Star Control: Origins - Taken Down

Star Control: Origins has been removed from Steam and GOG due to a DMCA complaint.

Star Control: Origins will be coming down

We have received news today that Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford, contractors on the classic DOS game, Star Control 2 for Accolade have issued a DMCA take down notice to Valve to take down Star Control: Origins.

https://www.screencast.com/t/mODt766t162 (this is the one sent to GOG)

As some of you may know, there is a legal dispute between Stardock and Reiche and Ford regarding the trademarks and copyrights pertaining to Star Control.

You can read the history here:
https://www.stardock.com/games/starc…-paul-and-fred

Unfortunately, rather than relying on the legal system to resolve this, they have chosen to bypass it by issuing vague DMCA take-down notices to Steam and GOG (who, btw, Reiche and Ford are suing using GoFundMe money).

Steam and GOG both have a policy of taking down content that receive DMCA notices regardless of the merits of the claims.

To my knowledge, never in the history of our industry has anyone attempted to use the DMCA system to take down a shipping game before. For example, when PubG sued Fortnite for copyright infringement, they didn't try to take Fortnite down with a DMCA notice.

For those not familiar with copyright law, you CANNOT copyright ideas, individual or short phrases, concepts, mechanics, game designs, etc.

Star Control: Origins does not contain any copyrighted work of Reiche or Ford. We spent 5 years working on it making it our own game. It very much plays like you would expect a Star Control game. But that has nothing to do with copyright.

Stardock, for the record, owns the trademark to Star Control and the copyright to Star Control 3 and Star Control: Origins has nothing to do with Reche and Ford.

Valve assures us that anyone who has already bought the game should be able to continue to play it.

Unfortunately, without the income from Star Control: Origins, Stardock will have to lay off some of the men and women who are assigned to the game.

We will do our very best to continue to support the game and hopefully Star Control: Origins will return as soon as possible.

More information.

Originally Posted by Silver
Star Control: Origins has been removed from Steam and GOG due to a DMCA complaint.

More information.

I didn't really follow it from start to finish, but whatever I hear from them is that these original developers sound like idiots who do their best job to lose their last bit of sympathy.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
I didn't really follow it from start to finish, but whatever I hear from them is that these original developers sound like idiots who do their best job to lose their last bit of sympathy.

Well the original developers of Star Control are required to invoke the DMCA to maintain their copyright. The fact that they allowed the developers to sell the game for the holiday period is in fact an act of kindness.

Not sure about that. Also the law agency might just have been on holidays before so they couldn't do it earlier. I mean this back and forth is going on for a year or so now.

And while I am not a big fan of the Stardock games I don't think that they are "the evil" corporation here.

I'm not an IP lawyer, and I can't say which (if either) side is in the right here, but this dispute is really ugly and it makes me sad. It looks like one of those nasty divorces where each side just wants to hurt the other in any way possible.

I'm with Kordanor on this issue sorry folks. The original developers only own certain assets and names to the franchise. They sound like bitter wives who lost their Ip legally.

They only cared years later when another developer made a game. Also the old fans sound like scorned children supporting an elder parent who has no idea what to do.

Exhibit A of old fans - https://www.reddit.com/r/starcontrol/

I thought the two products could co-exist but Star Control is R and F. Not Stardock.

It seems silly to me that some deal couldn't have been worked out to avoid this mess, if simply to keep the fans happy.

My guess is that they did target the holiday season but probably misjudge how long it would take to execute. If they wanted to be 'kind' they could have waited a couple of more weeks. I'm quite sure given how long this conflict has gone on there was no urgency.

Furthermore I would view this as an act to apply pressure on stardock for a quick settlement. Having said that my understanding is that stardock started this mess when they went after fred/paul for piggy back on stardock publicity for star control (and I could understand why that pissed off stardock).
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Having said all of the above I have no clue who is right either legally or morally. I'm not sure I even care. I do know the legal system is utterly broken esp when it comes to IP issues and so there will be likely be no winner regardless of who is 'right'.

Originally Posted by Silver
Well the original developers of Star Control are required to invoke the DMCA to maintain their copyright. The fact that they allowed the developers to sell the game for the holiday period is in fact an act of kindness.

It seems to me like they want to have a share of income.

Did anyone actually try Origins? I was always tempted, but the reviews put me off.

This game is NAME ONLY. Try out the fabulous The Ur-Quan Masters . Original creators should release that on Steam with some new features.

Sorry mercy but I'll pass as that game is retro and I hate playing retro games.

This whole thing is a mess. If I'm remembering correctly, it sounded like Reiche and Ford got the short end of the stick, what with what happened to the copyrights after the company they worked for went under or was bought out. If they were so interested, they should have looked into who owned the Star Control IP immediately instead of just assuming they owned it and then kicking up a fuss years later when someone else tried to do something with it.

Originally Posted by Cacheperl
Did anyone actually try Origins? I was always tempted, but the reviews put me off.

Why do so many games have to be called "Origibns" in the first place ? Is this an attempt at/of conservative thinking ?

Rayman : Origins
Dragon Age : Orgins
Star Control : Origins
Assassin's Creed : Origins

To me, this is like conservative thinking : Going backwards in time, to the origins of things.
No future, please, because future is unreliable and uncertain.

Well, I guess in most cases it's a "back to basics". Might and Magic 10 for example could also as well have been called Might and Magic Origins.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
And while I am not a big fan of the Stardock games I don't think that they are "the evil" corporation here.

Im afraid they are, kind of. At least shady or hypocritical.

When this mess started? When R+F announced their own successor to SC2 using different name to avoid lawsuit (they cant use the name). After that Stardock started to claim that R+F cant create a successor. This claim at least CONTRADICTED Stardocks own older claims that they perfectly respect R+F and are happy when R+F will create their own game etc.. and that Stardock dont have rights for SC content (only the name) - and they really didnt use it in SC: Origins.
Later at one point Stardock lawyers took control and started to claim ridiculous stuff that R+F are not creators etc. It seems that R+F let their lawyers do the same.

Now we dont have any new Star Control, but we have 2 x Lawyer Control.

I think the problem was that stardock spent a lot of money pushing the ip; and R+F announcement came at that point piggy backing on stardock campaign.
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Was it wrong? I'm not going to pass judgement here - i do think both sides went overboard in claims as things rapidly escalated. I do not think it was by accident when R+F timed their announcement.

Originally Posted by Farflame

When this mess started? When R+F announced their own successor to SC2 using different name to avoid lawsuit (they cant use the name).

Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford are only successful because old time fans donated over 2 million to their legal fund. If they didn't get that support this case would be over with.

Good riddance! Death to the perpetrator!