SHP Forums

Josh Mandel?

Yep. I'm thinking he wrote the story or something.

Tawmis wrote:That's what I am saying - I wonder what deal TSL struck that they were still able to proceed and use the characters (clearly from KQ) - all they had to do was drop the "King's Quest" portion out of the name. Like I wonder if I made a Leisure Suit Larry 4: Beautiful Beach Babes in Bikinis - and if the lawyers came after me - if I would be able to strike some kind of deal of just dropping the LSL title and calling it "Beautiful Beach Babes in Bikinis" and yet still use characters like Larry Laffer and Passionate Patti...

Theoretically, you should be able to. However, the LSL series is still an actively selling property for Activision (MCL and BOB). There hasn't been a new KQ game released since 1998.

There were people who were part of the SQ7 team that would only work on the game if Vivendi wasn't involved. The way I heard it was Vivendi approached them with the same deal they gave AGDI and TSL. SQ7 tried to counter with some other kind of deal and they couldn't come to an arrangement. Sad, really. What do Vivendi care....

Still, with the possibility of the old Sierra franchises being bought out we may yet see SQ7 someday.

MusicallyInspired wrote:Vivendi approached them with the same deal they gave AGDI and TSL. SQ7 tried to counter with some other kind of deal and they couldn't come to an arrangement. Sad, really. What do Vivendi care....

That was silly. You are right, what does Vivendi care? VU had nothing to loose and the SQ7 team had no bargaining power.

MusicallyInspired wrote:There were people who were part of the SQ7 team that would only work on the game if Vivendi wasn't involved. The way I heard it was Vivendi approached them with the same deal they gave AGDI and TSL. SQ7 tried to counter with some other kind of deal and they couldn't come to an arrangement. Sad, really. What do Vivendi care....

Still, with the possibility of the old Sierra franchises being bought out we may yet see SQ7 someday.

I imagine VU (now Activision) cared because the SQ property belonged to them, therefore they could set rules regarding any new games involving the series. That makes sense to me. Unless the parent company gives specific permission to use their characters and universe, it's not within any other company's or individual's right to create a new product containing that property.

As for the old Sierra franchises returning one day... I wouldn't hold your breath. Adventure Games, for the most part, aren't profitable (at least not when compared to games of other genres). Any developer wishing to make an Adventure Game would have a very tough sell to known game publishers.

DeadPoolX wrote:I imagine VU (now Activision) cared because the SQ property belonged to them, therefore they could set rules regarding any new games involving the series. That makes sense to me. Unless the parent company gives specific permission to use their characters and universe, it's not within any other company's or individual's right to create a new product containing that property.

As for the old Sierra franchises returning one day... I wouldn't hold your breath. Adventure Games, for the most part, aren't profitable (at least not when compared to games of other genres). Any developer wishing to make an Adventure Game would have a very tough sell to known game publishers.

I took it that Vivendi didn't care whether the project would survive, not that they didn't care about protecting their property. Maybe your take is what MusicallyInspired meant, though.

As for the IP, I too, expect it to be held in indefinite limbo for the foreseeable future. I'm sure that Activision sees these properties as not worth enough to develop or license out, but are still their assets and as such not to be let go of. It cost nothing for them to just sit on them.

As I recall, when Vivendi tried to put the kabosh on TSL, we launched a petition which garnered quite the response. The end result was, the fan-made game was allowed to continue as long as the name was changed (KQ removed from the title) and end-result had to be freeware.

The TSL demo was promising. Aside from the fact the characters "floated" rather than walked, I enjoyed it immensely.

Obviously Vivendi and Activision don't care about these sorts of games. When the Powerball jackpot is in excess of $50mil US., I buy tickets. When I win, <VBG>, we'll buy the rights to all these games, and put together our own company!

I know I'm bumping an old thread, but... what ever happened to this game? Is it still in production or did it become vaporware?

Summer 2009 release.

Let me find the link...

Found it -

http://www.tsl-game.com/forum/index.php?topic=3583.0

Yonkey
Web Director/Administrator/TSL Groupie!
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Re: Whats the release date for TSL?
« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2008, 12:41:53 AM »

As mentioned in the final entry of our Journal Special, our expected completion date is May 2009. The game will then be presented to Vivendi Games for approval. Once approved, a release date will be announced. As it stands today, we're projecting TSL to be released in Summer 2009.

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Ironic I was just looking at that today (earlier) and downloaded the demo.

Yup. It's still alive. Just taking a while. But if things stay on track, I can see it coming out this summer.

I had almost forgot about it, myself. I was halfway expecting it to become vaporware. There was a demo that they had released shortly after their run in with VU, but then nothing for a long time. I guess we shall see.

I am hoping it goes through - the demo is amazing.

Oh, I'd love for it to happen, too, but I'm not holding my breath.

... I was holding my breath, since the demo is wonderful, but I have to stop because I was turning blue