Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?
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So, there was this game called Star Control and some people seemed to like it and its successor.
Then a long time nothing happened. Finally Stardock released a prequel called Star Control: Origins.
But they somehow neglected to resolved the IP dispute around the game because the original creators also are currently creating a game in the same universe (albeit a successor).
Given the fact that Stardock's CEO is an asshat, I'm a bit more inclined to believe the two original guys but that's something for the courts to resolve.However, considering that the matter is not resolved and Stardock began to sell the game, the two developers issued an DMCA against GOG and Steam to prevent Stardock from profiting off a disputed property which, as I've come to understand, is kind of the raison d'être for the DMCA. The judge granting the injunction said as much: "Any loss of sales is on Stardock for not resolving the dispute before beginning to sell the game." (summarized).
However, now Stardock has begun selling the game through their own store (which in turn grants a Steam key to redeem).
I'm not sure that they've done themselves a favour with this.
Star Control: Origins removed from sale as legal battle continues
Star Control: Origins has been removed from sale on Steam and GOG as the legal battle over series rights continues.
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@Rhywden So, Star Control II is legend, yeah? That Star Control? So, the IP vultures that have revived Stardock can go eat it, yeah?
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@Gribnit Yeah. By the way, I found out about them selling the game through their own store because they sent me an offer through their newsletter. Maybe I should cancel that one.
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@Rhywden said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
which in turn grants a Steam key to redeem
How does that work, or is that just in case they win later? I'd think a DMCA takedown would imply even existing licenses are non-functional for the duration of the dispute, never mind externally-sold keys.
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@PleegWat Valve has so far erred on the side of "if you bought it, you still get access to it, even if it's not legal to sell anymore". The only example I've heard of where they removed a game entirely was a now non-functional MMO.
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Fuck both of them and buy Star Citizen!
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@Unperverted-Vixen said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
"if you bought it, you still get access to it, even if it's not legal to sell anymore"
As it should be.
Just like if you bought X-Men: Destiny, you keep it.
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I know nothing about Stardock other than that they make Object Desktop. So I think I'm on their side, mostly because I enjoy blatant nose-thumbing like this no matter who's right.
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I think it's funny that Stardock had their own Steam competitor, sold it to GameStop, and went back to running their own store.
(I don't think it's funny that GameStop eventually shut it down and I lost the Stardock games I had on Impulse.)
ObTopic: I'm on the side of F&P, not that it matters in what is primarily a legal dispute involving old contracts and failed companies. I will say that if you haven't played Star Control II/The Ur-Quan Masters and aren't completely averse to what are now low-resolution pixel graphics then I highly recommend it.
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@Lorne-Kates said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
Fuck both of them and buy Star Citizen!
The most expensive and longest running joke of the gaming history.
"Fuck all of them and buy Duke Nukem Forever!"
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@Flips said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
@Lorne-Kates said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
Fuck both of them and buy Star Citizen!
The most expensive and longest running joke of the gaming history.
"Fuck all of them and buy Duke Nukem Forever!"
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I played Star Control, I absolutely loved Star Control II, and I thought Star Control III was terrible. (Mostly for SC3's @#$% Ethics Board that gave you a Game Over if you killed too many non-friendly aliens.And maybe a little for the apparently-linear story.)
I'd like to see both games: Origins and Ghosts of the Precursors. I figure that if both Stardock and F&P make Star-Control-based games, I have double the chance of getting a good one. (Okay, it's a bit more likely that Stardock won't write a good game. Either way, 2 games > 1 game.)
I also get the impression that F&P are in the right and Stardock is in the wrong, but I don't care as long as I get two games. Apparently, Stardock wants F&P to stop claiming that they're the creators of Star Control, which is just bonkers. I'm desperately hoping that Stardock is just posturing, and will concede that request as part of reaching a settlement - it's just dumb and makes Stardock look bad.
(You can fund F&P's legal battle! I almost dropped some money in, but then I came to my senses and remembered how cheap I am, and rationalized it by thinking about how little I'd accomplish by donating.)
I'm still half-tempted to buy Origins from Stardock's store, just because I want more Star Control, but I think I'll hold off until a) there's a better sale, and/or b) this lawsuit gets closer to settled. It's distinctly possible that I'm a horrible, money-grubbing mercenary.
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This post is deleted!
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I was sniffing around Origins on Steam before the ban, but the reviews were mediocre and price too high.
If those authors are smart, they'll use the increased visibility created by Stardock's marketing to prop up their (better?) game, instead of wasting time in courts.
