Vivendi sues Brutal Legend developer Comments by Robert Purchese

Fact is BL was one of the titles Activision dropped during the Blizzard merger as dead weight, which then EA has picked up to make it into one of this years biggest titles.

All this is is the ActiBlizz suits trying to get money from it as they feel that it is their 'right' to have it, basically they shot themselfs in the foot with this one, and they are trying to make back their 'loss'.

Shame is that even tho they're probly in the wrong about this, AB will probly get a cut and have this settled out of court, it's dirty business play - Much like the apprently patant things with the wireless controlers and motion tech, funny how those 'companies' only popped up once Nintendo and Sony were in the money with them.

God damn Activision.

@ GhenghisNaan - no it's because they own the biggest IP on the planet (Warcraft) now - IMO thats probly like 60% of the company moneyspinning there, plus yea true they want to control everything and be the 'Mircosoft' of the gaming world

I can't believe im saying this but go EA, Activision really does seem to be acting like a petulant child. Also what is up with Tim Schaefer he always makes brilliant games that don't sell and then finally he makes a game that looks like it will sell well and then this happens, poor bloke

" I mean would anyone go shopping a game to another publisher if the company hadn't already legally dropped the game? Thjat would be naive and foolish, and schafer seems smart enough not to do something like that if he legally had no rights."

This is a very important point.

The whole issue revolves around the question, who was the owner of the assets for Brutal Legend after it was dropped? We don't know the details of the contract, but looking at the sequence of events it's fair to say that it was Double Fine that retained the rights to their game. Vivendi did not protest or even react when EA first announced they will be publishing the game, so they will have a very hard time convincing anyone that they were wronged. If it was actually Vivendi that had the rights to the assets, you can bet that they would have yelled the moment EA even thought about publishing Brutal Legend.

That they only speak now when the preview version is so well received with the press is simply sour grapes.

As UncleLou said, he was just trying to create some balance. We don't know the whole story. Of course we can speculate, but it does become silly when everyone sings from the same hymn book.

When Vivendi dropped Brutal Legend, it also dropped Ghostbusters & the Chronicles Of Riddick sequel, which both went to Atari. They dropped Wet which is coming out by Bethesda.

So there's definitely more to this story regarding the reasons why Vivendi only went after Double Fine & EA.

Atari and Bethesda aren't Activision's closest rivals, EA are. And EA are pursuing success through a policy which has been loudly rubbished by Activision. If I'd publicly said that there's no room for original IP in gaming, I wouldn't want my closest rivals to be in with a shout of proving me wrong.

You can't kill the metal
The metal will live on
Acti-Blizz tried to kill the metal
But they failed, as they were smiten to the ground
Bobby Kotick tried to kill the metal
But he failed, as he was striken down to the ground.

No-one can destroy the metal
The metal will strike it down with a vicious blow
We are the vanquished foes of the metal
We tried to win for why we do not know!!

etc.

:P