UPDATE: Make sure you read the official statement from Stardock regarding newer events.
Re: November's blog post by Paul and Fred claiming Stardock's objection to their new game being promoted as a "true sequel" constitutes Stardock preventing them from doing a new game.
We are disappointed that Paul and Fred, two people we have a great deal of respect and admiration for, have chosen to imply that we are somehow preventing them from working on their new game.
Stardock has been nothing but supportive of their new project and wish them the best. I personally made the post here on StarControl.com in support of it.
With regards to their contentions:
First, as many people know, the classic Star Control games have been available for sale long before Stardock acquired the rights from Atari four years ago. For the entirety of the time we have held the rights, they have been getting paid for those sales. If they had an objection to the games being sold this is something that could and should have been addressed before we were ever involved.
Second, we have stated, repeatedly and consistently for over four years that we are not using any of the aliens from the classic series. As we have stated, our position is that, to the best of our knowledge, the classic alien IP is owned by them.
We have also discussed, at length, why it wasn't commercially viable for us to attempt to continue or retell the Ur-Quan story. 25 years is just too long of a gap. This is one of the reasons why we have been so excited about Paul and Fred's project. Their game frees us to introduce new characters and a new story into the new Star Control while allowing fans of the classic series a way to continue the classic story. This strikes us as a win-win situation.
Lastly, when we acquired Star Control from Atari in 2013, many assets were transferred to us including the various publishing agreements to the Star Control franchise. The short version is that the classic IP is messy. We understand that this makes them "really really angry" but we weren't a party to that agreement. All we can do is try to put something together that releases them from the restrictions placed on their IP that they agreed to and transfer any and all rights and responsibilities to them. We want them to make Ghosts but we don't want any liability or association with it.
Given the disturbing and unanticipated post by Paul and Fred, we are persuaded more than ever that a clear and irrefutable document that makes it clear that we are not associated or involved with their new game is needed.
We have nothing but respect and admiration for Paul and Fred and wish them well in their new project.
Update 12/4/2017:
Paul and Fred continue to make unsubstantiated claims regarding the DOS-based Star Control games. If they have any documentation to provide evidence to their assertions, we have yet to see them.
Stardock, by contrast, possesses a perpetual, exclusive, worldwide licensing and sales agreement that was explicitly transferred to us by Atari who in turn acquired it from Accolade that has Paul Reiche's signature along with a signed distribution agreement between Atari and GOG for the DOS Accolade Star Control games.
The tone of their blog posts is similar to the kind of correspondence they had with us since the announcement of their Ur-Quan Masters successor, vague, full of demands and without any documentation.
With all due respect to Paul and Fred, they really should talk to competent legal counsel instead of making blog posts.
Update 12/5/2017:
Dealing with the sales and distribution of 20+ year old DOS games is an unusual way to spend a Tuesday afternoon. Nevertheless...
Atari had transferred to Stardock a signed agreement between Atari's President and GOG that we assumed was the agreement. Paul and Fred claimed they were the ones who had set up the agreement and upon verification with GOG, we instructed them to terminate this agreement which they have which we appreciate.
The games are now correctly transferred to Stardock and we will continue to ensue that Fred and Paul receive royalty payments for the games per the publishing agreement. We apologize if anyone was inconvenienced.
Old IP can be messy to deal with. The best way to deal with that is to have the parties talk to each other (as opposed to making public Internet posts) and work something out. We remain committed to dealing with this situation with as much restraint and gentleness as possible.
Update 2/27/2018
Added link to https://www.starcontrol.com/article/487690/qa-regarding-star-control-and-paul-and-fred to address Paul and Fred's latest complaints.
At this stage, the parties are seeking to resolve their disagreements in court. Stardock wishes this could have been resolved otherwise.
For the record, if Paul and Fred had simply announced their game as a sequel to Ur-Quan Masters and requested Stardock to remove the DOS games from distribution, Stardock would have complied out of respect, even if we would have been unhappy that they chose now, after 25 years, to jump back in the middle of Stardock's efforts to bring Star Control back.
However, by promoting their new game as a "direct-sequel" to Star Control (and in other places as the "true" sequel) while using the Star Control box art (which is owned by Stardock) a great deal of consumer confusion has been created requiring Stardock to protect its IP rights.
Other links:
Hi Brad,
Seems like you are on the right side of this one. Especially since you guys went out of your way to accommodate them. Though in retrospect that might have been a mistake, maybe you should have strong-armed them into an agreement 4 years ago. This feels like just made up drama in order to promote their own product. If they have Activision in this, then just settle it with their lawyers. No need to pay two people acting like children any mind. In grownup world money talks and bs walks.
