My favorite game of all time, Oni, is also stuck in purgatory for similar reasons. It was the last game Bungie put out before being bought out by Microsoft. In theory Take-Two Interactive owns the rights to the IP, but it's really fuzzy and they aren't very interested in finding out if they actually own it for purposes of selling or licensing the IP. Distribution rights are also theoretically owned by 2K (Gathering of Developers [PC distro] and Rockstar Games [PS2distro]) are both now owned by Take-Two. (Source: https://wiki.oni2.net/Rights)
I've heard rumor that the person at Take-Two is fairly tight-fisted with old IP and not interested in anyone outside the company getting access to it, but that might be unfounded.
(If you work at Take-Two/2K Games publishing and are interested in licensing the distribution rights, shoot me a message. From what I know of the source, it should be an easy port to modern systems, and you'd make a lot of people very happy. It _should_ be profitable to do so. I'd be opening to setting up a small studio to do so. I have the time and the cash right now.)
Isn't the primary reason why games don't get release to avoid them competing with modern games for gamers focus. Like if I spend time playing older games then I'm not going to spend as much time on newer games so I don't need to spend as much money per hour of game time.
This is a proof that copyright terms are too long IMO.
Unless someone is actively selling a work, ie you can buy it, then the work should lapse in to the public domain. The appropriate IP office could issue a decision, on request and payment of a fee, saying who the current seller is or that no seller was found and so the work is PD. Indications could then be presented in the relevant countries IP journals saying "work X" will fall into PD on $DATE which would allow interested parties to intervene before the certificate was issued (ie saving their copyright) by saying where the work was available. Test purchases could be carried out to ensure companies don't hide their saleable works.
> Isn't the primary reason why games don't get release to avoid them competing with modern games for gamers focus.
Games companies are constantly and ruthlessly competing with each other for gamer focus over modern games. You don't avoid that competition by simply not releasing your own stuff.
But even assuming you still have the original source code and assets for a title, spending a good chunk of $$$ to modernize a title to run decently on modern operating systems (lest you be flooded with time/$$$ consuming support requests), updating assets to to look like they're from the current decade (so it's marketable beyond an extremely niche nostalgic audience), all to maybe get a fraction of the original sales when second hand sales and piracy have likely saturated the market for the original, as sought out by the nostalgic - it's simply not a great time investment.
You can drive down the costs by just throwing DOSBox at the problem in some cases, like GOG has done for many titles. Or maybe it's been so long that your remaster is effectively a new game, ala FF7, and you can sell it to a whole new generation of gamers. Or maybe you had a subscription based game ala WOW, and maybe third party reverse engineered servers didn't already completely moot the interest in a re-release. Maybe.
But even then, a re-release is probably not going to be your next genre-defining blockbuster title.
> You’re somewhat conflating a port with a remaster, here.
Guilty as charged! But there's a sliding scale and blurred lines, so I think it's warranted.
There are "remasters" that vary from basically untouched originals, to entirely new games. And while old-PC to new-PC is rarely thought of as a port per se, in extreme cases it effectively is.
> Remasters are significantly more expensive, yes.
Some are, some aren't. Porting can be plenty expensive as well.
> Isn't the primary reason why games don't get release to avoid them competing with modern games for gamers focus. Like if I spend time playing older games then I'm not going to spend as much time on newer games so I don't need to spend as much money per hour of game time.
This is the first time I've heard this theory. In general I don't think this is the case - game development is risky and expensive. Economically it makes sense to milk every old game for all it is worth, if people will still buy it and there aren't any ongoing costs (servers, etc). Porting a game to a new platform is usually much cheaper. You don't need a full art and engineering team, nor do you need much in the way of design (some might be needed in cases of a UI refresh or additions to gameplay).
See: Nintendo. The original Super Mario Bros has been ported to nearly every system they've put out. And people keep paying for it. Other publishers will do this, too. There's https://www.gog.com/ which is pretty much dedicated to republishing old games.
Also see Hollywood (different market, same logic), with the extreme example of the newest director’s cut of the fully remastered and digitally improved etc. etc. version of Star Wars.
If you have a product that has brand value, it makes sense to reuse that value to market other products.
