Just got back from New York on the Atari auction.
Being an inappropriate and embarrassing person, I naturally took pictures of the location as it was just plain amazing.
Here are some pictures from the auction.
Outside the window.
Each bidder was given a conference room where they could work out the purchase agreements with Atari and the investment bankers as well as just spend time working between the auctions.
This was taken at the back of the auction room.
This is the skyline.
I won’t say in this post who won the various auctions as I don’t want to step on someone else’s announcement. I will tell you how the auctions went.
Typically (except in the case of Battlezone and Moonbase Commander) the bidders are placed together in a room. Each bidder is assigned a bid order in a given round. Each round, the bidder can agree to raise their bid $20,000 over the previous bidder or choose to pass. If they choose to pass, they’re out of the bidding and it continues.
The head of Stardock Entertainment (Derek Paxton aka Kael) did the bidding on one of the items were were interested in and I bid in a later auction on a different item.
At the end of the auction, the highest bidder and second highest bidder then negotiate a finalized purchase agreement of the intellectual property assets in question. If the highest bidder, for whatever reason, fails to close the deal, the second highest bidder than gets it.
We went there to get two items in particular. One in particular we really really wanted because we are insane fans of the series. That one we got. The other we wanted we didn’t get, we were the second highest bidder.
I imagine there will be announcements next week by the new IP holders to whom I congratulate. It’ll be good to see these awesome games brought back in one form or other.
Exciting news, congrats on the purchase!
Tease!
But seriously, it's TA right?
Yes a complete tease... I would like to know what bid you did get.
Well then, I eagerly await the news.By the way, does Atari still exists as a company or is it dead now?
Congratz that you managed to get one of the IPs!
So this means we are going to see GalCiv III re-branded as MOO IV?
or was it 'frogger' that was the success?
While we did try to get MOO, Wargamer.net got that. We picked up something else that we're very excited about.
and will there be a special announcement as to what it is?
It's Star Control if I remember correctly of why they went to auction at Atari.
I look forward to your update of the classic Atari game "Adventure" from the 2600..
Dragons, Keys, Castles, Portable Bridges, Magic Swords... Totally a Stardock venture..
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/07/21/atari-auction-implies-new-chris-taylors-total-annihilation/
[...] Wargaming also picked up Masters Of Orion, while Rebellion got Battlezone (I predict a speculative nostalgia Kickstarter there) and Stardock got the Star Control IP.
So Atari didn't own Master of Magic..?
This is the mother of all teasers...
Atari does own some elements of Master of Magic. The problem is that they don't own the trademark, they let it lapse and someone else has since registered it with an intent to use. I can't imagine anyone trying to call a game "Master of Magic" (trademark or not) unless they had the blessing of the IP holder (Atari).
Brad asked randomly in a post the other day if folks would like to see a SD developed game in the SC2 universe. Also worth noting that Brad has, according to Wikipedia, tried to buy the franchise from Atari in the past.
So that's my guess.
Heh, hopefully the new StarControl starts off with "I awoke from a bad dream about the Hegemonic Crux, eternal ones and Daktaklakpak"
Different question. Does anyone know who holds the rights to "Alien Legacy" that Sierra released back in 1994?
One can only hope.
Unfortunate that Uber Entertainment did not get the Total Annihilation franchise. But it should be very exciting to see new games being developed now that Atari's cold dead hands have been pried off of some of those IPs.
It won't be a continuation but more akin to a revisit (ala XCOM using Star Control 2 as the inspiration and start back before the earthlings were in any kind of slave shield). We'll be talking more about our plans as we go forward.
We won't be making any changes to the existing Star Control games. And Atari doesn't actually own the copyright on Star Control 1/2 so it's not like one could make a Star Control 2 HD or what have you without a license from Paul Reiche. And even if we did have rights to SC 1/2 I wouldn't touch them without his blessing.
I think what most Star Control fans are looking for is a new Star Control game where the inspiration comes from Star Control 2. They want a game with fun, adventure and top down ship battles like in Star Control 2 that all play within a fun sci fi universe. Preferably one with Ur-Quan and Spathi and lots of insults.
This sounds just fine.
Either Activision which took over Sierra or Sega which absorbed the bulk of THQ... Some IP's could have been shifted around, that's why I included Sega...
Well, I do know for certain that Homeworld was the IP they wanted but didn't win, Gearbox got that prize. Rather disappointed by that.
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