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Why do Activision refuse to re-publish Infocom game?

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david....@tiscali.co.uk

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Jul 5, 2006, 7:23:31 AM7/5/06
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Why do Activision refuse to re-publish Infocom game? They could mint it
is republishing all the Infocom Games on a PC CD_ROM with Manuals and
pictures of the Goodies. Even better would be games in original
packaging with Goodies. Everyone liked and remembered them.

Selling Infocom to Activision was the worst thing the Infocom Crew ever
did. They still had a few good games in them. But Activision wasn't
interested. They did however give my copyright permission for my .z5
Inform game based ABSOLUTELY IN EVERY DETAIL on the Infocom Planetfall
/ Stationfall Sample Transcript. find it attached, with some maps and
technical drawings. Infocom had to sell because their stupid
Cornerstone Database bankrupted them when everone was buying DBase
instead. No doubt it worked well but industry assiated Infocom with IF
Games and NOTHING else. That era is dead now. Technology has passed it
by. And there will never ever be any IF games as popular and well
presented avaiable again. PalmTop computers still use the games. An
endless stream of wan-ta-be hard-core programmers or english students
spend dozens if not hundreds of hours working on games few people will
ever play. Even though they might be of excellent quality like Lost New
York. The Z-machine emulator crew do a sterling job. WinFrotz2002.exe
is excellent and free!!!!! Beyond my middle ranking programming skills.

David Ledgard
http://infoscripts.tripod.com/

http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/features/204/
Adventure Classic Gaming - article about Writing interactive fiction
games with Inform by Webmaster, about above game.
Posted 1st June 2006.

Andrew Plotkin

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Jul 5, 2006, 12:34:37 PM7/5/06
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Here, david....@tiscali.co.uk wrote:
> Why do Activision refuse to re-publish Infocom game?

Money.

--Z

--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't subjected you to searches without a
warrant, it's for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because of
the Fourth Amendment.

Dan Sanderson

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Jul 7, 2006, 2:30:20 AM7/7/06
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On 2006-07-05 04:23:31 -0700, david....@tiscali.co.uk said:

> Why do Activision refuse to re-publish Infocom game? They could mint it
> is republishing all the Infocom Games on a PC CD_ROM with Manuals and
> pictures of the Goodies. Even better would be games in original
> packaging with Goodies. Everyone liked and remembered them.

I think Activision deserves a little credit for having republished the
Infocom canon several times. The Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces
CD-ROM included everything except Hitchhiker's Guide (which is now a
free, legitimate download) and Shogun. Masterpieces also included PDFs
of all the printed material, albeit in poorly OCR'd form. Prior to
that was the Lost Treasures of Infocom I and II, which together covered
the complete set (including Shogun) except Leather Goddess of Phobos.
And prior to that was the "collection" series, which included 19 games
over three discs, and printed booklets of the original manuals.

Of course, I'm not complaining because I own a Masterpieces disc. :)
Looks like they're going for a pretty penny on eBay...

-- Dan

ChicagoDave

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Jul 7, 2006, 10:50:24 AM7/7/06
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> david....@tiscali.co.uk wrote:
> Why do Activision refuse to re-publish Infocom game?

I asked a guy at Activision (Laird) about getting a quote for all
Infocom materials, just to see how much it would cost to buy
everything. I also asked for a quote on licensing everything to resell.

Laird's reply was more or less "We don't have any legal staff willing
to put any time into this. I'm sorry."

The Infocom trademarks and materials are all buried in a cave
somewhere. The irony is both humurous and frustrating at the same time.

David C.

Mark Norton

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Jul 7, 2006, 1:25:13 PM7/7/06
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> d
Basement Archives
You are in a dark basement corner with a narrow hallway leading north,
and a nearly identical hallway leading south. On the west is the
doorway to the elevator which appears to be inoperable.
Your sword is glowing with a faint blue glow.

> s
Eastern File Stacks
You are on the east edge of a overlook of a lower basement level crammed
with filing cabinets with hardly any room to pass between them. A
railing protects you from following over the edge. On the south side of
the hallway are bookcases filled with manila files. A hallway leads
north, and the path you are on continues to the east along the line of
shelves.
Someone carrying a large attache case is standing next to the bookcases
looking very stern and serious. He does not speak, but it is clear from
his aspect that the bag will be taken only over three countersuits and
nine objections.
Your sword has begun to glow very brightly.
The lawyer files a brief, cutting you to the very quick.

