The Third Doctrinal War -- Stardock, Reiche/Ford, and Star Control

I speak only for myself here, but if the situation surrounding the game were different I’d probably be pouncing on Origins right now. Sadly, a combination of the legal messiness surrounding it and my towering backlog threatening to smoosh me out of existence means that I’m most likely going to skip on this one

I can’t figure out quote blocks using a mobile phone. Sorry.

Put a "> " (with the space) before the paragraph you want to quote-box :)

This is the kind of thing I would likely have bought first day under other circumstances, but the combination of legal issues and the utterly bad faith with which Stardock and its allies have conducted themselves makes it an easy (if sad) pass.

Can we not derail this thread, please?

That wasn’t directed at me, right? Because I’ve been discussing specifically what pertains to the thread subject.

Some people don’t care about the context of a game. Others do. RPS clearly feel uncomfortable reviewing a game when the developers of said game are suing the original creators (of Star Control II). That’s their choice, and people can make up their own minds as to whether or not that will affect their decision to support Stardock by buying their game.

Did they actually issue a statement to that effect, or are you assuming that was the reason? I’m a frequent RPS reader and have yet to come across any such statement, other than yesterday’s announcement which hinted at no such thing that you just opined.

Regardless, your response still doesn’t answer my question as to what a lawsuit has to do with the merits of the game.

Thank you. Now that’s a very eloquent statement of fact (which seems to be curiously missing in the majority of the posts in this thread) which ties into an individual’s reasoning for not buying it.

And with your post as well as @BloodyBattleBrain it’s clear that the motivation has more to do with personal feelings (and quite possibly animosity) than it does the merits of the case as well as the veracity of the claims. Both of which bear zero relevance to the GAME proper.

I can see why my posts would give you that impression.

I’ll clarify my position:

I have no skin in the game. If anything, I’m actually leaning towards Stardock’s side here.

I posted and quoted as above because it is an example of at least one review website taking a stance, like @JoshoB was saying:

I personally don’t understand a fifth of what has been said about this topic, here or on the explorminate forums (I haven’t bothered reading about it on other forums) so my uninformed understanding is that Stardock bought the rights to a name, but not to the things that make a name a name?

I do think it odd that it has taken the Stardock development to bring the issues to light, and I wonder why P=F didn’t do anything with this for 20 odd years…

but then I wonder what SD thought they were buying, did they know what they were buying, did they get conned? And why not just make the same game in the GalCiv universe?

anyway, I’m not expecting answers here, beyond : go read the thread

so, @dsmart:

  1. I don’t think the legal stuff should matter in a review
  2. Clearly it matters to some people
  3. Some of those people happen to be RPS.
  4. I gleaned what i wanted to know from skim reading the reviews - resource gathering is apparently dull, everything else is good and the writing is excellent, and it feels polished.

I will buy this, maybe at Xmas. I’m in a bit of a gaming slump right now, losing interest in the hobby. feeling…gaming burnout, if such a thing exists. Also, real life has become considerably more interesting, stimulating, demanding and complicated recently.

edit: iu also put more stock in a review by Robert Honaker (devildog) - the guy who started explorminate - than I do in what RPS wrote.

This one’s on me. I was in agreement with your post, as well as his. I could have done better with the wording. I wasn’t insinuating that you or him had animosity as your reason. I was making a general statement that it could very well play into other people’s reasoning.

That is actually the gist of it. Despite @Brad_Wardell aggressive defense of his actions and which has obviously served to cast them in a poor light, the long and short of it is that he paid good money - in good faith - for something. Only to find out YEARS down the road when he tried to exploit the benefits of what he BOUGHT, that it was “tainted” by claims which weren’t previously known. All of a sudden, P&F and Brad were at war, and fans picked sides. It all went to shit like immediately after.

And those who are still pissed that they backed the wrong horse in the previous Brad-infused debacle, see this as another opportunity to repair their bruised ego.

They will fail. Again.

Imagine if you will, that I go out and buy Freespace from Interplay, as I’ve been trying to do for years and not able to do so because Herve keeps asking us for “millions” in funny money. Then I announced and start making Freespace 3. Then out of nowhere, Mike Kulas and/or Adam Pletcher say they own the IP and that Herve/Interplay had no rights to sell it because the rights (from Volition) never flowed to Interplay, or that it had since expired etc. That’s basically it.

This is why in any/all such IP sales, you have to do the due diligence because IP law is so convoluted and complex, that’s why you have guys like Sony and Marvel owning different rights to the same property!

I like and respect Brad. We go back decades. And we’ve argued about so many things, most of which some would find to be so mundane, that only lunatic nerds like us would consider arguing about. There’s never - ever - a hill too far that guys like us won’t strive to die on. Amid all that, I have never - ever - found anything in him which would give rise to the “dishonesty” or “rip-off” that people are claiming. It’s just not his style.

And this same shit happened years back of the harassment claims. MANY of us said publicly that it was all bs and lies. And once again, a bunch of people jumped on that bandwagon. But we climbed that hill, and subsequently died on it. Shortly after, we were proven to be right.

