Silver Lining shuts down (formerly known as KQ9)

According to adventure game site http://gameboomers.com Project Silver Lining (formerly known as KQ9) is shutting down. More info here http://www.gameboomers.com/forum/ubb…tml#Post601263

The reason seems to be Activions has taken over the IP rights from Vivendi (who gave the people behind TSL a non-commercial back in 2005). And that Activision did not want to extend this license.

Here's a part of the post in the only thread in the only forum that's now open on their site at this adress
http://www.tsl-game.com/forum/index.php?topic=8394.0

Silver Lining wrote:

In 2005, Phoenix Online Studios received a Cease & Desist letter from Vivendi Universal, the owners of the King's Quest IP, in regards to our work on The Silver Lining. We complied with the request, and over the months that followed, we were able to work out a non-commercial fan license with Vivendi that allowed us to continue our work on the game.

We have spent a lot of time recently reworking the material of The Silver Lining into episodic releases, with the first out of a planned five episodes completed, and submitted for review, and had hoped we would be able to bring our game to you, the fans, in the Spring of 2010.

Recently, however, ownership of the Sierra IP changed hands and became the property of Activision. After talks and negotiations in the last few months between ourselves and Activision, they have reached the decision that they are not interested in granting a non-commercial license to The Silver Lining, and have asked that we cease production and take down all related materials on our website.

There's also a petition. Link to the petition can be found in first post in the same thread.

I don't know why Activison would do this? Maybe to protect their IP? Maybe because they have an idea for a new KQ game? I don't think that's the cause, but we can still dream, can't we?

Edit:

There's already an article out on Kotaku:

http://kotaku.com/5482221/activision…uest-extension

edit 2:
changed the title

Sounds to me as if they are thinking of making a game of their own.
No competors, please.
I couldn't imagine any other reason.

The other reason is that they want to maintain full control about brand and content. Why would they allow somebody else to mess around with their property?

Tough for the team, but if the quality is really so high, they should take the assets and make their own game.

From what I understood from some comments elsewhere, was that it already was "their own game". Meaning that they had removed the KQ name from it, and stripped away the elements that were specific to KQ. Anything left would be akin to having an character mention something about "cities locked in eternal winter" in one game as a mention to the original Bard's Tale.

At any rate, Activision-Blizzard is completely off my list of companies I'll buy from. Restrictive malware DRM in all their titles; no dedicated servers for MW2 (which leads to a nearly unending host of problems); and now being dicks just for the sake of being dicks. They could have "protected their IP rights" by renewing the existing agreement.

If they ever do decide to ruin the KQ name with one of their half-assed, virus-riddled, buggy, nearly unplayable messes that is standard Activision-Blizzard fare these days, I hope it fails hard because of this.

But what's the problem if there's no connection to KQ? For what do they need an agreement if they use neither chars nor setting or trademarked names?

Urgh, George Lucas allows about 200 new fan made games, mods and films each year without a problem. Heck, even Microsoft (!) allowed the Battletech mod for Crysis to continue development and make use of all the material of their previous Battletech games.

Not to mention that Vivendi had no problem, after a few arrangements, for this game to be developed when they had the final say.

Activision is just simply being a dick.

Expect the new KQ to be a 'Lara Croft in Fantasyland' (without the boobs)

The problem, as I understand is this:

The fan made project, The Silver Lining, re-uses characters and areas found in the earlier KQ games, most notably KQ VI or VII. The story is set somewhere between the 7th and the 8th game, I think?

As for why Activision is dong this, it anybodys' guess…

Originally Posted by Davion
Urgh, George Lucas allows about 200 new fan made games, mods and films each year without a problem.

But not fan fiction. It is only tolerated. No0 fan-fiction stories are ever allowed to be published into the "world outside". In stark contrast to fan-made movies.

I have written a few fan-fiction stories myself, that's why I learned this.