Stargate Worlds dev loses license

By Fred Dutton Published 10 November, 2010

End of the road for oft-delayed MMO?

The beleaguered studio behind long-in-the-offing MMO Stargate Worlds has been stripped of the franchise license by owners MGM Studios.

Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment CEO Gary Whiting told Nerdvana that MGM had issued a notice of termination on 3rd November.

Stargate Worlds was first announced way back in 2006 and was coming along nicely when Eurogamer's Keza MacDonald went hands-on with a preview build in 2008.

A gameplay trailer, which you can see below, appeared in 2009 but development was put on the backburner while an FPS spin-off, Stargate Resistance, was fast-tracked. Even so, Cheyenne Mountain insisted that it was still working "towards SGW's release."

Cheyenne Mountain then filed for bankruptcy in March and sold Resistance on to Fresh Start Studios, who it subsequently sued, along with Dark Comet Games, for fraudulent use of its assets.

An Arizona judge yesterday ruled in Cheyenne Mountain's favour but that scrap of good news looks to have come too late to save Stargate Worlds. Unless MGM Studios decides to award the license to another developer it would appear that the lights have finally gone out.

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (13) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • jebus #1 2 years ago

    I doubt this was ever going to scare Blizzard. I mean - Stargate, really? The TV show was pretty average

  • scottycam #2 2 years ago

    The series was great - 13 years ago.

  • Thedni #3 2 years ago

    I was under the impression MGM was going under too. Seems a bit of a lame move.

  • cheeky_pete #4 2 years ago

    Having had the misfortune to plat Stargate resistance this is only a good thing now maybe they can give the license to someone who can make a game that does justice to the universe.

  • hobojebus #5 2 years ago

    This looked half arsed from the start and i was not supprised when they had to shut down production.

  • Sunyavadin #6 2 years ago

    Still pissed that JoWood's game got canned.

  • hiddenranbir #7 2 years ago

    Maybe they can let RTW have a crack at it...

  • Der_tolle_Emil #8 2 years ago

    I'm not really into Stargate and I think the last time I watched it was like 10 years ago but isn't there really a Stargate universe that you can use to build a game around it? Even if there was I think it is more than a couple of years too late.

    Still sad news for all the people involved. It is already frustrating enough to work for such a long time on something without getting anywhere and then getting cancelled from one day to another is yet another blow.

  • Miths #9 2 years ago

    I was never really particularly interested in this game - or expecting it to see the light of day - but I loved all ten seasons of SG-1, five seasons of Atlantis and here in its second season Stargate Universe is finally starting to look decent, although it remains very different from the two previous shows, for better or worse (unfortunately mostly worse).

  • f1r3storm Verified Redakteur, Eurogamer Deutschland #10 2 years ago

    I'd like to see a Stargate game using Mass Effects gameplay mechanics, extensive dialogues and decisions.

  • TheTingler #11 2 years ago

    Wait, they sold Stargate Resistance to another company and then sued them for using their game? What did they think was going to happen?

    I thought this was dead ages ago anyway. Lesson to developers: it's a lot harder to make an MMO than you think, right?

  • IronCladChicken #12 2 years ago

    'in its second season Stargate Universe is finally starting to look decent'
    You mean Stargate:BSG?

  • Spekingur #13 2 years ago

    Now this game would be perfect for Cryptic Studios!

    Instanced areas make more sense with the Stargate universe.