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Activision has ordered a cease & desist of the long awaited fan-created game The Silver Lining, which was to be an unofficial sequel to the King's Quest series. Here's the article!

The Escapist : Forums : The News Room : Activision Kills Long-Awaited King's Quest Fan Project

Like it was mentioned in that thread, this happened with the Halo RTS before release of Halo Wars. This also happened with Chrono Trigger 3D before the DS release. New King's Quest game perhaps? I know KQ is a new arrival on GOG.

I doubt that there's another game in the pipeline from Activison, just another example of corporate *******s being corporate *******s. If they were contemplating bringing out another game they would have actually benefited from the positive publicity, as it happens they are only getting negative publicity. They stand to gain nothing from this behaviour, except unnecessary legal bills and bad feeling from the KQ fan base. If I was in charge of Activision I'd fire whoever was responsible for making such a stupid decision.

Their actions certainly reduce the chances of me buying anything they produce.

I've followed along The Silver Lining every few months over the years, watching as the game concept and design matured. It had great promise, in my opinion. The people involved were enthusiasts who knew what they were doing. It was a homage in the true sense of the word, not a ripoff. Nothing was done undercover.

Unfortunately, the people who run the companies (as I've repeatedly stated over the years) are not fans or game-players, but corporate suit types, lawyers, and accountants. They're not "evil corporations," they're the standard for a huge multi-billion dollar industry. The assumption that the rights wouldn't end up in their hands all along was flawed, but if the developers had gotten their game together sooner and out the door, all attempts to stifle it would have been after the fact. I'm not blaming the KQ team. I'm just noting how the results might have differed.

The Gaming Industry has stifled many such projects in one way or another over the years. I've known some excellent professional games developers who had great ideas that were turned down--one, because it had no multiplayer, when the person they had to get by believed that was the wave of the future; another, because they their game was set in mythical Greece, and he believed no game set in mythical Greece could sell. A third felt that every game must have ports for every console in business. These are the people making the decisions at the top of the ladder about who gets funded, and who doesn't.

In short: this isn't surprising, and it isn't about to change. I don't know how to hammer this into the heads of enthusiastic gamers, but once again: however much you love this, to the people who control the product from start to finish, it's an industry. That's all. This isn't cynicism. It's a simple statement of fact. Tailor your expectations accordingly, and you won't end up horrified in the end.

Well, of course it's an industry. People aren't going to spend hours of their time on making something to please us just out of kindness. They need proper remuneration for their work. Of course, if the people who hold the purse strings were more into gaming and less into profit, we might get better games, but chances are they would be unable to run the enterprise.

It's like my friend's tea shop. He's a connoisseur in the matter and so you'll always get excellent tea there, prepared with knowledge and skill, but you have to wait for it much longer. The shop is constantly striving to keep in the black because he can't even get a sign over the door and so many people pass it by without knowing it's there. And he'll prefer not to sell you any tea at all then to sell it made badly, which is why any problem, such as lack of the right kind of honey or a malfunctioning kettle is leaving him without profit.