Hence the “L.O.L”, standing for Limbo Of the Lost…

Here’s a story that literally set the gaming world ablaze for the last week or so and they’re writing it up as if no one has heard of it.

No, but many licensing agreements require the licensee to actively pursue breaches of them. Worse, in the US you do lose trademarks (if not IP) if you don’t consistently defend them. This is, in part, the reason behind LucasArts’ famous clampdowns on fan creations.

I would expect somebody somewhere to get a writ out of this. Of course, if it settles behind the scenes (e.g. recall and destruction of all stocks plus the payment of Big Fat Sums of Cash) there’ll probably be a confidentiality clause attached.

A. What happens now:
nothing, really. Nobody’s going to sue these guys. You don’t lose a copyright by not suing infringers. Anyway, they don’t have enough money to make it worthwhile, and they certainly will have taken a financial bath on this one. The IP holders could sue the distributors, arguing that they failed to do due diligence on this one, but since the distributors have already taken a loss on this one, real damages are nonexistent, and punitive damages would not be worth it.

B. The Hollywood screenplay: this is easy: The Full Monty meets Scarlet Street, with a touch of Aguirre, Wrath of God. Oh yeah, and use three critical pub encounters as structural anchors, a la The Great Gatsby: Three Swedish au pairs on the way home from a disco drag a very drunk Peter Molyneux (fine, all you reading can insert your name here, if you like) into a Kent pub shortly after opening, looking for relief from his many biological pressures. He rants incoherently to the barman. Anneke (that would be the tall one) explains that he’s some sort of “big computer game guy”, and, with the help of the other two girls, and using 12-inch heels as prods, they drive the drunken soul back into the light.
That’s the barman’s epiphany. By coincidence, his old old Amiga buddies walk in, and they hatch a plan to revive their old game idea.
They bumble a bit, buying a couple PCs, getting into the lingo of a new computer era; for our hero’s buddies, their new hobby causes tension at home, with the wives vocalizing everyone’s shared fear that they’re just not up to it. Finally, our (single) hero sees progress, and announces to the boss he’s quitting the pub to “go back to school,” (his safety net) and to his buddies that he’s “getting into the games business.”
His last day of work at the pub, his unofficial party with his buddies gets interrupted when a criminal-looking man walks into the bar and gets into a fight with a gorgeous young brunette. Our hero runs off the dude, and invites the woman to join his party. He tells her he’s “selling the pub” since he’s “got a can’t-miss videogame hit.” He’s clearly taken by the lass.
The woman goes to her boyfriend (the criminal dude), and they hatch a plan to “get in on the action.” She calls the hero, they have a date, and she tells him she’s a young artist….
long story short, when she tries to pull the scam, she discovers he’s broke and the project both sucks and is nowhere near completion. He finds out he’s been had, runs them off, and removes her name from the credits, forbidding his mates ever to speak of her. He then pushes harder than ever, becoming a tyrant to everyone in his singleminded quest to release. He gets a publisher, they get their advance, and they celebrate their US release in the pub, when the news breaks.

Come on, this thing has Coen Brothers written all over it.

C. The real story:
First, I’d like to see the Amiga screenshot plagiarism accusation corroborated: right now, all we have is one animated gif and a reference to a game unfamiliar even to many Amiga users.
Second, how this happened is still undetermined. We’re all waiting for the right journalist to work his way to the center of this thing, explain the dynamic, and show how such a noble idea could have such comicocatastrophic results.