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@Flips said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
The most expensive and longest running joke of the gaming history.
"Fuck all of them and buyDuke Nukem ForeverHalf Life 3!"
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@Lorne-Kates said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
@Unperverted-Vixen said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
"if you bought it, you still get access to it, even if it's not legal to sell anymore"
As it should be.
Well, I don't think the law agrees with that. Downloading a game means Valve is giving you a copy. If the game is illegal to distribute then clearly that's illegal too.
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This is what the DMCA is over. I'm not sure any of them can claim ownership of any of this stuff.
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@anonymous234 said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
Well, I don't think the law agrees with that. Downloading a game means Valve is giving you a copy. If the game is illegal to distribute then clearly that's illegal too.
I wouldn't say it's "clearly" illegal. It's fundamentally the same as you copying a game you own from one drive to another, or downloading a copy you put in your Dropbox back to your machine. Those are allowed, so how is downloading from Valve instead of Dropbox any different?
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@DogsB said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
This is what the DMCA is over. I'm not sure any of them can claim ownership of any of this stuff.
Well, in addition, according to the original developers, what Stardock actually purchased was not the IP itself, but instead something like the ability to use the Star Control trademark and the contents of Star Control 3 (which they say Stardock basically just threw away).
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@anonymous234 said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
Well, I don't think the law agrees with that. Downloading a game means Valve is giving you a copy. If the game is illegal to distribute then clearly that's illegal too.
Fuck that. I pay valve for a game. If they weren't allowed to sell it, tough shit. That isn't my fault. That's for Valve and the other party to sort out with lawyers. Technically there isn't anything illegal, just against whatever licenses and contracts they have.
Now, if some guy jacked a truck heading to EB and sold me a disc from the back of his car-- well, then, those are physical stolen goods. Then maybe there's a case that I have to give it back.
This is the reason I mentioned X-Men: Destiny. The very short version: Silicone Knights was found in violation of Epic's Unreal engine license. They lost in court. The judge ordered any code made from the non-licensed software to be destroyed. Part of this was a best-effort to recall and destroy all physical copies of X-Men: Destiny.
The stock they had on hand, destroyed. That is easy. But the stock that's already gone out to retailers? Depends on the distribution contracts. If it's that "consignment / we'll take back overstock after X days", then it's probably easy to recall. If the retailer straight-out bought a skid of the game and are now the owner of those physical games? Depends on if the retailer feels like giving them back and on what terms of refund. (Since SK was bankrupted by the suit, that isn't likely).
And the end-users who bought a copy of the game by any means-- new, used, from Craigslist, etc. They are not affected. They can rightfully tell SK to get stuffed if they even tried to demand that end-users destroy the copy of the game they bought from retailers.
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@Lorne-Kates Hey, I'm not saying what's right, I'm saying what's legal.
Copyright, by its nature, is full of arbitrary distinctions and absurd consequences. It lets you sell physical media containing a game, but not digital licenses that amount to the same thing. It has exemptions for "temporary copies" (like the one you have to make to your RAM when you launch any game) and "personal backups", but the exemption for backups probably requires that you be the one holding the copy and not another company, even when it's functionally identical.
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@PotatoEngineer said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
. I figure that if both Stardock and F&P make Star-Control-based games, I have double the chance of getting a good one. (Okay, it's a bit more likely that Stardock won't write a good game. Either way, 2 games > 1 game.)
Coincidentally this is what f&p proposed to stardock.
Stardock then did the legal equivalent of shitting them in the mouth.
Original Star Control creators deploy nuclear option against Stardock [Updated]
![Original Star Control creators deploy nuclear option against Stardock [Updated]](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/sco_mukay-760x380.jpg)
Steam and GOG remove Star Control: Origins from sale following DMCA takedown filing.
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@swayde From the comments, it seems that Wardell (Stardock) pissed off the judges in more than one way:
In short, Reiche is submitting to the court what Reiche did, but Wardell is telling the court what to decide about what Wardell did. Making that decision is the judge's job. Judges tend not to like lay litigants telling them how to do their jobs, and that comes through very clearly in the court's order: "[Wardell's] opinion as to whether the work in question is “copyrightable” constitutes an improper legal conclusion ... Such legal conclusions are without evidentiary value."
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Star Control: Origins is back on Steam; not on GOG though.
https://twitter.com/draginol/status/1086006088745529344Save 66% on Star Control®: Origins on Steam
Star Control is a space role-playing game in which you command Earth's first interstellar starship on a mission to save the Earth from hostile alien empires.