I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I was disappointed in the settlement offer that they allegedly gave to P&L. If I were on the receiving end of that, I would have shredded it on sight - and not even responded to it.

Yes, this kind of bad faith argument is exactly what I’m talking about. Thank you for the example.

It won’t be a continuation but more akin to a revisit (ala XCOM using Star Control 2 as the inspiration and start back before the earthlings were in any kind of slave shield). We’ll be talking more about our plans as we go forward.

We won’t be making any changes to the existing Star Control games. And Atari doesn’t actually own the copyright on Star Control 1/2 so it’s not like one could make a Star Control 2 HD or what have you without a license from Paul Reiche. And even if we did have rights to SC 1/2 I wouldn’t touch them without his blessing.

I think what most Star Control fans are looking for is a new Star Control game where the inspiration comes from Star Control 2. They want a game with fun, adventure and top down ship battles like in Star Control 2 that all play within a fun sci fi universe. Preferably one with Ur-Quan and Spathi and lots of insults.

At the time of the purchase they knew Paul and Fred had the copyrights, and they would need a license if they wanted to do something like an SC2 HD.

Oh man, that is sad to hear.

On the other hand…Shattered Steel is a million dollar IP!?! BAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHA

Wrong. Clearly you - and many like you - have no clue how IP ownership actually works, nor how rights get transferred. Did you even read the actual lawsuit? I did. And it’s very clear what they bought, what they thought they bought etc.

It is patently irrelevant whether or not Atari had the rights to SC 1/2 because individual rights to specific works CAN be owned, transferred, sold etc. To wit, one publisher could have the rights to Star Control 1, and the other to Star Control 2. That’s why the excerpted statement was specific to SC 1/2 - which are individual rights owned by either Atari or P&R. To make the point, he even cited “Star Control 2 HD” fer crissakes. He could have said “so it’s not like one could make Star Control 3 or a sequel”.

Geez, this isn’t that hard to understand, is it?

The end result is that it’s now up to a judge and jury. But trying to armchair lawyer while completely ignoring common sense - even when ignorant of how the law actually works - is a waste of everyone’s time.

Herve wants about $2m for Freespace. I kid you not.

That makes my entire being, body and soul, just weep.

Guess I need to start playing the lottery, and explain to my wife EXACTLY why.

“So…you wanna win the lottery…so you can buy the rights to your favorite game…”

Um, you realize he’s not giving his opinion there, but simply repeating what Stardock’s CEO himself stated. From the FAQ in the first post:

On his online forum, as part of an early announcement to fans, Stardock CEO Brad Wardell states, “Atari doesn’t actually own the copyright on Star Control 1/2 so it’s not like one could make a Star Control 2 HD or what have you without a license from Paul Reiche. And even if we did have rights to SC 1/2 I wouldn’t touch them without his blessing.” (4) (Back from the Atari auction » Forum Post by Frogboy)

If you win said lottery, please give the Freespace license to Mike Kulas and the former Volition folks, not to Derek Smart.

No offense Derek, but I like those guys’ space sim cred much better.

You said:

That is actually the gist of it. Despite @Brad_Wardell aggressive defense of his actions and which has obviously served to cast them in a poor light, the long and short of it is that he paid good money - in good faith - for something. Only to find out YEARS down the road when he tried to exploit the benefits of what he BOUGHT, that it was “tainted” by claims which weren’t previously known

All I was I pointing out is they knew P&F had the copyrights to SC1/2 at the time of purchase, and would need a license if they wanted to use that material, quoting Brad himself. Among all the other stuff they have been claiming they have the rights to that material now. This is what has been causing the issues around the Arilou dlc, yes?

As to whether Stardock has the right to make a SC game. I think it is pretty clear they do, or at least it was in good faith, which might be what you were talking about. P&F really should have cleared things up before with Accolade/Atari/whomever. I don’t think Brad can be faulted for that. Maybe more due diligence could have been done to figure out the state of the agreement. I don’t know.

I sincerely wish they would have worked things out, but yeah that settlement offer would have put me on tilt as well. Along with the claims that they are not the creators of Star Control 1 & 2? It isn’t a good look for Stardock. One would hope they ALL will finally come to their senses and reach an agreement which lets them both focus on their games.

I had to do a double take on that one, I thought you wanted Brian to give the license to Mila Kunis. That would be interesting.

I thoroughly share your take on this, mate. Yet there is something in the very public behaviour of key players that tells me it is not going to happen.

It might be hard to just state the facts though and inform people about the legal dispute? You might even gin up a negative review with some reasonable sounding complaints and criticisms about the game mechanics and then give the whole show away with something like this:

“Frankly, the lawsuit alone is reason enough not to buy this game. But it’s also a rather poor entry in the Star Control franchise. Avoid.”

That sound familiar?

Your whole disingenuous “I’m an impartial game reviewer” shtick is just silly and insulting. Your “moral outrage” about the lawsuit and which side you support is splattered all over this thread.