[karajorma]

Actually the last time he visited he was fairly reasonable.

The first time was a complete cluster**** of course.

[Al-Rik]

If Squadron 42 and Elite:Dangerous are successful Interplay may relaunch Freespace... just to get a slice of the market for Space Sim Games.

[headdie]

If Squadron 42 and Elite:Dangerous are successful Interplay may relaunch Freespace... just to get a slice of the market for Space Sim Games.

Possibly if they have the resources to do so which is far from a guarantee

[übermetroid]

I remember the day D Smart showed up.  That was fun.

[Lorric]

I remember the day D Smart showed up.  That was fun.

This is a curiosity. What did he call himself, and how did you know he was the real deal?

[Killer Whale]

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=25162.0

[Lorric]

Ooooh, that's a big thread.

Thank you.

[yuezhi]

Ah the Classics. If only I had not forgotten about Freespace for a whole decade.

[BrotherBryon]

I remember that, I didn't check the boards for a couple of days and came back to see the biggest **** storm in HLP history. That one thread still has the record for the most post in such a short time and I don't think it will ever be topped.

As for the IP being sold to Interplay I really don't see them doing much of any thing with it.

[Veers]

Thanks for the link to that thread, very interesting reading all of it. My eyes hurt though...

Will be interesting to see what news develops on this front, you don't normally buy things not to use them. But that all depends.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

*Checks Derek Smart's post history*

Oh, his second visit was in 2009, when I was already a member. Should have paid more attention back then.

On a more related note, will this thread get an announcement? It's pretty big news given what this forum's for.

[yuezhi]

I wouldn't waste the space for that. Problem is the whole issue includes the freespace trademark expiring, it being sold, THQ going bankrupt and selling its assets including volition and finally this.

[karajorma]

If all they bought is the residual rights, it's barely news at all. All it means is that money from GoG sales now goes to Interplay instead of going to Interplay and or alone (depending on how it worked before).

[MatthTheGeek]

News or not, it does heavily suck for

[Vidmaster]

Breaking news from the front:

It seems that Interplay has bought the Freespace intellectual property from the now defunct THQ, basically bringing the game home again. Since the original games were published by Interplay, this is exciting news. THQ bought the IP along with Volition Software back in 2000 but never followed up on Freespace 2.

Fun fact: It seems that Interplay payed no less that 7500 US dollars to the insolvent company, a sum that we fans here at HLP could probably have raised as well without major problems.

Current list of sources confirming the story:  (will be updated as more information is available)
- Gamestar (german)

[The E]

uhh, Vidmaster, we've been discussing this in GenFS and deemed it not Announcementworthy.

Also, It's been reported in a lot of placed. Kotaku, Polygon, Eurogamer, RPS.....

[headdie]

depends how you look at it, now there is no way they can work on it again, also should interplay go down the IP is in one nice bundle to sell on.

[Phantom Hoover]

Mm, so at this point by buying the game off GoG you're paying a publisher who have done nothing for the last decade but squat on promising IPs that they're too incompetent to actually use?

[bcKq]

oh well

[Rampage]

Why is Interplay still alive?  Ever since the French takeover, it has done nothing but release a few mobile games and use those assets to go into lawsuits with larger developers/publishers.  Is its life support being funded by some mysterious Rothschild money that we don't know about?

Anyway, my concern is that since they now own the IP, will our operations here will be threatened by Interplay in the future?

R

EDIT

It seems that the inability to read the court documents and analyze them for their contents is spread far and wide. None of the reporters involved have picked up on these things being residual rights, not the full IP package.

Nevermind.