Also see JavaScript (used the (perceived) value of Java) and USB and Bluetooth (pivoted to completely different ways to shove data over a wire/the air a few times, reusing the brand to become popular)
And we're seeing just the same end result, with gaps missing in the cultural record. For example, there are Doctor Who episodes that simple don't exist anymore [1]. The contracts of the time specified a maximum number of broadcasts, after which they were taped over. Now, with loss of compatibility, closing of multiplayer servers, logon servers, games are going the same route. Another loss of culture.
I don't think old games compete with typical modern AAA games. They're far more likely to compete with indie games, but that's good for publishers too - they set a demanding standard (most "indie" games today are total crap TBH) for something that really might compete for their focus.
The Myth series is sort of stuck in the same dilemma. I wasn't a part of the talks for either game, unfortunately. I think the people who were trying before were trying to buy out the IP, which in my personal opinion is less likely to happen. I'd rather get it distributed with modding tools.
Edit: the modding tools exist already, but it's likely that the creators of them [myself included ;)] could come to an agreement for distribution.
I'd argue that pirating games that aren't available anywhere should not be illegal.
I had the same problem with the original Metro Exodus. I couldn't find it anywhere, only the Redux version.
It's sad to see older games neglected.
The only reason we gave creators the right to control their work is to encourage them to create it and make it available.
If they aren't going to make it available, then no, we have no obligation to protect their work with our money and our legal system and enforcement officers that we're funding.
Otherwise, they get a lot from us, and we get nothing from them.
I suspect the huge majority would not care and that most of the things falling into this category would be orphaned works due to byzantine ownership issues.
No. We give creatures a right to control their work, so they will create works. They did create the work. Now they are working on something new. The fact that you want it, and they don't want to release it, doesn't mean you should get it.
Basically we have them control over their work for a limited time. You can't just take that control away from them because you want a copy.
Now I believe that the current "limited time"is to long . But that is a different argument
That libertarian capitalist bullshit. People create things for free all the time. The purpose of creation is for the use of those creations. The purpose of government is to administer the common desires for the common good of the society they administer.
At this point the creators literally have no right to control their work. That right rests in one of three corporations, none of which are interested in finding out if they actually have the right, nor to grant that right to a third party. We have already passed the point where creators lose the right to control their work when they do work for hire, which is the majority of art being created nowadays.
Just for the reference, creators in general have nothing to do with these games anymore. As explained in the article, it's stockpiled by publishers who don't even have a clue if they own the rights or not.
Copyright is intended to ensure that the creators of works of art are able to profit from their work.
Perhaps some modification that if a copyrighted product is offered for sale, and then some time later is withdrawn from sale/no longer generally available - then the copyrights in that work should revert to the public domain after some period of time.
We have a similar problem with books, movies and music - things that were once available have become not. Certainly it was a genuine excuse previously that the costs were too high to keep every book/movie/album in-print, but now that digital copies are incredibly cheap that excuse is going away.
In the US Constitution, at least, the purpose of limited-time monopolies is "To promote the progress of science and useful arts...", not to ensure that creators of works are able to profit. Granting limited-time monopolies is a way to create profit for the creators, but as I read it, the goal was to promote progress for all of society, not for the creators.
In this case it is to promote useful art. One way to do that is to allow the creators to profit off they work. It gives them the incentive to create, plus it gives them the ability to create.
The growth of the public domain is a method to promote the useful arts. Particularly in the realm of patents. The eventual guarantee that patented inventions become public knowledge means that more innovation is prevented from remaining in the realm of trade secrets forever.
"I'd argue that pirating games that aren't available anywhere should not be illegal. "
The only reason that I can see that this would be illegal would be due to copyrights.
I don't think they're arguing that the original author/publisher shouldn't recieve attribution and credit for the original work.
If someone was originally selling a product openly, and they now no longer choose to do so - then they're effectively abandoning their interest in those copyrights. Sharing those abandoned items shouldn't be illegal.
I am willing to grant a creator that right in exchange for the work becoming public domain after a limited, and reasonable, period of time. Outside the context of a social contract then, no, I think a creator has no right to control their work if they decide to share it with others.
Copyright exists for the sole reason of -promoting- the creation of works (by allowing the creator to have a monopoly on it long enough to extract profit).