100% agreed, very unprofessional of them.
As someone who's a huge Star Control II fan (like I imagine a lot of Stardock is), I respect what Paul and Fred did, but just reading what's been written, it sounds like they are acting like 5-year olds and getting upset over irrelevant issues. I am not sure what they thought they would accomplish by making this all public and being pissy about it, but ultimately the lawyers and legal documents will decide everything. I think Brad and team are doing this the right way and it will ultimately get resolved in both parties favors. Although I imagine Paul and Fred will still be bitter, even if they get exactly what they want. Again, good luck to Brad and hopefully this won't detract you guys from focusing on the game!
I agree with this. To be honest, as much as I support Stardock moving forward with SC:O, I believe ToysforBob are the deserving party when it comes to everything about the classic games since, well, they were the ones who made it. With regards to the contract, I doubt the details are in black and white and I think both parties have their own interpretations of the text like most of these vaguely worded contracts are.
Appreciate the candidness of your replies on this thread. As someone who keeps one eye on whats happening in the StarControl space (mandatory for anyone born in the 80's?) my initial bias was towards P&F but your responses have definitely changed that opinion.
Perhaps one to laugh at down the road but you should definitely easter egg the 'successor to coke' in SCO
P&F say the conflict has been going on behind the scenes for months. I have no idea on the details, but the duration probably means it's not minor or irrelevant issues they're arguing over. Also, if it's something frustrating that's gone on for months, I see the need to tell the fans at least something about it. Or maybe just vent.
My two cents on this is that when you make it public and not anonymous then it's not venting, it's a cry for help.. a known move to make the public change the opinion of the other party so it goes your way.
The tactics of Vladimir Lenin. And the kind of people who use those tactics are NEVER telling the truth...
I have more faith on Stardock than on Paul and Fred.
Stardock try to solve the situation and P&F try to create anger.
I haven't posted for the longest time, but just wanted to throw my 2/100,000 of a cent in. I love Star Control I and II, and most like everyone else here, those games are part of their childhood. As much respect I have for Paul and Fred for making the games, I find it a dick move for them to be doing this NOW. Fans have been screaming for a proper sequel for the longest time, and instead they went off and did their Skylanders. Good for them, they made it big with another IP.
From a fan's point of view, I hope both games are great successes. However, to muddy the waters now with legal issues, that's just bad form. To announce they are making THEIR game now AND make waves with Stardock, is just plain a dick move. I might be a fan of their games, but I'm quickly becoming a non-fan of them.
Appreciate the candidness of your replies on this thread. As someone who keeps one eye on whats happening in the StarControl space (mandatory for anyone born in the 80's?) my initial bias was towards P&F but your responses have definitely changed that opinion.Perhaps one to laugh at down the road but you should definitely easter egg the 'successor to coke' in SCO
I don't see how it could change an opinion, P&F were the main developers of SC2 calling precursor a succesor to SC2 sounds natural, they Created it. Or was it agreed upon earlier that precursor would not be the succesor ? SCO already have plenty exposure let them have what they want, i will play both games anyway.
Not siding with either at this moment, i would like to hear P&F's side to this though haven't herd a peep...i was so happy knowing both parties will be bringing out new star control games and the one game would compliment the other, but now this ? C'mon you gotta be kidding me..
Stardock owns the Star Control trademark. Paul and Fred calling their game a sequel to Star Control would essentially be a challenge to Stardock's ownership of the trademark. And trademarks have to be protected, otherwise the holder would risk loosing it.
They could call it a sequel to Ur-Quan Masters.
Plus as @dogchainx point out - the timing of all this is ludicrous.
Stardock are going to start hyping things up as they get closer to release , it's only natural they would want the result of the hype to benefit their game/IP.
P&F will obviously benefit indirectly - it's no coincidence that they're starting on another game related to the franchise right now. Whats not ok is them trying to directly benefit by drawing lines straight from StarControl to Ghost or them trying to imply that their game is the proper place for SC fans to go.
And in fact Stardock never said that the two games couldn't work together in some fashion - only that there would need to be an agreement in place (not exactly unreasonable). Since it looks like that agreement isn't going to happen SD just want an agreement to make it clear what each party can/can't do without trampling on each others toes but that's also not going well.
There will need to be changes to the UQM story to prevent infringing on SD SC IP (StarControl the organization will probably need a name change) but that's not unreasonable. If it turns out SD are trying to block them from using the UQM story/aliens altogether then I might re-consider my stance but that would be a backtrack on what SD have said to date.