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Settled!
Statement from original creators
Statement from StardockIn essence, they called each other rather than going through rounds of lawyers and legalism, and reached an agreement. Also bees.
- Star Control games will be for sale again, with royalties split.
- Stardock has dropped various trademarks, and nobody will challenge each other's trademarks in the future.
- Everybody is actually happy. Proof lawyers only make people sad.
More details in the first link above.
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@kazitor said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
Proof lawyers only make people sad.
And angry, disgusted, nauseous, ...
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@HardwareGeek said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
@kazitor said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
Proof lawyers only make people sad.
And angry, disgusted, nauseous, ...
While you did start an open-ended list I would at least put "poor" somewhere at the front. The others might have more to do with any pre-existing allergies.
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@JBert Not allergies, but the inherent toxicity. It's not an allergy that causes your body's reaction to rattlesnake venom.
Filed under: Apologies to rattlesnakes for comparing them to lawyers.
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@JBert said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
@HardwareGeek said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
@kazitor said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
Proof lawyers only make people sad.
And angry, disgusted, nauseous, ...
While you did start an open-ended list I would at least put "poor" somewhere at the front. The others might have more to do with any pre-existing allergies.
Yeah. We currently have something like that going on in Germany - a newspaper recently published a list of doctors who are taking money from pharmaceutical companies (to let their patients decide whether they really have their well being in mind when talking about procedures).
A few doctors sued in various courts. All of those courts basically said: "Tough shit. It's public interest to know about this, you're SOL."
Then a lawyer came along, called pretty much all of the doctors on the list and now there are hundreds of doctors suing. And, again, all of them are losing in droves. The judges are pissed, the newspaper is annoyed and the doctors are out of a lot of money.
The only winner (for now) is the scumbag lawyer.
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@HardwareGeek
Is it really repetition when the redundant word is first?
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@izzion It insults scumbags that haven't got so low to be lawyers, for one
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I somehow missed the news of the settlement when it came around. I'm happy that both sides have decided to make games instead of lawsuits.
On a side note: my prediction that Stardock's game wouldn't be good seems to have come to pass. Star Control: Origins has "mixed" reviews (i.e., bad), and the expansion "Earth Rising" has similarly-mixed reviews. I own Origins now (there was a sale a bit ago), and I'll play it at some point, but I won't bother picking up the expansion. Too bad.
Paul & Fred are apparently "several years" from finishing their game, which I find incredibly sad. They must be either operating on a shoestring budget (or out of the proverbial garage?), or as a side project, or else making games just takes waaaaaay longer than I thought.
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@Rhywden said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
the two developers issued an DMCA against GOG and Steam to prevent Stardock from profiting off a disputed property which, as I've come to understand, is kind of the raison d'être for the DMCA.
A cynical person (are there any of those around here?) might say that the purpose of DMCA was to stop people making usable copies of DVD films(1), and anything else it can be used for is a side-effect.
(1) A job at which it failed miserably.
@PotatoEngineer said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
They must be either operating on a shoestring budget (or out of the proverbial garage?), or as a side project, or else making games just takes waaaaaay longer than I thought.
I pick option D, "All of the above."
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@PotatoEngineer said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
I somehow missed the news of the settlement when it came around. I'm happy that both sides have decided to make games instead of lawsuits.
On a side note: my prediction that Stardock's game wouldn't be good seems to have come to pass. Star Control: Origins has "mixed" reviews (i.e., bad), and the expansion "Earth Rising" has similarly-mixed reviews. I own Origins now (there was a sale a bit ago), and I'll play it at some point, but I won't bother picking up the expansion. Too bad.
Paul & Fred are apparently "several years" from finishing their game, which I find incredibly sad. They must be either operating on a shoestring budget (or out of the proverbial garage?), or as a side project, or else making games just takes waaaaaay longer than I thought.
Like everything else programming, it eats a lot more time than expected. If they're just two guys and they are aiming for something large and polished, years of work sounds about right.
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@Carnage said in Stardock, Star Control, I'm in space?:
Like everything else programming, it eats a lot more time than expected. If they're just two guys and they are aiming for something large and polished, years of work sounds about right.
I was making the brash assumption that maybe they had some funding, since they have a fanbase and a guarantee of at least some sales. I didn't think it was just two guys and a plan. That shows what I know!
I've heard that AAA games take ~3 years plus hundreds of people, but I assumed that F&P both had more people working and were aiming at a smaller game (and they've been working on this for a bit, anyway), so it would be closer to 2 years than 5.