If a creator no longer wishes to sell those copies...the copyright's very purpose is undermined. Obviously the law as written allows them to do so, but the law as explicitly intended should not do so.
Certainly, outside of the particulars of the law they have no such right. It's not a 'god given' one, or any such thing; preventing people from making copies of something is in fact extremely unnatural and goes against what has allowed our species' cultures to flourish.
No it isn't... The fact that I no longer wasnt to distribute my work didn't mean you get to take that right from me. I created the work for the sole purpose of making a limited edition. It incentivized me to create it, and because it was a limited edition I may have made more money... But now you say you get to copy it because you want to? What is the point of giving control to the creator, if you are just going to take that control away, if you don't like how they are distributing it?
I don't believe the law gives any intention on distribution.
And if I have a copy of your work already, and I want to distribute it myself, what is to stop me?
For hundreds of thousands of years of human history, nothing. Copyright is a fairly new invention. It doesn't take a law to allow me to distribute works I have a copy of that are not my creation; it takes a law to stop me.
The law was created to stop me so that you, the creator, -could- control how it was distributed, for your profit. For a limited time. Those are the key bits; it was to allow you to profit from it, and it was to be a limited time. Mickey Mouse lawyers and "forever minus a day" notwithstanding, that was the goal.
If a work is no longer sold not because the original creator(s) decided it should be 'limited', but because the original creator is no longer determinable, i.e., an orphaned work, it's perfectly reasonable to put it into the public domain, as quite clearly, the goal of allowing the creator to make money from it no longer applies. It's also why extending copyright makes no sense.
But that's neither here nor there; my point was simply that copyright is an unnatural thing, one created by society with the idea that it better society, and in instances like this that breaks down.
We should have a good reason for restricting what third parties may do with copies of the work. If nobody benefits (e.g., more sales) it's purely https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadweight_loss.
The question at hand is whether, when a creator exercises their right to refuse to sell their work, those who can no longer buy it have the right to copy and distribute the work.
It seems obvious that you can refuse to sell your work, but if you don't exercise an exclusive right to distribute content, should you lose that exclusivity?
Because if people simply are allowed to make bootleg copies of limited edition things, then the limited editions become a meaningless concept, _undermining_ the creator's business model.
I would think Night Dive could force the issue in some way - perhaps sue the main publishers for a declaratory judgment that their releasing the game would not be copyright infringement. This would force some kind of definitive outcome as to who really owns the rights to the game, after which negotiations could start for the actual release.
I think the issue there would be money. Night Dive aren't a big studio, and there is no guarantee of a 'win' here. A win outcome here could well be Warner Bros. producing a contract and still saying no to a re-release. Also, Stephen Kick has said on twitter in the past week that he's still not given up on the IP, so there's still an ember here.
This is the same with the Myth series by Bungie. Take2 owns the IP and various fan/dev groups (http://projectmagma.net/) have tried negotiating with them to get the rights so they can update it for modern systems and re-release on Steam. However Take2 either refuses to sell the rights or only offers to sell for a ridiculous sum (for such an old and abandoned title). The community has been unofficially patching and supporting the game since about 2005 for modern PC and Mac systems but we would love to see a proper Steam release and build the community up again.
To any Myth 2 fans by the way, there is still a small and loyal community who play online together. (see: http://gateofstorms.net/)
Nightdive are great. They even make their restored games work on Linux natively, like Noctropolis.
I'm personally waiting for GOG to sort out the situation with The Neverhood, so it could be re-released. It works in ScummVM.
And it's typical for those greedy publishers to refuse to deal with such cases. They think that spending any effort on it would cost them more than potential benefits from re-releases. So they prefer to let them be pirated instead.
This sort of thing perplexes me. Why can't they just release the game (they have the technology) wait for someone to sue them, and then force that person (or persons) to prove they own the copyright. If they can't prove it then the copyright is forfeit.
Because those persons will sue them, assert their copyright, then receive damages and remove the product from being sold. This isn't like a compulsory licensing fee where you pay to record a cover of a song and nobody can stop you, the rightsholders have said they're not interested in the remake existing, therefore we can assume they'll just kill any remake that gets made.
