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Nightdive Studios, SNEG, Ziggurat, Piko Interactive and others rereleasing classic games

tormund

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Mock him as much as you want, but know that he was one of the main reasons for SS1 being easily available and playable for years now.
He deserve at least a shred of understanding from anyone who cares about System Shock.

And btw, don't think for one moment that original Looking Glass employees will see even a cent from the sales of this Steam & GOG release.
 

mindx2

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Mock him as much as you want, but know that he was one of the main reasons for SS1 being easily available and playable for years now.
He deserve at least a shred of understanding from anyone who cares about System Shock.

And btw, don't think for one moment that original Looking Glass employees will see even a cent from the sales of this Steam & GOG release.
I just don't understand this "creators won't see a dime" thinking. People resell things all the time (paintings, sculptures, heck homes, cars, etc.) and you don't hear people whining that the original painter, artist or builder isn't getting anymore money. And as far as modders.... well they go into it knowing their doing it for free and besides they didn't create the original game anyway. Don't get me wrong as I love what they do and I personally benefit but they knew from the start it was a labor of love.... not something they would be compensated for.
 
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Mock him as much as you want, but know that he was one of the main reasons for SS1 being easily available and playable for years now.
He deserve at least a shred of understanding from anyone who cares about System Shock.

And btw, don't think for one moment that original Looking Glass employees will see even a cent from the sales of this Steam & GOG release.
Considering that Otherside Games is all over promoting this thing, I assume that there is something there for them at least. Considering that Otherside Games consists of mostly Looking Glass employees.
 

Infinitron

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They're promoting it because it gives them publicity indirectly.

But yeah, if you want to reward Looking Glass employees, go give Underworld Ascendant 20 bucks.
 
In My Safe Space
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I just don't understand this "creators won't see a dime" thinking. People resell things all the time (paintings, sculptures, heck homes, cars, etc.) and you don't hear people whining that the original painter, artist or builder isn't getting anymore money. And as far as modders.... well they go into it knowing their doing it for free and besides they didn't create the original game anyway. Don't get me wrong as I love what they do and I personally benefit but they knew from the start it was a labor of love.... not something they would be compensated for.
That's why getting into modding is a bad decision.
 

Grim Monk

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http://www.doomworld.com/vb/everything-else/72886-powerslave-ex-public-beta-released/
https://powerslaveex.wordpress.com/

And here is - public BETA of the project. Reverse engineering PSX version of the game on custom engine.
Not sure if brace myself or run.

Apparently Kaiser got C&Ded back in June and had to take down Powerslave EX.
He made the mistake of bundling actual PS1 game data along with his engine/platform port.

The future of project is unclear.

Hopefully he will re-release a new (strictly port) version similar to Doom 64 EX.
That should put him on firm legal ground against future shenanigans.

"Powerslave EX" review in case you didn't know what it is...

 
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But yeah, if you want to reward Looking Glass employees, go give Underworld Ascendant 20 bucks.

Something I've been meaning to ask: Considering the level of reverence the Codex has for the Looking Glass classics, why was there no fundraiser for Underworld Ascendant? Was there some executive decision not to have one?
 

Infinitron

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Something I've been meaning to ask: Considering the level of reverence the Codex has for the Looking Glass classics, why was there no fundraiser for Underworld Ascendant? Was there some executive decision not to have one?

They took a really long time to reach their minimum funding goal (we can't in good conscience take money from people until a game's funding is guaranteed), and by the time they did, there were lots of hard feelings towards the campaign, so it didn't seem like it would be a success.
 
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Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
The article LESS T_T posted in the other thread has more than just the System Shock remake and sequel info: http://www.fastcompany.com/3053050/...s-bringing-old-video-games-back-from-the-dead

HOW ONE COMPANY IS BRINGING OLD VIDEO GAMES BACK FROM THE DEAD
NIGHT DIVE STUDIOS GOT STARTED ON A WHIM. BUT IN LESS THAN THREE YEARS, IT’S GIVEN DOZENS OF GAMES A SECOND LIFE.

BY JARED NEWMAN
"Stephen! This is Harlan Ellison!"

With a gruff tone, Stephen Kick is describing an unexpected phone call from one of his sci-fi heroes. Kick had been trying to license the rights for I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream—not Ellison’s famous short story from 1967, but the largely overlooked PC game from 1995. After speaking with Ellison’s agents, and hearing stories about how he’d been burned financially by the game’s original publishers, Kick was certain he’d invoked the author’s wrath.

But in conversation, Ellison was the opposite of his brash public persona. Not only did he allow Kick to revamp and resell I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream in downloadable form, but he also sent a box of signed mouse pads and strategy guides from the original launch to help with promotion. Two years later, Kick and Ellison still stay in touch. "He’s got this reputation of being angsty, bitter, unapproachable," Kick says. "But he’s just the sweetest guy."