The whole thing is silly. P&F could have made their game sans any reference to the StarControl brand and everyone who buys SCO would have bought it anyway without all this drama.
That is one of the things that had immediately struck me as... unusual. Paul and Fred make games. If they had a problem you'd think they would have made a big issue out of it a very long time ago. Waiting for Stardock to be millions of dollars into a project, and then pulling something like this right at the end as they go into Beta, just strikes me as incredibly unprofessional.
I wrote a tactics manual for Interplay's Star Fleet Command, an SFB computer game they released way back in 1999. I was working at GameFX at the time. I wrote a lot of things in that tactics manual that came entirely out of professional courtesy because I was employed at another game company in their industry when I wrote it. There were a lot of things I thought were just plain stupid decisions, but instead of insult them I wracked by brain to find a way to sound supportive of those decisions rather than appear to be insulting or attempting to interfere with their success. Some of those things today are embarrassing too me within the context of the SFB community, they might almost make me look like an idiot too them. It might bother me, if I didn't know that any of the serious SFB guys knows that I know better and was just being nice to Interplay.
The timing of this is ridiculous. If they had a problem they should have brought it up 3 or 4 years ago. Right as Stardock is going into beta is... wrong... in my book.
They're complaining now because they saw SC1-3 for sale on Steam under Stardock probably around October 2017? I'd presume they started communicating with Stardock in between until their first blog post went public and exposed this whole fiasco.
They're using their previous case with GoG to contend that they own all rights to, at least, SC1&2.
I'm still confused why they're including SC3 as part of their property since it's well known they had nothing to do with that project (it was created by Legend Entertainment, not Toys for Bob). To quote: "As far as we can currently tell, we have no relationship with Stardock that lets them sell the three earlier Star Control games without our permission, either bundled with their other products or separately. That permission has not been given."
It's curious to note they announced GotP just as SC1-3 was added on Steam by Stardock. Though I've no clue which went first. The GotP announcement was posted on October 9, 2017. On the other hand, I can't confirm when the classic games were added on Steam (the first reviews on Steam came out on October 20, so I doubt GotP was a ploy to challenge Stardock's rights to the Star Control trademark).
Youtube channel Pretty Good Games has now started covering the legal woes over Star Control. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xHy2MuFIzU
By the way, how do you pronounce Paul's last name "Reiche". They were all over the place with its pronunciation.
Good video and fair points. Was it a mistake to respond? I get their point that criticizing the tone of P&F’s post might have been unnecesssry. We would love to resolve all this with a simple phone call. I offered that and was responded to by their lawyer.
Too bad that F&P's camp isn't receptive to that phone call yet, but I hope both parties will settle out of court in the near future if not as soon as possible. Keep those phone lines open.
SFB, Star Control, Subspace... for some reason the space combat games always get forgotten. It's not a surprise too me that these guys have never heard of Star Control. It made me remember something that Stardock might not know, and maybe their marketing department might want to be aware of. At the end of the last century, PC Gamer magazine published a list of the "Best Games of the 20th Century". Star Control II was #6.
If I'm not mistaken, the original Star Control games Stardock was selling were just removed from Steam. Is that an admission by Stardock that Paul and Fred were right that Stardock did not have the rights to the Star Control games?
No, it's an admission that Paul and Fred's lawyers are sending threatening letters. We are talking to Steam and GOG.
So far, Paul and Fred have proven only that they own all technology/tools(+code) used to create SC1/SC2. They think they own more due to their involvement in the Atari-GOG contract re-arrangement. But let's get real, we are talking about a company that went bankrupt two years later. Mismanagement of Atari was a main part of it.
IMO they will lose if they go in a legal battle with Stardock. Their punishment for making Star Control lay dormant for 20 years. Though after the case is close Stardock will be blamed for us not having a SC2 sequel.
Neither of us have the legal documents, but they have said they own all of SC1/2 besides the name "Star Control" for long before the Atari/GOG deal, so that's not the only reason they think that. This is why Ur-quan Masters happened. Even if Stardock is partly right (I'm dubious that they're entirely right), F&P came to this conclusion for a reason and likely have at least a prima facie legal argument for it.
I'd guess part of the reason they're upset is that they feel Stardock has created enough confusion and ambiguity about the ownership to put getting a publisher and/or funding for Ghosts at risk. Complaining about the Ars Technica "chart" or official artwork of SC2's aliens on this site next to the new ones, for example, may seem trivial and petty, but at a glance these things sure seem to suggest that all these universes are interconnected (yes, I understand that isn't actually what Stardock is doing, but only because I knew ahead of time). When you're looking for investment, you don't want that kind of confusion.
