Wing Commander CIC
A couple of months ago, when THQ went bankrupt and their assets were auctioned off, Interplay bought the Freespace IP back. Gamasutra has just published info regarding just how much it was that Interplay had to pay for this venerable franchise. So, how much does it cost to become the owner of Freespace?
Brace yourselves...
...$7,500.
That's right - total ownership of the entire IP, publishing rights, et cetera, all for under ten thousand dollars.
Now, I've never been one to mock Freespace - I know some folks here considered Freespace to be a WC ripoff, not to mention claiming that Freespace 2 had ran the genre into the ground, but I never bought into that. Even so, Freespace was Wing Commander's main competitor for a while, so I can't help laughing a little bit about this. Really, $7,500 for the entire IP? At an auction?
There is also a sad aspect to this. Interplay bought the franchise because it was cheap, and there's still a couple of dollars to be earned from online sales at Good Old Games. But can the Freespace fans ever hope for a sequel? Of course not. So... imagine, had the fans known in advance that the IP would be such a cheap buy - the FS fan community is pretty well-organised, thanks to all the work they've spent collaborating on their source code projects. Certainly they have the manpower and ability to produce a game, and certainly as a group, they could have collectively raised more than $7,500 to secure the IP for themselves. Sure, I wouldn't be interested in playing a fan-made Freespace 3, just as I never really got interested in playing the Volition-made Freespace 2 - but I would have very much loved to see the Freespace fans accomplish something like this.
Oh, well, maybe Interplay will go bankrupt too?
Brace yourselves...
...$7,500.
That's right - total ownership of the entire IP, publishing rights, et cetera, all for under ten thousand dollars.
Now, I've never been one to mock Freespace - I know some folks here considered Freespace to be a WC ripoff, not to mention claiming that Freespace 2 had ran the genre into the ground, but I never bought into that. Even so, Freespace was Wing Commander's main competitor for a while, so I can't help laughing a little bit about this. Really, $7,500 for the entire IP? At an auction?
There is also a sad aspect to this. Interplay bought the franchise because it was cheap, and there's still a couple of dollars to be earned from online sales at Good Old Games. But can the Freespace fans ever hope for a sequel? Of course not. So... imagine, had the fans known in advance that the IP would be such a cheap buy - the FS fan community is pretty well-organised, thanks to all the work they've spent collaborating on their source code projects. Certainly they have the manpower and ability to produce a game, and certainly as a group, they could have collectively raised more than $7,500 to secure the IP for themselves. Sure, I wouldn't be interested in playing a fan-made Freespace 3, just as I never really got interested in playing the Volition-made Freespace 2 - but I would have very much loved to see the Freespace fans accomplish something like this.
Oh, well, maybe Interplay will go bankrupt too?