Topic: Riddick and Ghostbusters and Brutal Legend gets a new home

[Flames_of_chaos]

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117994909.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&query=riddick
Riddick and the Ghostbusters have both found a new home at one of America's oldest videogame companies.

Atari has bought rights to publish the videogame sequel to "The Chronicles of Riddick" and a new game based on "Ghostbusters" from Activision Blizzard, which declined to pick up the two projects after merging with Vivendi Games this summer.

The publisher confirmed it will release "The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena" this spring. It's a follow-up to Vivendi's 2005 movie tie-in "Chronicles of Riddick: Escape at Butcher Bay," which sold decently worldwide and was critically acclaimed as one of the best-ever film-based games.

In addition to buying publishing rights to the game from Activision Blizzard, Atari also has signed a new licensing deal with Universal that will let it continue "Riddick" as a videogame franchise.

If Phil Harrison did this, good job Phil!!

http://www.destructoid.com/activison-doodieheads-hindering-brutal-legend-s-release-109649.phtml
Ever since Activision surpassed Electronic Arts to become the biggest third party publisher, the company has seemed committed to inheriting EA's former reputation as the almighty rotten dick of the industry. The latest bastardry attributed to the Guitar Hero publisher is its alleged blocking of Brutal Legend's release.

Brutal Legend is one of the games made "homeless" after Activision felt like decimating Vivendi. Designed by cult game maker Tim Schaffer, Brutal Legend is an action-adventure title about a rock star who commands armies of headbangers and roadies.

According to sources, Activision is being "an impediment" to the game's release and is "blocking the process." Why Activision would do this, outside the obvious reason of them being arseholes, is currently unknown. Developer Double Fine does believe, however, that Activision is deliberately trying to make the publishing process of Brutal Legend as difficult as possible.

[Dirk Temporo]

And I'm looking forward to Brutal Legend too.

Phooey.

[Flames_of_chaos]

The irony about this is that Phil Harrison said that Atari will start focusing more on multiplayer, casual and popular/mainstream games and will stop focusing on epic single player type games. Looks like Phil contradicted himself when Atari picked up Ghostbusters and Riddick but hey those two properties can put Atari back on the map.

[Flames_of_chaos]

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20984
A lack of cross-platform sequel potential is apparently the reason Activision Blizzard let go of Vivendi Games titles such as Ghostbusters, The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand and Brütal Legend.

CEO Bobby Kotick spoke on the subject for the first time in the company’s earning call, following the publishing of its third quarter results yesterday.

Although no titles were referred to by name, he was asked why he had "de-emphasised" some Vivendi Games brands following the merger.

"With respect to the franchises that don’t have the potential to be exploited every year across every platform, with clear sequel potential that can meet our objectives of, over time, becoming $100 million-plus franchises, that’s a strategy that has worked very well for us," Kotick said in the Gamasutra-attended call later transcribed by Seeking Alpha.

"It’s something that we have been very disciplined about. So, while there are lots of promise for a lot of these products that we had in the portfolio, I think, generally, our strategy has been to focus -- especially given the increase in development expenditures on the products that have those attributes and characteristics that we know if we release today, we’ll be working on 10 years from now."

Ahhh so the cat is out of the bag then, Activision only cares about milking series dry.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Well now the official publisher for Brutal Legend is EA.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Activision:  from shareware FPS, to skateboards, to guitars.  Sooner or later, they'll get to your genre and destroy it.

[Mikintosh]

They actually managed to take the sub-sub-sub genre of Spider-Man, bring it up to its greatest heights with Spidey 2 & Ultimate, and then gave it a huge piledriver in 2007 with Spider 3 & whatever crap they're putting out now. They can't handle anything for longterm.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Now here's a funny turn of events, it seems like Activision is acting like the jealous ex and is suing both EA and Double Fine.

Activision may not be giving up Brütal Legend to EA without a fight—or at least a payout. Activision, which abandoned the game last year following its merger with Vivendi, thinks it still has publishing rights.

According to a report from Variety, Activision Blizzard has informed Electronic Arts of its claim to Double Fine's Brütal Legend, saying that it was still negotiating with the developer about its publishing plans. While everyone else seems to think differently—Activision Blizzard sure seemed to have shrugged the heavy metal-themed game off, like so many other Vivendi Games titles it absorbed—Activision thinks it's owed.

