{"id":2852,"date":"2009-07-30T13:24:02","date_gmt":"2009-07-30T17:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/?p=2852"},"modified":"2021-03-27T01:48:29","modified_gmt":"2021-03-27T05:48:29","slug":"brutal-irony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/2009\/07\/brutal-irony\/","title":{"rendered":"Br\u00c3\u00bctal Irony"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"initial-letter\"><p><b id=\"header\">by [name redacted]<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote id=\"note\"><p>Originally published in, I believe, the September issue of Play Magazine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Remember last year, when the newly-merged Activision Blizzard decided to shuck itself of properties unlikely to lead to a major franchise? Suddenly several high-profile one-off projects like <em>Ghostbusters <\/em>were left without a publisher. Though most quickly found a new host, Tim Schafer and Double Fine&#8217;s heavy metal adventure<em> Br\u00c3\u00bctal Legend <\/em>was left grasping. In December the recently progressive Electronic Arts stepped up, and all seemed back on track.<\/p>\n<p>Or maybe not. <!--more-->On June 4th Activision Blizzard filed to block publication of <em>Br\u00c3\u00bctal Legend<\/em>, insisting that the game&#8217;s release would &#8220;seriously harm&#8221; the company. They said they had invested millions of dollars, and technically they were still in contract with Double Fine. Plus, they wanted merchandizing.<\/p>\n<p>In July Tim Schafer rolled his eyes and counter-filed against Activision, saying the megapublisher had clearly abandoned the project &#8212; though not before bizarrely trying to retrofit it into a <em>Guitar Hero<\/em> spin-off. Furthermore, unlike Activision, Double Fine&#8217;s future rested in this game. Double Fine further claims that Activision has confused the game for a competitor to <em>Guitar Hero<\/em>, and so has conspired &#8220;not only to cancel<em> Br\u00c3\u00bctal Legend<\/em>, but to kill it completely so that <em>Guitar Hero<\/em> would not have to face the competition.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On July 30th, Judge Craig Karlan delayed ruling for another week. His tentative conclusion was to deny Activision&#8217;s motion.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by [name redacted] Originally published in, I believe, the September issue of Play Magazine. Remember last year, when the newly-merged Activision Blizzard decided to shuck itself of properties unlikely to lead to a major franchise? Suddenly several high-profile one-off projects like Ghostbusters were left without a publisher. Though most quickly found a new host, Tim [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[751,617,179,391,500,749,141,750],"class_list":["post-2852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-etcetera","tag-activision","tag-adventure-games","tag-articles","tag-electronic-arts","tag-highlights","tag-news","tag-play-magazine","tag-tim-schafer","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2852"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7664,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2852\/revisions\/7664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}