3053050-inline-i-5-how-one-company-is-bringing-old-video-games-back-from-the-dead.jpg

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

These sorts of calls are part of what Kick and his colleagues at Night Dive Studios do for a living. Night Dive, based in Vancouver, Washington, is in the business of reviving long-lost video games, a process that’s rarely as simple as making old code work on new computers. Figuring out who owns the rights to these games can take detective work, and the negotiations don’t always pan out. So far, Night Dive has only published about 60% of the games it has pursued.

Still, when the company succeeds, the payoff can be significant. Nostalgia sells, especially in gaming, where old favorites are constantly rendered unplayable by new hardware. While it’s not unusual for major publishers to revisit their past—Nintendo, for instance, dedicates a section of its downloadable game shop to the classics—Night Dive is unique in that much of its catalog doesn’t consist of obvious slam dunks. Even its highest-profile releases, such as System Shock 2 and The 7th Guest, are cult classics at best.

While Night Dive won’t talk about how much money it makes, in a few years the company has grown from two people—Kick as CEO, and his wife Alix Banegas as CFO—to a staff of 10 full-time employees, supplemented by contractors. The studio has published more than 80 games to date, and is now looking at even more ambitious ways to glorify gaming’s lost treasures.

3053050-inline-i-4-how-one-company-is-bringing-old-video-games-back-from-the-dead.jpg

Stephen Kick and Alix Banegas

SPARKING TO LIFE

I should disclose playing a bit part in Night Dive’s story. Four years ago, I wrote a feature for G4.com aboutSystem Shock 2, a shooter-RPG hybrid from 1999. Although it wasn’t a blockbuster at the time, it received sterling reviews and influenced countless other games. But due to confusion over who owned the series’ rights and trademarks, the only way to get System Shock 2 was to acquire an old physical copy or pirate the software, and any potential sequels were out of the question. After some digging, I found that the game’s rights wound up at a Michigan-based insurance company. A lawyer for that company told me his clients were willing to sell.

Kick now tells me that this story was the catalyst for his first business deal. He and Banegas had been road tripping through Central America from San Diego, where Kick had just left a job as a character artist for Sony Online Entertainment. To fill spare time, he’d loaded a netbook with classic PC games.

"By the time we reached Guatemala, we were staying in this jungle hostel, like down in the deepest parts of the jungle," Kick says. "And one night there was this power outage, this amazing storm. These lightning bolts were hitting the village nearby. It was really terrifying. So of course the first thing I did was I booted up the little laptop and attempted to play System Shock 2."

The atmosphere—all gloomy corridors and groaning monsters—would have been perfect, but Kick couldn’t get the game to work. He looked to GOG.com, a site that specializes in selling older games for today’s PCs, but found that System Shock 2wasn’t for sale. After more searching, he found my story, and the lead for Michigan-based Meadowbrook Insurance, which acquired the rights to System Shock when the original developers, Looking Glass Studios, shut down.

"From there, I just started sending out emails, without any kind of clear plan or path on what it was I was looking for, or what I was going to do," Kick says.

The rest of the story came down to fortunate timing. Meadowbrook’s lawyer wrote back a couple days later, saying the company had just secured the System Shocktrademarks from original publisher Electronic Arts. Instead of pitching an entirely new game, Kick proposed rereleasing the originals. Meadowbrook loved the idea, and Kick and Banegas decided to turn around at the Panama Canal.

Back in the States, Kick had just wrapped up a phone call with Meadowbrook that essentially finalized the deal, when luck struck again. A developer with the handle "Le Corbeau" had patched System Shock 2 to make it work on modern computers, somehow accessing source code that Kick assumed was lost. He ran the patch on his netbook, and the game worked flawlessly.

"I’m sitting there, kind of starry-eyed. I just couldn’t even put it into words how lucky I felt," Kick says. "This was the real hurdle that I was anticipating, was actually getting the game to work and utilizing my network of friends and contacts to do it. And here was this anonymous developer in France who had posted it online for free," Kick says. (He tried, unsuccessfully, to contact Le Corbeau, but maintains that the patch was technically legal for Night Dive to use.)

Kick didn’t have money on hand to buy the rights, so he scraped together contract work with independent developers and funneled the proceeds into the project. "Looking back on it now, there shouldn’t have been any doubt in my head that this would have been successful, but I literally put everything that I had left into it, and it was a little scary at first," Kick says.