Owed what? Certainly not the opportunity to ship such a risky title, as Activision Blizzard doesn't seem interested in publishing anything but the safest of safe properties. Variety theorizes, quite logically, that Activision simply wants to get money from EA.

Or maybe Activision simply thinks that since Double Fine founder Tim Schafer believes that Brütal Legend's existence was partially due to the success of Guitar Hero, there's some royalty owed. We're not lawyers!

According to what we'd heard, Double Fine was under the impression that it was free to find another publisher, after the title contractually slipped through Activision's fingers. That publisher eventually turned out to be Electronic Arts.

EA told Variety that it doesn't expect to be hit with a lawsuit, as that would be as ridiculous as "a husband abandoning his family and then suing after his wife meets a better looking guy." Oh yes. They said that. Variety has the full statement.

[D_Average]

So after all the drama the game is finally done.  Anyone picking it up?  I loved the demo.  I was ROFLing immediately.




In all seriousness though, I thought the demo was awesome.  Ooozing with soul.

(photo courtesy of Gaf)

[broodwars]

So after all the drama the game is finally done.  Anyone picking it up?  I loved the demo.  I was ROFLing immediately.

In all seriousness though, I thought the demo was awesome.  Ooozing with soul.

I dunno.  I thought Psychonauts was spectacularly average, and I'm neither a Jack Black fan nor a Heavy Metal one.  Still, I played the PS3 demo and found it suitably amusing.  I am a little annoyed that the demo didn't include any of the RTS elements that would become a major part of the main game, as the demo made me think it was just a straight-up brawler.  I'll probably pick the game up sometime down the line when it drops in price and I've already picked up the batch of other games out already or soon that I already have on my hit list: Dead Space Extraction, A Boy and His Blob, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, and probably both Assassin's Creed games.

[GoldenPhoenix]

So after all the drama the game is finally done.  Anyone picking it up?  I loved the demo.  I was ROFLing immediately.

In all seriousness though, I thought the demo was awesome.  Ooozing with soul.

I dunno.  I thought Psychonauts was spectacularly average, and I'm neither a Jack Black fan nor a Heavy Metal one.  Still, I played the PS3 demo and found it suitably amusing.  I am a little annoyed that the demo didn't include any of the RTS elements that would become a major part of the main game, as the demo made me think it was just a straight-up brawler.  I'll probably pick the game up sometime down the line when it drops in price and I've already picked up the batch of other games out already or soon that I already have on my hit list: Dead Space Extraction, A Boy and His Blob, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, and probably both Assassin's Creed games.

Can it be? We agree again! I thought Psychonauts was pretty average as well.  In regards to Brutal Legend I'm not sure, I may rent it.

[BranDonk Kong]

What's ironic is Atari is not old at all. The real Atari went bankrupt and completely out of business years ago, and the new "Atari" has absolutely nothing to do with the old company. Atari today is really Infogrames, and soon it will belong to Namco Bandai, at least in Europe, if Wikipedia has anything to say about the matter.

[D_Average]

I'm tempted to pick this up w/ Uncharted at Toys R Us for the by 2 get 1, but this seems like a fantastic rental, as I rarely replay games like this.  I too can't stand Jack Black but I was pleasently caught off guard by the demo.  Loved the opening cinema, setting, art, dialog quips and the combat didn't feel stail as this genre usually makes it out to be.

[KDR_11k]

Isn't Infogrames pretty damn old? I remember their intro on C64 games.

[Halbred]

Well, I'm getting it today. I love Tim Schafer games (GRIM FANDANGO SEQUEL, MAN!) and the art direction in Brutal Legend won me over.

[vudu]

I thought Psychonauts was spectacularly average

Can it be? We agree again! I thought Psychonauts was pretty average as well.

The platforming aspects of Psychonauts were fairly average, but the story was top-notch.  Hopefully, Tim Schafer has learned from Psychonauts' few mistakes and crafted a better game this time.  I really want to play this game.

HEY LOOK, Chris Kohler just smashed my hopes.  Basically, the story is excellent but the game play is less-than-stellar. 

[Dirk Temporo]

That's not what IGN said. The only complaint they had about the gameplay was that there was no jump button.

[D_Average]

That's not what IGN said. The only complaint they had about the gameplay was that there was no jump button.

Yeah, the lack of jumping is rather strange....but then again, he's a beefy dude.