Activision shuts down fan made Kings Quest project (AKA CT:CE discussion take 2)

[Kroze Gamegod]

Original Article:

The team of King's Quest enthusiasts who had, since 2002, been working on an unofficial continuation of the seminal adventure game, have complied with a demand by Activision to cease all development of their game.

The Silver Lining has a long and unusual history, even for fan-built games. The final official installment of King's Quest came in 1998. Two years later, enthusiasts started their first attempt at coding their own sequel, starting over with the current development volunteers, Phoenix Online Studios, in 2002. From the beginning, the team asserted a right to the project under U.S. fair use copyright law.

In 2005, Phoenix Online survived its first cease-and-desist order from the rights holder at the time, Vivendi Universal. Outcry and backlash over the project's termination led to an extraordinary non-commercial "fan license" granted for The Silver Lining.

However, Sierra's intellectual property has since changed hands from Vivendi to Activision. And Activision is not interested in continuing this license or crafting another non-commercial agreement. Says the developers:

After talks and negotiations in the last few months between ourselves and Activision, they have reached the decision that they are not interested in granting a non-commercial license to The Silver Lining, and have asked that we cease production and take down all related materials on our website.

As before, we must and will comply with this decision, as much as we may wish we could do otherwise.

We cannot say enough how much we appreciate the support we have had over these years from our fans. Without you, we would never have gotten this far. There would be no game to develop, and no one to develop it for. You have been amazing and steadfast, and we will always remember that and appreciate it more than we can say.

Sadly, after eight years of dedicated work and even more dedicated fans, The Silver Lining project is closing down.

What's more, the C&D requires closure of most of the forums set up to support the project's development. Phoenix Online says it is building a new, empty forum so fans brought together by the project can stay in touch.

Now, when you wanna talk about dick moves to fan made games, I don't think you can go lower than what Activision is doing here.
I mean not only are they saying "Fuck fan made games completely!" by this but this new game being made as the unofficial sequel to Kings Quest which has not been touched as a series since 1998 but also fuck the fans.
Unlike the CT:CE fiasco, this uses a completely original engine, own art design and was only sharing some names in common with previous things that have happened within the Kings Quest world AND on top of it all, was originally given the go ahead by Sierra games and got an unprecedented licence to make said game.
And now after 8 and a half years of this thing being made and close to release, as soon as Activision got the licence they demanded it just go away?
And not just the game either and not just the forum that was attached to it... but SEVERAL DIFFERENT forums used to discuss this fan made game that was in development.

Wait, so fans are not allowed to even talk about things and their love for a long slumbering franchise?
Great job there Activision!
Why don't you just demand no fans are allowed to discuss your games at all?

I'm really interested to hear what Blues has to say about this one considering his whole stance on the Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echos project.