[rubixcube]

http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/three-descent-titles-removed-from-gog-due-to-controversy-over-royalties-35881

So apparently Mike and Matt are considering legal action over Descent Royalties,

Not sure how I feel about this, I suppose we should have expected this given the revival of Descent over the last few months.

Any thoughts?

[NGTM-1R]

...what about people who already bought it? I haven't installed them on my new computer yet.

[Mongoose]

You'll still have access to them; any game removed from the service stays in your catalog.

[karajorma]

Exacerbating this drama is Toschlog’s desire to make a new Descent game of his own. He said he and Kulas have tried several times over the past few years to come to a deal with Interplay over the license, but things never quite came together. Early last year, Toschlog said they’d almost made a deal but Interplay wouldn’t settle their debts.

Yeah. That sucks.


Although I don't know why GoG would remove the games. Unless it's to show solidarity with Mike and Matt, a dispute between the publisher and developer shouldn't affect GOG. It's not their fault Interplay hasn't been paying them. If anything they should just keep the games up and send them any money generated directly. I'd love to see Interplay try to sue them over that one.

[BirdofPrey]

I didn't even know Parallax still existed.  I thought it went defunct when Volition and Outrage were formed, and that what Descent IP Parallax once owned was now owned by Volition (with outrage being defunct).  Speaking of outrage, with that company actually being defunct, who owns Descent 3?

When is Interplay finally going to die?  They've been a huge pain in the ass for a long time now, greedily hoarding old IPs.  After their failure to maintain hold over the Fallout rights (due to their own incompetence), I was surprised they let Descendant have rights for Descent.

Although I don't know why GoG would remove the games. Unless it's to show solidarity with Mike and Matt, a dispute between the publisher and developer shouldn't affect GOG. It's not their fault Interplay hasn't been paying them. If anything they should just keep the games up and send them any money generated directly. I'd love to see Interplay try to sue them over that one.

I think what happened was Interplay put those games up for sale, but with them being in breach of contract and said contract being terminated by Parallax, Interplay may or may not actually have rights to sell those games anymore.

[karajorma]

In which case they'll just sign a new deal with Volition hopefully. Which is good for everyone except Interplay.

[Galemp]

Ugh. Interplay, get your act together and pay the developers. If Interplay would let their IPs out of the bottle instead of hoarding them (like they did with Fallout) they might actually get some interest in them again. Hell, I can see games like Castles II reborn as a successful free-to-play app, or sales of a new entry in the series reviving interest in the old ones.

I'm very happy to see that there's been two good calls here: One, that the games are still available through GOG.com for those that have them; and two, there's no impact on Descent: Underground. I understand suspending new sales until the issue is settled, but it's good to see that there's still a desire to maintain goodwill with the player base.

[karajorma]

I'm not so sure 1) is actually a decision by GOG so much as a requirement when they contract with a publisher for a game. I suspect GOG were smart enough to only sign contracts that basically said "If we sell a game to someone, that can't be revoked later by the publisher." because I don't remember ever hearing of a game being removed from a customer's account. In fact, as with the Duke Nukem sale a few days back, GOG frequently do sales or promotions on games that they are about to have to stop selling.