Yes, except the article said the legitimate "rights holder" was unclear. In order to sue, the party doing the suing has to prove "standing" (which is the legal term for the party being harmed) and to prove that they have to prove they are the rights holder.
I was thinking that the cost of filing a motion to dismiss unless the plaintiff could prove they had standing would be relatively inexpensive. (say $50K - $100K in legal fees). Seems like one way to clear up the rights issue.
> In order to sue, the party doing the suing has to prove "standing" (which is the legal term for the party being harmed) and to prove that they have to prove they are the rights holder.
No that's not what standing is. They have to establish a legally cognizable claim to harm to establish standing; actual harm is what an actual trial exists to establish. A dispute of fact over who holds rights at issue would be a perfectly normal issue for trial.
> I was thinking that the cost of filing a motion to dismiss unless the plaintiff could prove they had standing would be relatively inexpensive
A defense motion to dismiss necessarily must state that the plaintiff has no legally cognizable claim as a matter of law; if there is anything relevant that might potentially be proven, it is automatically viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. You can't make a motion to dismiss unless the plaintiff proves something, the very idea of that acknowledges that there is a disputes issue of fact necessary to resolve the case, calling for a trial.
Remember when they essentially killed Battlefront II by basing their review on pay-to-win mechanics that weren't in the public release of the game, then angrily refused to update it to reflect reality? Totally ignoring reality so they could pander to Reddit, good times.
I hear my gamer friends give Kotaku so much grief over what strikes me as comparatively minor things (such as the OP's, over a game review, when there are so many others doing that)...but I've often noticed that they report on things I legitimately was unaware of, or perspectives I never had before, within gaming, that no one else is covering. I don't get the antipathy.
I'm not questioning whether their gaming-adjacent journalism is good (see all the links in the response, for instance). They do cover lots of topics which are otherwise not well covered about the gross morass which is the business of making games.
I'm saying that their gaming journalism, specifically their reviews of games, is generally low quality. They regularly plagiarize Twitter and Reddit without crediting them. They regularly recommend avoiding otherwise excellent games because they don't like optional and avoidable pieces of them. There have been reviews I have read by them where I wonder if they actually played the same game as me.
Tl;Dr - Read their editorials if that's your thing, but if you want to know if a game is worth your dollars, you'll need another source.
Edit: you referred to your "gamer friends", I think this is where the issue lies. Gamers mostly want to know what game they should spend their free time on, and that's where Kotaku struggles.
There is an (non agressive) update at the end of the review though ? So they did change it.
Kotaku's thing is opinionated reviews, if you understand the reviewer's tastes you should be able to make your own opinion relative to theirs.
Also honestly, Kotaku pandering to reddit ? You'll have to more precise than that, reddit is made up of so many different communities, you can say that of just about anyone.
That "update" doesn't change the multiple paragraphs of text above it about how greedy pay-to-win ruins the game. It deliberately gives the impression that this is a temporary thing, which it wasn't. It's tacked on at the end even though this is a major change to the balance of the game.
The most downvoted comment in the history of Reddit, referenced repeatedly by Kotaku not just in that review but in others, is about the pay-to-win mechanic they based their original review around. They have since lifted tons of comments from that thread (although at least in that instance they gave credit?) as Reddit-service in their other writings.
All video game reviews are opinionated, that's kinda the point, but it's possible to make a useful opinionated review. Theirs are not. As an example of what I'm talking about, read the section in the BF II review where the author talks about time-to-kill in multiplayer. Realize how useless it is because of the lack of references to other similar games; is the weapon strength closer to Halo, or CoD4 hardcore mode? "Weak" and "unexpected" are totally useless without some frame of reference, which the author could give (just like many other reviews do) but doesn't. As an aside, theirs is definitely a minority opinion if you read other reviews or watch twitch streams.
I've heard rumor that the person at Take-Two is fairly tight-fisted with old IP and not interested in anyone outside the company getting access to it, but that might be unfounded.
(If you work at Take-Two/2K Games publishing and are interested in licensing the distribution rights, shoot me a message. From what I know of the source, it should be an easy port to modern systems, and you'd make a lot of people very happy. It _should_ be profitable to do so. I'd be opening to setting up a small studio to do so. I have the time and the cash right now.)