Things don’t always work out that way. Last year, Night Dive was looking to bring back The Operative: No One Lives Forever, a 1960s-themed spy shooter that earned a devoted fan base in the early 2000s. As documented by Kotaku, the game’s original development studio is now owned by Warner Bros., but the original publisher was Fox Interactive. In 2003, Fox Interactive was acquired by Vivendi, which merged with Activision five years later, creating a three-headed beast of copyright and trademark issues. Night Dive was never able to work out a deal with every party, and abandoned the effort in late 2014 after Warner Bros. sent a threatening letter about the use of its trademark. (For unclear reasons, Kuperman and Kick will only allude to the situation now, without naming the game or any parties involved.)

Some efforts fall apart even without the involvement of media conglomerates. In early 2014, Kick tried to revive Dark Seed, a point-and-click adventure game that featured artwork by H.R. Giger. But after Giger’s sudden death, demands from the artist’s estate escalated, and the negotiations derailed. Kick, with his background as a video game character artist, still sounds shaken up when talking about it.

"It really kind of crushed me, because one, I’m just an admirer of his artwork. I have it all over my house, and it’s been a major influence to me throughout my life," Kick says. "Getting the chance to work with him at all would have been a highlight, of not only my career, but my life."

But for every one of those failures, there’s a case where a developer or publisher is thrilled to have a creation back on store shelves. "I was very excited to see the number of people who were excited just to be able to play Strife, seeing some of the reviews, and the people who played the HD version that were really kind of surprised by some of the innovations we had in that title," Fleider says.

3053050-inline-i-2-how-one-company-is-bringing-old-video-games-back-from-the-dead.jpg

System Shock 2

FROM REVIVALS TO REMAKES

During our conversation, I ask Kick if he ever sees himself tiring of this line of work. After all, he entered the games industry as an artist, but now spends most of his days managing staff and talking with rights holders. He responds by noting that every day is different, and insists he’s in it for the long haul.

Still, Night Dive’s business is starting to change. With most of its current catalog, Night Dive merely licenses the rights for a rerelease, and splits the sales revenue with the rights holder. Night Dive is becoming more interested in acquiring rights in their entirety, as this gives the company much more flexibility.

One example: Night Dive is developing a full remake of the original System Shock, going well beyond the basic rerelease that launched a couple months ago. Night Dive has acquired the full rights to the franchise, and Kick says he’s been working with Robert Waters, the game's original concept artist, to reimagine his designs from the early 1990s.

"Seeing the difference between his artistic abilities back then compared to now, and his ablity to reinterpret those ideas, it's just been really exciting for us," Kick says.

Part of the plan for this remake also includes a console version, which would be a first for Night Dive. Kuperman believes much of the company's future growth will come from creating console adaptations for more PC games, along with some ports for mobile devices.

We may even see a System Shock 3 someday, though Night Dive would need a larger publisher to take on the task. Kuperman says the company is "having some conversations" on this front. "To really do another game in that series is going to take resources and time and commitment that we don't have, and it's really not our core business," Kuperman says. (Until now, 2K Games’ Bioshock series has stood in as a spiritual successor.)

Beyond the digital realm, Night Dive is looking to extend some of its licenses to board games. One of those games, he says, might even be I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.

"Every day is filled with surprises," Kick says. "Not all of them are great, but for the most part we've got our fingers everywhere . . . I'd say it's almost on a weekly basis that something will come through."

Guy's totally just a random fratboy! Anybody could have done this.
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
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IIRC, Starlord is a game that could show modern-day developers a thing or two. I felt it was somewhat average, but it dared to try some new things.
 

Infinitron

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Coming 12/17/15 to Steam, GOG, and The Humble Bundle!

Turok is back and no dinosaur is safe! When it was first released in 1997, Turok introduced gamers to a world teeming with cunning enemies, traps, puzzles and deadly weapons all within a vast 3D environment ready to explore. Now the classic game has been restored and enhanced with a new visual engine and exciting new features to sink your teeth into!
 
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Coming 12/17/15 to Steam, GOG, and The Humble Bundle!

Turok is back and no dinosaur is safe! When it was first released in 1997, Turok introduced gamers to a world teeming with cunning enemies, traps, puzzles and deadly weapons all within a vast 3D environment ready to explore. Now the classic game has been restored and enhanced with a new visual engine and exciting new features to sink your teeth into!



The fog being banished alone makes this a massive improvement. People talk about Morrowind, fools, you don't know what fog is. Not till someone ambushes you right out in the open from seven feet away. Oh shit, Cyber-Purlin!
 

Astral Rag

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I don't mind decent, reasonably priced "HD re-releases" of certain 90s and early 00s games and so far this one looks ok to me.

edit: " Improved gameplay and level design " or maybe not, I guess I'll have to wait and see

Also, the frame rate is locked at 60fps which is slow as molasses for gentlemen who are used to playing Doom, Quake etc at 144fps.
 
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