me up at night.”

As a result, the team hasn’t given up on Baldur’s Gate III, but the road to the pie-in-the-sky sequel just got a whole, whole lot rockier.

“Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition is on indefinite hold, as is the current patch,” said Oster. “Baldur’s Gate III, we are still interested in the concept, but currently I’d say were very demoralized.”
No new information on which publisher is repsonsible for this though.

More information.
 
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Wait, they can't even release a new patch for BG:EE now? WTF?
 
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While we don't know any details, the tone from Oster, who certainly knows more than we, is not encouraging. Sounds like this is leaning more toward his worst-case scenario.
 
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It's Atari - trent tweeted this a couple of days ago in response to this question

@Com_Raven @BastianThun This is an Atari issue. The bankruptcy is not helping either
 
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Atari? I thought BG was developed/owned by Interplay? Which is why there was never another BG developed by Atari? And Atari lost the DnD License. Atari needs to be flushed to oblivion as soon as possible...
 
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From http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...ssues-baldurs-gate-2-enhanced-edition-on-hold

Publisher Atari is the Dungeons & Dragons licence (sic) holder for video games (Baldur's Gate is based on the D&D rule set), but then there's Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast to think about. Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast, which owns and publishes the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game. Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition is (was?) an officially licensed Wizards of the Coast product. It's all a bit messy.
 
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Maybe they need to be working on the "spiritual successor" to BG2 and base it off the d20 OGL and a new setting? ;) They could always fire it up as a Kickstarter.
 
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From http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...ssues-baldurs-gate-2-enhanced-edition-on-hold

"Publisher Atari is the Dungeons & Dragons licence (sic) holder for video games (Baldur's Gate is based on the D&D rule set)"

Incorrect, as of Aug 2011- and not just the sic, since licence is the proper English spelling.


Places selling D&D games such as GOG or Gamersgate have their agreements with Hasbro/ WOTC now rather than Atari, which is why GOG's versions never disappeared from sale during the above legal issues while they disappeared and never reappeared on steam, for example. The difference for Beamdog is likely to be that they are selling a modified version of an old game, not a new game or an unaltered version, and that requires further permissions above a sale licence (eg right to alter existing works under, presumably Atari's, copyright).
 
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I figured that this was an Atari issue, I know they are in the process of auctioning off some of their assets. I'm going to assume that Beamdog is currently in a holding pattern until Atari gets their legal/financial issues sorted out and/or sells the publishing rights (or have they already? I haven't been following this closely).

Even if it does get sorted out, I have to wonder if this labyrinth of rights issues surrounding the series will turn them off toward making more games.
 
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How did Atari get Baldur's Gate? Did Interplay sell it to them?

So the Eurogamer article is in error, not surprising. And they call this "journalism." I should know better. ;)
 
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I doubt resellers like GOG are not an issue. If they sold enough copies to notice I'm sure Atari would be all over those royalties too.

Keep in mind this is being held up in Bankruptcy court. This is the real problem: creditors are trying to get a piece of whatever royalties are left to escrow.

On the licence issue, sic stands for "spelling is correct" ICYDK.

Interplay sold the assets off years ago - looks like Atari managed to acquire them for BG. I remember talk of a BG3 a couple of times - Obsidian was the last to make big news about it until the EE's came out.

As for the d20 OGL, remember it was pulled. No one is allowed to make anything under the d20 or 3e license now (without special permission).

Of course, these are just trademarks. Just a reminder, game rules aren't subject to copyright laws (re: SW:KotOR).
 
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Well it's true Atari is going through bankruptcy as there is more news about this today. GamesIndustry International has word that Nordic Games is now owner of two additional IPs formerly belonging to Atari.

The publisher has acquired the ARPG Silver and the Desperados strategy series. There's no word on what was paid for either property.

So yes I have a feeling it is due to Atari going bankrupt again.:)
 
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On the licence issue, sic stands for "spelling is correct" ICYDK.

Sic is latin, not an acronym. It means that the spelling is correctly transcribed even if grammatically incorrect eg "She runned (sic) to the bus"
How did Atari get Baldur's Gate? Did Interplay sell it to them?

On August 7 2008, or thereabouts Atari and Interplay settled their licence dispute over D&D, which included transfer of BG, IWD, PST etc to Atari. The later (2011) settlement reverted all of those to Hasbro/WOTC. The only vaguely D&D related stuff that Iply still owns is 'Dark Alliance' (but not BGDA itself, due to the BG part) as that was not D&D or Baldur's Gate specific.
 
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Well it's true Atari is going through bankruptcy as there is more news about this today. GamesIndustry International has word that Nordic Games is now owner of two additional IPs formerly belonging to Atari.

The publisher has acquired the ARPG Silver and the Desperados strategy series. There's no word on what was paid for either property.

So yes I have a feeling it is due to Atari going bankrupt again.:)

Not RPG related, but a few weeks ago they had announced that an auction for the Rollercoaster Tycoon and Test Drive games was going to be happening in July (I love the RCT games, so I'm curious to see what their fate is). I have a feeling that they plan to slowly unload IPs over the course of the summer. I haven't heard anything about Baldur's Gate, but I'm assuming those games are currently in a similar sort of limbo.
 
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