Comments on: There Is No Silver Lining

By: David Reese

David Reese — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 18:16:09 +0000

What’s happening at The Silver Lining website????

By: Ehcmier

Ehcmier — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 02:34:54 +0000

It should be obvious that those vocal few who demand originality and integrity and new approaches are not the majority who make up the profits on whatever product is made for fast and easy and mindless consumption. I think it’s grossly unfair to say the complainers are the source of profits who withhold when given what they’ve asked for.

By: Carra

Carra — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:07:12 +0000

Black Mesa looks great… but when is it going to get released?

By: Shih Tzu

Shih Tzu — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:51:09 +0000

Whoever said I don’t hold any copyrights? Not every copyright holder shares your philosophy.

By: geldonyetich

geldonyetich — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:44:57 +0000

As the article says:

“Sierra/Vivendi made a deal with Phoenix Online Studios to allow them to make their King’s Quest tribute game, The Silver Lining. The studio asked that they not use the title “King’s Quest IX…””

Which is more effort than the usual “fan tribute” game has put into it. However, the lesson is simply reinforced here: apparently you need more than permission, you need a signed contract.

If it’s that much trouble to create a “fan tribute,” we come back around to the same conclusion: don’t make a game that is intended to be directly attributed to an existing game. At most, you can get away with a “in the spirit of…” game, but to base your game on pre-existing IP is begging for a cease and desist letter.

Last I checked, it takes about 100-120 years for a claim on an existing IP to fade. However, this is weakened if the studio doesn’t defend that IP (read: serve those cease and desist letters). Because of this, it’s a fairly good bet that, if they know of you, you’re getting one sooner or later. It costs them serious potential money to ignore you.

By: Ozzie

Ozzie — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:34:21 +0000

They never planned to sell it, though they hoped that Vivendi might pick it up for commercial purposes, maybe.
They planned to go all original and commercial after TSL though. I think it’s time for this now.

BTW, I find it funny that people suggest that there’s no originality in this project, just because it picks up characters and some storylines from a long-running game series. Just from the looks of it the game looks more inspired than most KQ games themselves!

By: Risingson

Risingson — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:50:45 +0000

Er, your children.

*Risingson looks for his english grammar books again*

By: Risingson

Risingson — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:48:42 +0000

Also keep your sons from drawing their favourite heroes: that’s stealing too.

By: pimorte

pimorte — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:17:19 +0000

There’s too little detail on this. It sounds dodgy from both sides. One, they initially followed the default fan-game route of ‘steal and hope’. Two, they were apparently trying to sell it – is this true?
Activision though – how was it able to get out of the license agreement?

There is an easier way to prevent this sort of thing happening to your project.
Make your own content. Create a new path, don’t just walk someone else’s. Don’t make the lyrebird your hero.

By: Dominic White

Dominic White — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:41:04 +0000

Didn’t you know that if a company doesn’t skullfuck their fans at every step at the way, crushing any and fall fan-projects, that they lose control and don’t have the rights to use their property anymore? I mean, look at how few Mario games exist now! Nintendo have completely abandoned it, and those terrible fan-works have ruined the profitability of the franchise!

Oh, wait. Mario continues to sell by the metric fuckton and there are hundreds, if not thousands of major fangames out there, many of them retail-quality and full-length. Find the biggest archive of them here at http://www.mfgg.net/

And Nintendo doesn’t care. I think they’ve quietly endorsed a few over the years, too. Why? Because that’s how you build a fanbase, and strengthen your brand-name. The more people who are interested in Mario, the more likely the games are to sell. There are Starfox and Metroid fangames, and Nintendo don’t care, either.

What Activision are doing right now can only be described as spiteful, harmful behaviour. It’s not helping anyone. It’s not strengthening their position, or improving their image. It’s not making them any money. There is no payoff. No reason for them to do this. It’s evidence of corporate brain-rot and nothing else.

Fuck Activision.

By: Jack_Shandy

Jack_Shandy — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:57:10 +0000

Madvillain, you’re taking a very Atlas Ryan “THE SWEAT OF MY BROW IS MINE AND MINE ALONE” aproach here. Sharing is caring, dude! If I write a good comic and some fan of mine writes a bad comic based on mine, does that detract from my good comic? I sure as hell hope not, because some of that Watchmen fanfiction is terrible.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! If someone made something based on my game universe, I would be tickled pink.

I can’t get over the bitchiness of this opinion, that ideas you have can only ever be utilized by you. As someone who has had ideas, occaisionally, I would be outraged and upset if someone stole them. This is NOT what happened here.

There is a difference between STEALING an idea, and paying HOMAGE to it – to clearly differentiate them here, you can tell something is HOMAGE if they AREN’T MAKING MONEY FROM IT.

I’m going to use the example of a typical Brainstorm. You say an idea, a friend suggests another one, you incorporate it and use it while suggesting another idea yourself. Everyone wins! To treat ideas like some pot of gold that you and you alone may access is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

If everyone embraced your approach, Tolkien would have sued every single fantasy novel ever made out of existance, not allowed anyone to be even INFLUENCED by them. Ok, perhaps the fact that he’s dead has something to do with his lenience, but…

I can’t get over the mental image of him sealing the LOTR books away where no-one can ever read them but him. Cooing over them, stroking them, making sure no-one can ever hurt his precious IP. For his eyes only. His property. His precious.

By: Hmm-Hmm.

Hmm-Hmm. — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:27:49 +0000

Meh. I didn’t want Starcraft 2 anyway. Yeah! Nor did I want Diablo 3! That’s right!

…

At least it’ll save me some money.