I’m sure we all have fond memories of the Amiga/C64 days (I’m not that old yet … right ? ) and have our old favourites … it got me to thinking, has anyone here tried to pick up an old IP before? What kind of process is that, how do you even get started? As simple as an email to company X or is there some other avenue?
I’m curious what has happened with classics like Mail Order Monsters, Racing Destruction Set, Sword of Aragon, etc… I think they were SSI games, SSI is owned by who now? Ubisoft?
Anyhow, just curious if someone has any experience going down this avenue?
Mostly, IP gets bought up in bulk with older publishers. You’d probably have a pretty thick paper trail to try and recover any of those old IP’s. The best you can do is trace publishers. Who bought which publisher for which game. In some cases, the original author is the one to contact, so give that a go.
It would be cheaper, faster, and easier to make a game that is similar to but not exactly like the game you fondly remember. If you use the exact names and exact game mechanics, you run some risk.
Oddly enough, I’ve just done something like this. I wrote a game many (okay, 18) years ago for the Atari ST/STE/Falcon030 computers, (if memory serves, it was one of the few games to support the Atari “Jagpad”). As luck would have it, I designed it, programmed it (except for some code in the original prototype), created 90% of the graphics and all the sound effects too, not to mention level design. So I know how it was made.
However, I’d lost track of the company and the chap who owned it and was also the game’s producer. He also owned the copyright in the game’s characters. (The producer is still working in the games industry today, so I’m not going to name him.) The original prototype version had a very surrealist feel to its design and characters that weren’t particularly memorable; I wasn’t as happy about the choice to make it more ‘cutesy’ at the time, but in hindsight, I think the producer made the right call.
Tracking down the producer was tricky. I knew he was probably still in the games industry as I’d seen a photo of him in Develop Magazine a few years earlier, but his name isn’t that unusual, so I had to do some detective work: trawling through old copies of that magazine found me the original article, but I found he’d moved on from that job and was now working for another company. After some judicious use of Google, I finally tracked down his LinkedIn profile and got in touch with him through that.
Total time spent: about an hour or so in total. Most of it trawling through archives on trade websites like Develop and Gamasutra, tracking my quarry’s movements over the years.
A couple of emails later and I had my permission.
Granted, I knew the guy, but the process of tracking down the ownership of an IP isn’t all that difficult. The hard part is working out who owned it at the time, and deducing its subsequent changes of ownership over time. As the original publisher for my game never got bought out—it was merely mothballed before eventually being shut down by its owner—that part was pretty easy for me.
However, if you’re trying to track down the ownership of a game IP released on, say, the 8-bit or 16-bit computer platforms, it’s very likely that one of the few remaining companies from that era now owns the rights. The most likely suspects are therefore Eidos (UK), Ubisoft (France, Canada), Atari (originally “Infogrames”; they bought the right to the Atari trademark some years ago), Electronic Arts, Activision and, finally, Sony. Once mighty Amiga proponents, Psygnosis, were bought up by Sony many, many years ago. I seem to recall them buying up a couple of other publishers and developers, so they may have the rights to a few other titles too.
Google is very handy. There are any number of fan sites for old platforms, many of which have even scanned and archived magazines of the period. These are a good starting point for a search. Other sources of information are the trade publications, which also cover job moves and the like, but there aren’t many. (“Edge” magazine—also known as “Next Generation” in the US—have been around for a very long time by industry standards, so they’re likely to have lots of news items in their archives about which company bought which other company.) And you’ll often find similar information from other sites too. E.g. “Core Design”—of “Tomb Raider” fame—was formed from the nucleus of “Gremlin Graphics”, who produced the “Monty Mole” series of games in the 1980s. Searching on the names of the publishers can yield a wealth of information.
In short, it’s not that difficult to find the owner of an IP if you’re willing to do some virtual legwork.
It certainly won’t hurt to ask for permission first.
Yes, Ubisoft. Although that’s not necessarily the best place to start…
… because a quick search online reveals a rather useful nugget of information: Joel Billings, the founder of SSI, has since set up a new company, 2by3 Games. If anyone would know where the rights to his old SSI projects are today, the founder of SSI is a good place to start. He’s also more likely to know who to contact within the large Ubisoft management structure in order to get permission to remake an old SSI property.
If you do find yourself having to deal with Ubisoft, remember: it’s their corporate website you need to look at, not their localised shop-front websites. Working out who, specifically, you need to get in touch with in that behemoth is another matter, which is why I suggest you contact Mr. Billings first as he’s more likely to know. Chances are, very few of those currently in Ubisoft’s management hierarchy will even remember SSI.
I know someone who worked on a successful 8-bit game and wants to do an update, but there are ongoing legal issues over who really owns the rights to the IP. I also know someone was wanting to republish I game I worked on, but the original company has gone bust and their IP was sold to several different companies, some of whom have passed it on several times, including via other companies that are no longer trading.
The post was intended to solicit some folks experiences on the matter - obviously I can just re-imagine any particular game and go that route, but it rarely seems unwise to hear other opinions and experiences on the matter.
Great story stimarco, thanks for the feedback all!
That may be the case; I know someone recently (within the last two years) released Archon Classic on Steam.
Don’t know how it did, but the game is pretty cool. Adds a bunch of new stuff but still allows classic mode.
I have no idea if they had to license that IP, but I somehow doubt it.
You mentioned Mail Order Monsters at the top, since that was made by the same people only a year or two later, it is probably in exactly the same situation as Archon (whatever that is).
Games are primarily protected by copyright laws, but individual characters can also be trademarked:
Copyright is the one that can last upwards of 70 years after the death of the creator / author / (whoever owns the copyright). However, in the past—and particularly in the USA—copyright used to require a registration process, and copyright notices for some media were also mandatory. As a result of this, some surprisingly recent movies are already in the Public Domain.
Trademarks require pro-active enforcement and are applied specifically to images, such as characters, and to corporate logos, and only apply in the context of a “salesman”. For example, Mickey Mouse on a lunchbox is protected by being a trademarked image. Mickey Mouse in a movie is protected under copyright instead as Mickey Mouse isn’t a salesman in the movie, trying to sell you stuff.
? ) and have our old favourites … it got me to thinking, has anyone here tried to pick up an old IP before? What kind of process is that, how do you even get started? As simple as an email to company X or is there some other avenue?