> look at lawyer
The lawyer is a slippery character with beady eyes that flit back and
forth. He carries, along with an unmistakeable arrogance, a large
attache case and a vicious commercial sensitivity, and his gaze is aimed
menacingly in your direction. I'd watch out if I were you.
The lawyer just left, still carrying his attache case. You may not have
noticed that he robbed you blind first.

--
==============================
Mark Norton <ma...@cdvinc.com>
Concept Development, Inc.
Irvine, CA, USA

ethan...@gmail.com

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Jul 8, 2006, 12:17:33 AM7/8/06
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ChicagoDave wrote:
> > david....@tiscali.co.uk wrote:
> > Why do Activision refuse to re-publish Infocom game?
>
> I asked a guy at Activision (Laird) about getting a quote for all
> Infocom materials, just to see how much it would cost to buy
> everything. I also asked for a quote on licensing everything to resell.
>
> Laird's reply was more or less "We don't have any legal staff willing
> to put any time into this. I'm sorry."

I understand the frustration; I had a similar conversation with Tom
Sloper about fifteen years ago. I guess I got one step further, but
the ballpark price had one too many zeros for me to front on my own
(for a non-exclusive license to re-publish), so it didn't go any
further.

-ethan

Robb Sherwin

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Jul 9, 2006, 10:15:15 PM7/9/06
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A sealed Suspended box just went for $510 on eBay. I think it's
hilarious that it's not worth some nobody's time to investigate the
reissue of some of this stuff. Masterpieces also sells very well. 15
years later and Activision gobbling up the Infocom IP is just as
unfortunate as it was the day it happened.

Interplay at least saw their company headed for bankruptcy and reissued
copies of Freespace 2 (that were going for $100 on eBay). Didn't help
them much, but the thought was nice.

Mike Roberts

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Jul 10, 2006, 2:07:00 PM7/10/06
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"Robb Sherwin" <robb.s...@gmail.com> wrote:
>A sealed Suspended box just went for $510 on eBay. I think it's
> hilarious that it's not worth some nobody's time to investigate the
> reissue of some of this stuff.

To be fair to Activision, those kinds of prices are only because the stuff
has achieved "collectible" status, which is partly because it's been out of
print for so long. It's almost certain that the buyer of that $510 sealed
copy of Suspended is never going to open it - they didn't buy it to play the
game. An Activision reissue wouldn't command prices like that, or indeed
any sort of price premium; it would be mundane by the very fact of its ready
availability. (Then again, it might get interesting 20 years hence, after
*it* goes out of print.)

I'm not saying Activision couldn't get *some* incremental revenue from a
reissue. I'm just saying that a big price tag on ebay for an out-of-print
collectible isn't persuasive as evidence of current demand for a reissue.

> 15 years later and Activision gobbling up the Infocom IP is just as
> unfortunate as it was the day it happened.

Yeah, but the IP would have ended up with *some* successor business in any
case, and whoever that turned out to be, the end result probably wouldn't
have been much different. At least Activision was good enough to do a
couple of full-collection reissues at reasonable prices (although those were
a long time ago now); I don't take it for granted that any successor would
have done the same. I think from our perspective the only really good
outcome would have been for Infocom to officially put their catalog in the
public domain before closing up shop, but that just can't have been a
practical possibility. Even if they'd wanted to, their shareholders and
creditors would certainly have stopped them, as those assets had residual
value to which the financial stakeholders were entitled.

--Mike
mjr underscore at hotmail dot com


ethan...@gmail.com

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Jul 14, 2006, 1:34:22 AM7/14/06
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Mike Roberts wrote:
> I think from our perspective the only really good
> outcome would have been for Infocom to officially put their catalog in the
> public domain before closing up shop, but that just can't have been a
> practical possibility. Even if they'd wanted to, their shareholders and
> creditors would certainly have stopped them, as those assets had residual
> value to which the financial stakeholders were entitled.

One of the things that cropped up during my discussions with Activision
about the corpora of Infocom IP was that an exclusive license or total
sale was out of the question because they were under instructions not
to divest themselves of any assets at the time (due to creditors'
demands). That's why I was seeking a non-exclusive license. Couldn't
have afforded it anyway.

-ethan

Jake

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Jul 17, 2006, 2:28:01 PM7/17/06
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