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

Yes, they did. From P&F’s blog:

  • Stardock accepts that Paul & Fred are the creators of Star Control and Star Control II.

It does feel like an extremely elaborate way for Brad to save face. It doesn’t really matter though, just good that the crazy lawsuit is over.

Nice! Although I’d love to see Stardock/Brad admit to it publicly in their own blog or statement.

Stardock’s announcement doesn’t mention the creators thing, and generally glosses over the dispute to concentrate on trying to milk the bit about Paul volunteering some help on SC:O2.

STARDOCK, PAUL REICHE TO TEAM UP ON NEXT STAR CONTROL GAME, BEEKEEPING

Making it sound like Paul will be a major contributor thus legitimizing and blessing the game. Given the bridges burned with the community it remains to be seen if Paul’s token involvement will motivate the core audience of the classic games to purchase Stardock’s next “Star Control” game.

I mean, I think that it’s the right thing for both parties to do regardless of how real or imagined it is. Everyone looks better in the end. It’s just kind of a little extra over the top in my mind but it seems to have played super well to the gaming media which is their combined goal.

I wonder if the volunteer contribution to SC:O2 will consist of a race that scavenges some blasted off wreckage of the player’s ship from an earlier battle, but since the wreckage has the Ship’s name on it the aliens keep showing up and trying to claim ownership of the player’s ship because they now posses the name. Eventually working up to claim all of Earth because of Earth’s close association with the ship.

So, it is safe to buy SC:O now?

It’s still boring and uninteresting, so I’d say skip it.

But great news that this conflict has finally been resolved!

Sounds like the original creator liked it, so it has their endorsement now?

They played it for 50 hours to see just how much it infringed on their copyright? I’d probably say I’d enjoy it to if only to avoid stirring things up again with a petulant manchild.

I didn’t find it boring. I did find that some of the SC2 gameplay doesn’t necessarily translate too well in 2019 and that maybe the game was a little too faithful, but I found it was a fine game. Not amazing, but pretty decent.

Not really. The only reason this resolved to a remotely good ending was that Brad was dumb enough to sue people with boatloads of money. If F&P were not independently wealthy, they would have had to accede to Brad’s economic attacks, StarDock would get the IP that F&P created, and we all would have to pretend that F&P did not actually create Star Control. If you’re buying products from Stardock you’re just funding their next lawsuit.

Pretty much.

Ouch. That’s fair but brutal.

On the other hand, are EA et al any better?

Ars has the settlement details which were made public.

Trading Mead for Honey. How cool is that.

So who won in this one? Easy. The lawyers. Made for a nice drama though. Perhaps they will sell the rights to a TV show.

Edit: I see I’m about 19 hours late. Oh well.

Wait wait wait, I thought Paul and Fred needed that GoFundMe because they are poor

No you didn’t.

I only buy locally made, artisanal, organic indie games. If the graphics ever look better than Dominions, then you know the devs have sold out. :D

Oh god, the fake treacly nerd settlement babble is making me kind of throw up in my mouth.

Hey, I just cost you a hundred grand or so. Hey, honey and mead, oh yay!

That’s splitting hairs; while ignoring the main premise of what just happened.

They’ve been in settlement phase - a requirement of most lawsuits like this - for almost a year now; right from back when Brad made a ridonculous offer which we all laughed at; and which was discarded out of hand.

Again. Up to 2 days before they settled, I knew about it, and that they hadn’t reached a settlement. I posted here that there was still no settlement; and less than 24 hrs later, they had settled and bits of it were public via the legal filings.