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.
I'm still trying to figure out how Atari got the Demigod IP. Grats on scooping that one up, though.
Anyway, you guys with a new IP that you are a huge fan of is pretty exciting to me. Looking forward to it!
I liked Star Control 3 better than Star Control 2. It couldn't hurt to take a bit of inspiration from both right?? Anyways please make it awesome (No pressure).
OK how about
Sins of a Solar Empire: Star Control
That is fantastic and I can't wait to see what you do! (LOL, I signed this petition many years ago, glad to see the IP has fallen into the right hands)
One wish, please don't overlook the mini-campaign game in SC1. My friends and I played countless hours of that on the Sega Genesis, and really wished it existed in Star Control 2. Super melee only goes so far... but things like Syreen robbing your friends planets of crew or finding + installing precursor artifacts on stock ships (maneuverable Mycon mhahaha) is super fun...
Maybe Wargaming.net? They should have the money after a surprising success of World of Tanks (in one of the early blogs they said they expected only about 10k hardcore tank fans and 5k lurkers, and they got 60kk registered users now).
They're more into wargames i think, with their Massive Assaut series. They never made any 4X. But i think it's good for MoM fans, we already got Fallen Enchantress from Stardock anyway. If Wargaming.net will make another fantasy 4X, it will be nice (but i hope it will be more 4X than say Warlock: Master of the Arcane, it was ok but kinda boring).
Edit: Wait, Master of Orion, not Master of Magic? That's even harder to remake. There are so many MoO clones on the market right now, and two more are released every year... It's hard to make something really awesome, worthy of Master of Orion title.
Sounds nice but i hope there will be some improvements and new ideas too Maybe cooperative mode?
And i hope this time you'll let betatesters see what's going on before a game will be finalized, so it will not end like Elemental again...
And if you want a fun game with comedy elements, like SC2 was, you need some other art designers who can make art in a proper style. Elemental art is better suited for a zombie thrillers IMHO, not for SC2.
Congratulations on acquiring the Star Control franchise! Stardock was high on my list of those I hoped would get it, second only to Paul and Fred themselves.
If I could offer a suggestion on how you could generate some goodwill with the existing fan community, I wonder if you might consider licensing the trademark for use by the "Ur-Quan Masters" project (http://sc2.sourceforge.net). It had to rename itself to avoid a trademark violation.
Also, there is some question with regard to the status of the copyright on the Star Control 2 intro and game end movies, and the CGI ship database animations. Those were not covered by the license that gave Paul and Fred control of the game's source code, so they have not been included in the open source project. If you were to release them under a Creative Commons license so that the project could be make whole, I'm sure that everyone involved would cheer for you.
This is easily one of my favorite game series of all-time. I truly hope you are able to capture the charm from SC2 in whatever you produce. While the combat and mechanics were fun, they were also simple and not the main focus of the game. The main focus was the story, the quirky aliens, and many lines of text that were awesome and how you progressed. It was almost more of an adventure-story game that had combat tacked on. I don't think I've ever really seen you guys do story (not counting the light fiction/backstory in FE), so I admit that makes me nervous. Now that being said, the combat was awesome. Lots of fun, easy to pick up, difficult to master. Give me a Spathi and I will wipe out your fleet. Those cowardly crustaceans made awesome ships
SC3 tried to merge a bit of SC1 mechanics in with SC2 and it detracted from the awesomeness of the story they were trying to tell. Had to worry about fuel, happy aliens (really? stupid), and other non-sense. Remember your main focus and keep the tertiary additions simple, but fun and easy to pick up. Pre-slave shield days sounds closer to SC1 time-line and I think that could be interesting, but we all know the outcome. So thinking ahead, where do you go from there? Can't step on the feet of SC2 (maybe if you do a good job with the prequel, Paul and co would be ok with an HD remake of SC2) so you are stuck with the reminiscing at the end of SC2 about the commander's adventures that he talks about (and I suppose are post SC3). Just something to think about when planning where in the timeline of SC you jump into Ok I have to run to a meeting, enjoy making it and I hope to play it in a few years!
I think there's a lot of ways to evolve Star Control. For example, Internet multiplayer with an online Metagame.
But I would be against, for instance, trying to turn the Melee combat into a first person experience or something.
Brad - please buy wargaming world limited now. Demigod, Total Annihilation, and MOA? CMON!
For any that haven't seen this:
still excited about star control, ofc!
I'm wondering what the deal is with "On The Go Technology, LLC". It looks like they're a mortgage software company. What do they want with a video game franchise?
congrats Mr. frogboy!
To help them learn how to mortgage planetary systems under slave domes of course!
Never played Star Control (i know shame on me) but i am sure Stardock will make good job as always. Congrats and good luck on your project!
P.S. shame you didnt also get MoO
SC was one of my first computer games, back in second grade. Although, honestly, I'm not a huge fan of melee (crap reaction speed here; mostly played the Mycon ). I've played SC2 years later and really enjoyed its quirky aliens and humor.
I have Star Control 2 on my Panasonic 3DO. Gonna have to play it again, so I can correctly tell Stardock everything they are doing wrong
Maybe On the Go had a SC2 fanboy that wanted the IP and would license it to someone else (like Stardock) to actually develop it. I think there was a company like that involved in the THQ IP auction. They flat out said that's what their plan was (the one's that bought DarkSiders IP). Only thing that makes sense to me.
It needs MOAR pink space ponies perhaps?
Starkillr: Minimum bid was $100,000. That's a lot of bucks to throw around on a fanboy whim.
In another forum, Brad mentioned MOO went for 7 digits, as Stardock did that and was out-bid.
Personality, I'm kinda glad Stardock didn't get MOO- because MOO would have shunted GalCiv to the side, and I think GalCiv has a lot of potential, especially with Derek and Dave Stern around. I'm really curious to see how GalCiv 3 turns out. That's not to say Stardock wouldn't do a great job, but they already have a very good space game series which doesn't need a whole lot of improvement to become great.
I am interested in Stardock Star Control, though I have no idea what Star Control is, so I'll end up judging it without nostalgia goggles.
Alstein: It's a classic RPG/Action game from the early 1990's. It eventually got open-sourced under the name "Ur-Quan Masters"; you can download it here: http://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.php
I'm hoping for a console port of the new StarControl game. PS4 and Vita perhaps? (Maybe Xbox One too, for the people on the other side...)
By internet multiplayer you mean Super Melee? Or Cooperative campaign? Both are nice but i'll prefer cooperative. Something like in Terraria where you can group up, or may split and do your thing on the same map?
Yeah, that was my first thought, but it will turn a tactical space combat into a shooter, less fun than original.
Oh, Star Control!! This name bring me so much memories
SD, please make this remake good, OK??
Not if you run your own company.
Yea. It was odd. I don't know anything about them. But if someone complains about Stardock getting the Star Control IP, the alternative would have been On The Go Technology. It wasn't a choice between Stardock and [imaginary perfect suitor for Star Control]. It was a choice between Stardock and On The Go Technology.
That isn't to say that they wouldn't have taken the IP and used it to create an amazing game.
Starting bids on these IPs were $100k. The ending bids were substantially higher. I had bid $1.2M on Master of Orion which was more than what Total Annihilation got.
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