I am curious, I would like to discuss. Is my link to Brads reddit post inaccurate? Am I wrong in saying that he’s called them the creators? I find past comments like this hard to square against your comments on the timeline.
Sigh, I was trying to leave this toxic thread :-)
Yes, if you look at my icon you will see it says FOUNDER along the bottom.
This all just makes me sad. I’ll leave it to the courts to judge the legalities. From reading the excellent summary up top, it sounds like both sides truly believe they are in the right, and I think they both have what could be perceived as valid arguments for that belief. IANAL, so I can’t judge.
But Paul and Fred are founding fathers of computer gaming, and Brad isn’t far behind them, so it’s really sad to it see it devolve to this. I would have loved to have seen a true successor to the Star Control series, and as part of the demographic who loved the originals, with the classic IP. Guess I’ll just revisit UQM.
I have the perfect solution, though: Paul and Fred sell Stardock all the IP for Star Control, and in return Stardock funds them developing (and keeping rights to), and distributes, a big-budget modern console version of Archon. That would be a win-win for everyone!
Only Brad can answer that for sure, and I imagine he wont set foot back in this thread. My understanding is that Brad, like most of us, had an impression that P&F were the sole creators of the game when he said that, but when he later looked into it he found that wasn’t entirely the case.
Or possibly he meant in the emotional connection way I mentioned earlier. Most of us would say that James Cameron created Terminator, but of course in a legal sense that’s not remotely true. Do you see what I’m saying the distinction is?
You’ve contributed nothing to this forum other than your defense of Brad Wardell and Stardock. Your profile lists a link to wincustomize.com. You really think people here wouldn’t use Google to see why you’re running a defense force all of a sudden?
I wasn’t talking about your profile. I’m talking about the little icon that when you mouse over it, it says ‘next stardock reply’ in a thread started by you. It looks like it is something with the 1st post in all threads where a Stardock employee posts, so it is not specific to your post and just something with the forum software.
My profile for what? I’ve never been to wincustomise in my life that I know of. I don’t use or own any of the Stardock windows customisation tools, so why would I. If it’s my profile on this forum I have literally never clicked on it.
On here? Or on Stardock forums? I’m genuinely confused. I don’t work for Stardock in any capacity, maybe that’s something it does for founders?
It was on the stardock forums. It is just something that happens with the 1st posts there if a stardock employee has posted in it. So nothing to do with you
What does that mean? Star Control 2’s end credits are iconic and full of names. Before the lawsuit no one had played the game to the end? I struggle to understand what details came out after the lawsuit that could possibly be unknown ahead of time. It’s not like there’s been discovery and it was revealed that they farmed the game out to some ghost writers.
Space games. Why is it always space games?
I wanted to thank @Nightgaunt for his updated OP in this thread. Excellent. And a lot of hard work putting that together. I appreciate it.
Also: What is with the insinuation that if someone is posting a pro-P&F view, they’re anti-Brad and want to see him burn at the stake or something? I’m pro-P&F simply because they are two creative people who helped bring about a piece of art that was a huge part of my life.
Likewise. They’re legends. Star Control II is one of a small number of games from the early '90s (the other obvious example being X-Com) that I still replay.
I am neither as I have never played Star Control. That is a huge omission in my gaming history but somehow it and I never crossed paths. I am interested in the legal positions and the legal tactics.
I do notice that the Cult of Brad tends to have similar tactics to the Cult of Cleve. If you are not for them you are summarily dismissed as a hater with an agenda. There probably could not be a forum outside of the official Stardock one that is more favorable to Brad yet even here the accusations of bias are thrown around recklessly.
Hey, BL, I appreciate you taking part in the conversation and arguing for Stardock’s case.
You mention this idea that Paul & Fred timed their announcement to take advantage of the Stardock project, and that’s clearly part of Stardock’s narrative. Maybe it’s true. I don’t think it really makes sense to me. Paul & Fred clearly aren’t in a hurry on the development side. Considering how they understand their copyright to work, and reading between the lines of the conversations they had with Brad and Stardock, I can see another version where they were afraid Stardock was going to appropriate little bits of the SC2 universe (or worse) into their game without permission or license fees (see the artwork on the website and in the alien cockpit, bragging about the ship constructor making classic SC ships) and that if they were quiet about their plans to revisit their universe, Stardock would be seen as setting some new canon with those entities. It’s funny, because I think in this niche segment of the gaming world, having both these companies working on and talking about SC2, why it’s great, and its legacy only benefits both their projects.
BL, you repeated the Stardock line that Paul & Fred are simply the “designers” of Star Control and not the creators. I have to say, this is both one of the shiftiest arguments they’ve got, and one of the most plainly wrong, especially if they’re trying to then claim that Accolade are the creators instead (as you did).
First, plain facts: Fred didn’t just design the game, he implemented it. He’s the programmer. So right there, “designer” is inadequate. Yes, Paul is the designer, but as we can tell from his notebook, he’s also an artist and writer. Now, it’s true, it takes a lot of other people to make all the parts of a game and to get it to market. Writers and artists were hired to bring Paul’s vision to life. They obviously contributed enormously. But I think I’m on safe ground when I propose that their work didn’t go into the game without Paul approving it. And obviously, it didn’t go in without Fred implementing it.
On the Accolade side: While there are a lot of different publisher/developer agreements, this one is clearly of a certain type that was common at the time. Accolade is putting up the money for the game and paying for the development team to create it. The fact that they left the copyright with Paul and paid licensing fees when they wanted to use the content in other projects (SC3 & 4) shows that they weren’t the creative people on the project. They’re the financiers and marketers. Of course they assure that what they’re getting in the final product is what they paid for, but that doesn’t make them creators. It makes them publishers. That’s not nothing. But it doesn’t change that Paul & Fred created and implemented this game. Star Control might not have gotten made if Accolade hadn’t financed it, but it could have. It couldn’t be made without Paul & Fred.
Analogy: Lots of people were needed to make The Twilight Zone. Lots of writers wrote episodes. Lots of actors played their parts. Cameramen, light operators, sound men, directors, assistant directors. CBS had to finance it, provide studio space, run logistics. Rod Serling created it. No, “creator” is not a purely cut-and-dry designation. But very few people involved would deny that’s Serling’s role. The indispensable man.
A comparison to Cleve?! Now you’ve gone too far. That’s it, lock the thread down!
/joking in case it’s not obvious.
I think one thing is clear from this… Never use a publisher.
Hi Nightgaunt. Once again I was trying to leave the thread, but you’ll pulled me back in by being all reasonable ;-)
I probably shouldn’t be talking about the designer/creator argument, since to me personally P&F will always be the creators of Starcon, whatever the legal definition of it is. However, since i’m not a judge nor will I be on the jury, my opinion doesn’t matter and it’ll be for the court to decide. That said:
Could Rod Serling make a new TV show with a different network and announce that it is the true sequel to The Twilight Zone? Or do you think CBS would have a bit of a problem with that, especially if they were currently working on their own remake of The Twilight Zone?
Edit: For bonus points, in his announcement of the new show, he’ll use the original logo (actually literally the trademark art) that CBS owns to announce his new show on a different network. Is that all OK?
Hush you.
FYI, the reddit link to the thread shows your avatar not because the user there has the same avatar (I don’t think reddit even has user profile pics), but because it uses the first image it finds in the linked page as a thumbnail.