I don't have the legal documents, but they have said they own all of SC1/2 besides the name "Star Control" for long before it went up on GOG, so that's not the only reason they think that. This is why Ur-quan Masters happened. Even if Stardock is right or partly right, F&P came to this conclusion for a reason.I'd guess part of the reason they're upset is that they feel Stardock has created enough confusion and ambiguity about the ownership to put getting a publisher and/or funding for Ghosts at risk. Complaining about the Ars Technica "chart" or official artwork of SC2's aliens on this site, for example, may seem trivial and petty, but at a glance the chart sure seems to suggest that all these universes are interconnected (yes, I understand that isn't actually what Stardock is doing, but only because I knew ahead of time). When you're looking for investment, you don't want that kind of confusion.
Stan Lee Media claimed ownership of many Marvel characters and continued to Sue Disney well into 2013. It seems more likely F&P lawyers said you better announce a new game before we start trying to inflict harm on Stardock.
It seems more likely that such cynical interpretations of their motives are conspiracy theories. It would also be possible to read Stardock's actions in the most devious light possible too and Brad's posts as just public posturing (as some have in other settings), but I don't want to because I'm trying to be charitable instead of assuming the worst intentions from either party.
They gave us Ur-quan Masters, without which the Star Control community probably would have completely died sometime in the early 00s. Releasing the source is a generous thing that developers of old games rarely do Yes, the subsequent open-source development has been a community project, but just getting the 3DO code and assets into a semi-workable state for release took some work.
Also, people seem to believe both that "Fred and Paul are lazy/don't care about fans for taking so long to make a sequel" and "Fred and Paul don't actually have any legal rights to make a sequel unless the old Accolade license that Atari and Stardock inherited is signed over to them" (and yes, I realize Stardock's official position is they want this to happen). These are contradictory statements. If the first is true it follows that they were legally able to make one, if the second is true it would be impossible for them to make one until recently.
It is sad that most people here have decided they hate Fred and Paul and that it's impossible they could have any plausible arguments on their side at all, even if only prima facie. Or that they might actually feel threatened, even if only as an overreaction - instead it can only be money grabbing or ridiculous self-sabotage. We have heard Stardock's interpretation of the matter repeatedly and in detail, and I believe Brad is making it in good faith but I'm not convinced it's the whole story.
But eh, I won't argue any further on about the legal dispute in this forum. This is for obvious reasons a strongly pro-Stardock board where very few will agree with me, fair enough.
It seems more likely that such cynical interpretations of their motives are conspiracy theories. It would be possible to read Stardock's actions in the most devious light possible too and Brad's posts as just public posturing (as some have in other settings), but I don't want to because I'm trying to presume some degree of good faith on both sides.
They gave us Ur-quan Masters, without which the Star Control community probably would have completely died sometime in the early 00s. Releasing the source is a generous thing that developers of old games rarely do (yes, the subsequent open-source development has been a community project, but just getting the code and assets into a semi-workable state for release took some work). But it is sad that most people here have decided they hate Fred and Paul and that it's impossible they could have any plausible arguments on their side at all, even if only prima facie. We have heard Stardock's interpretation of the matter repeatedly and in detail, and I believe they're making it in good faith but I'm not convinced it's the whole story.But eh, I won't argue any further on about the legal dispute in this forum. This is for obvious reasons a strongly pro-Stardock board where very few will agree with me, fair enough.
I just wanted to point out that you keep using the term "prima facie," but your usage is wrong. This is a defined legal term in the context of litigation and should not be used in this manner in the context of discussing a legal dispute between two or more parties. The truth is, you have no way of knowing if Fred and Paul have a prima facie case for whatever are Fred and Paul's exact legal claims (you can't even know what evidence would be required to show a prima facie case because Fred and Paul haven't even clearly stated a specific legal claim). They have only issued vague allegations and offered zero evidence to support said allegations. Their public blog posts have not even alluded to the existence of any evidence that would support their claims. Stardock has publicly stated that they have asked for and not received any evidence that Fred and Paul's allegations are true. Stardock has specifically stated multiple pieces of evidence that show it's claims are valid.
This doesn't mean Fred and Paul don't have evidence, it only means you have no way of knowing that they have any evidence, much less knowing they have the evidence to show a prima facie case. Thus, your usage of that term is incorrect and implies a level of validity to Fred and Paul's allegations that is simply not true.
What we have here is a party that was frustrated, for whatever reason, and made the asinine decision to post their frustrations publicly. There is a reason why the public blog post battle between Fred and Paul, and Stardock, has stopped yet the conflict has increased (games removed from Steam and GOG); the parties are finally listening to their attorneys.
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