IP Experts: What are the legal barriers to releasing SSI's AD&D games on GOG, if any?

[Infinitron]

According to Wikipedia, SSI is now a property of Ubisoft. So you would think maybe there's some lack of agreement between Ubisoft and Hasbro.

But, SSI being a separate company didn't stop Interplay from releasing Gold Box compilations back when they had the D&D license in the late 90's.

So what gives? Why can't Hasbro or whoever do now what Interplay did then?

 

[DaveO]

You answered your own question by mentioning Ubisoft as the owner. They don't care about older games that they can't infest with the most restrictive DRM known to man.

 

[Infinitron]

You answered your own question by mentioning Ubisoft as the owner. They don't care about older games that they can't infest with the most restrictive DRM known to man.

But Ubisoft own nothing D&D. They just inherited SSI itself. Again, it didn't stop Interplay from rereleasing SSI's own games back in the 90's, when SSI was owned by Mattel.

 

[DaveO]

There's probably some sort of wierd agreement in place that keeps it from being perpetually unreleased. The Heavy Metal animated movie took a LONG time to clear all of the copyright stuff, so I expect something similar is in place with the Goldbox properties changing hands so many times.

It may be necessary for any owner to clear Goldbox releases thru whoever owns D&D.

 

[Wise Emperor]

I bet they must have some agreement with Hasbro and considering incoming release of D&D V, they(Hasbro) will probably promote it with games using newest rules.

Or just Ubisoft executives don't think its money wise to hire lawyers, to make some deal with Habro.

 

[Gozma]

AFAIR Hasbro has a typical corporate culture that gave the D&D people a mandate to make $100 million a year or eat shit and die, for a division that was making like $20 million. So little stuff that is a good idea like getting the Gold Box games out in legal form (and build up nostalgia power for something like a 5th edition remake that would help a ruleset become accepted like 3rd's was) is too drop in the bucket and they have to try wild gambles like DDI and MMORPGs, which then crash and burn while their fundamentals fall apart.

 

[Luzur]

from what i remember they retired the brand and its franchises.

 

[waywardOne]

France sucks.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Lawyers costs and hassle not being worth it for the 2000 people who would buy it.

 

[Excidium]

And the games remain widely available for free on abandonware sites. How tragic.

 

[darkling]

WotC has turned pretty retro-friendly in the past year or so. It happened about the time 4e became #2 to Pathfinder. Their reprinting of the 1e D&D books and D&D Next's playtest materials show they're being a little more open about the past than they had been during the entire 4E era. Now is the perfect time for the software owners to hit them up and set everything up on GOG or wherever. Ubisoft and GOG have a good relationship, don't they? I'd imagine that if it was up to them, the games would be up there already. Could it be related to whatever legal shit is keeping NWN2 from being available on Steam/anywhere?

 

[Infinitron]

You guys keep mentioning Ubisoft, but what I'm wondering is whether they are a factor here at all.

 

[Spectacle]

Most likely explanation is that the rights are split across several companies, nobody knows exactly how, and the potential money to be made isn't enough to pay lawyers to sort it out.

 

[octavius]

I bet that if GOG were to put the games up for sale, the lawyers would not waste much time in finding out who really owns the copyright.

 

[Metro]

None of us could possibly know. The answer isn't really to be found in IP law itself but the myriad of contracts the parties have between each other. The legal fees themselves probably aren't the issue more so what each party would want in exchange for surrendering their rights.

 

[Infinitron]

I wonder if anybody has ever tried to mail WotC/Hasbro about it.

 

[octavius]

I don't understand why the situation with the Gold Box games should be so much more complex than that of the IE games. In both cases you have one company owning the games themselves and another company owning the IP.
Maybe there being more money in the IE games is the real clincher?

 

[Infinitron]

I don't understand why the situation with the Gold Box games should be so much more complex than that of the IE games. In both cases you have one company owning the games themselves and another company owning the IP.
Maybe there being more money in the IE games is the real clincher?

That's my suspicion, that they just don't care about the pre-Infinity Engine D&D games.

 

[Jed]

WotC has turned pretty retro-friendly in the past year or so. It happened about the time 4e became #2 to Pathfinder. Their reprinting of the 1e D&D books and D&D Next's playtest materials show they're being a little more open about the past than they had been during the entire 4E era. Now is the perfect time for the software owners to hit them up and set everything up on GOG or wherever. Ubisoft and GOG have a good relationship, don't they? I'd imagine that if it was up to them, the games would be up there already. Could it be related to whatever legal shit is keeping NWN2 from being available on Steam/anywhere?

That's so weird. I picked up NWN2 plus both expansions & all the NWN stuff, too, for $7.49 back in March. Got in on some kind of special from Impulse. But now no NWN2 anywhere on their site.