"Total Annihilation" rights are being sold!!!

I seriously doubt this will ever happen. The GPL is great and makes sense for a lot of things. Games aren't really one of them.

There have been a few games that did have their source code released a long long time after the game came out. Quake 3 and Freespace 2 both did this. But since source code doesn't include art assets, sound assets, or naming rights its not quite that simple.

Besides we already have Spring and its various games. There is no reason someone couldn't make a GPL "clone" of PA in the Spring engine assuming they had enough time and coding skills.

On the plus side you can buy Freespace 2 on GOG to get the art and sound assets and then play the game using the updated GPL'd engine for much better graphics. If you buy Freespace 1 on GOG you can play it in the newer engine too as a mod for Freespace 2.

So in a way Freespace 2 really will live forever.

Impossible.

Considering that EA owns the rights to the C&C franchise it isn't really very surprising that one of their studios is working on an RTS.

I never said it would be a GOOD RTS.

What they do with CnC has nothing to do with real RTS anymore

CnC FPS inc...

Hooray, TA2 is a MOBA!

Why would it need to be an RTS? Why not go the XCOM route and make it an FPS!
(After all, RTSs are a niche market, and there's already competition in the form of PA and the dominant Starcraft 2. Meanwhile, all the college frat boys eat up FPSs, like CoD, so why bother making an RTS that will sell 50-70k copies, when a sweet FPS with modern graphics, fast action, perks, and robots would sell 1 million copies?)

I'm excited for PA, and I think they're doing a lot right, but I am shocked that they haven't already sought the rights for Total Annihilation.

As smallcpu points out, Planetary Annihilation is using TA's fame and goodwill to market itself: that's a trademark issue. In Canada, you can get sued for "passing off" (or under s.7 of the Trade-Marks Act) if you represent your goods as coming from someone else. The question is whether people would be confused into thinking PA is made by the same company as made TA. (I note here that the planetaryannihilation.com is careful to avoid saying "spiritual successor to TA", which is wise: but sufficient?).

If I was Atari, trying to get max value out of my assets, I would probably mention to buyers of the Total Annihilation IP that there was a small company that is possibly infringing the trademarks, and (more importantly) about to make money off that.

I'm just the messenger. *(and before anyone says it, Canadian law is relevant because (1) They're selling into Canada; and (2) US Law is similar in this area)

I actually wouldn't be surprised to see a studio like Stardock go for it.

there is some gross misunderstanding of copyright and trademark laws in this thread

Is Stardock still active in the gaming industry? I was under the impression that Frogboy gave up after Elemental.

PS: Oh, they renamed it to Fallen Enchantress and are selliing it again. Lol.

They landed in 2nd place for the Homeworld bidding actually.

That's less useful than landing 2nd place with a girl.

Rights only have value if you use them.

TA is a dead name. A great game, but ultimately left in the dust.

MEH, at this point CT would have to prove himself to me again before I give him more credit.

Mike

Indeed. I wonder if Chris has hit what I have heard christened as "The Lucas Watershed".

u mean having kids?

More likely he's hit the wall of "If you want to make an expensive game, you need to target the widest possible audience if you want publisher support."
Put Chris in a 2-3 person group to make an indie game, and I suspect you'll see some pretty nifty ideas come out.

All good things come to an end and we shouldn't be afraid to let them die, since attempting to revive them wastes effort that could be spent on new things.