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JMich: This transpired in December of 2014. WB must have been in negotiations with GOG at that point, and probably have already finalized the contracts. Could it be that GOG has offered to do the compatibility work themselves, thus WB didn't see any point in working with Night Dive, because they are already working with GOG? If they were publishers with Night Dive Studios as developers, they would be giving a piece of the pie to Night Dive, if they licensed NOLF to Night Dive, they would be getting a smaller cut. If GOG does the work though, WB's cut would be the standard 70%.

Unlikely, but there may be hope yet.
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rampancy: I'm not denying that you could be right, but I got another take on this. This looks to me like (a) WB is now aware that this IP is in significant demand, therefore being potentially very valuable, (b) that they have a significant legal stake in it, and (c) other competing studios have an interest in it as well. The latter point means that WB may feel like they're not in a position to exploit the NOLF license completely on their own (which is what they'd prefer of course) since Activision and 20th Century Fox have a stake in it too.

I remember hearing once on a Jimquisition video that many execs in the industry have an "all-or-nothing" approach to the market -- they'd rather make no money, than some of the money, if they can't have all of the money.

So another possibility is that WB, now knowing that they've got something valuable on their hands from the attention it's gotten from NDS, wants to sit on it. Either because they want to evaluate how they can exploit it on their own (either by getting Monolith to do another game, or make a movie/TV show/etc. on it), or because they simply want no one else making money on something of which they have a controlling stake.

And on top of that, WB is an "old media" company. There's nothing that suggests to me that they have any idea of how the video game industry works, or of how gamers think, and spend their money. They don't understand that there's a revenue stream virtually guaranteed for them by releasing NOLF and NOLF2 (albeit one where they don't get every piece of the pie). And given that NOLF is barely a blip on their media property radar, they likely don't care -- at least, not until Michael Bay comes with a pitch for NOLF: The Movie, with Megan Fox as Cate Archer, Channing Tatum as Dmitrij Volkov, and Seth Rogen as Bruno Lawrie.
What part of "Warners cannot release the game if they wanted to because of legal issues" don't you understand?
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dudalb: What part of "Warners cannot release the game if they wanted to because of legal issues" don't you understand?
What are said legal issues? Up to December 2014, Night Dive Studios had filed for the Trademark, with Warner asking for more time to contest it. ND was also in discussions with WB about publishing the game, either with WB as publisher or with ND as one. In December 2014, WB said they will not work with ND, and seeing when WB joined GOG, December 2014 is in the time period when WB and GOG would be finalizing contracts.

So, why get ND to do the work and take a cut, then have whatever distributor take another cut, when you can have a distributor do the work themselves, thus have one less cut to give?
Sorry for the derail, but I wanted to ask if anyone knew the current status of a re-release of System Shock 1? Has ND/anyone else tracked down the owner... are they at the negotiation stage... is it all a giant question mark, that sort of thing.

The only thread I could find on this goes back to last year and I figured this was as good a place as any.
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dudalb: What part of "Warners cannot release the game if they wanted to because of legal issues" don't you understand?
From my reading of the article, WB has some stake in the NOLF IP along with Activision and 20th Century Fox. NDS was making progress with 20th Century Fox and Activision, but it was WB who held them back. If you're talking about this part: "It's still unclear to me," he said, "with all the people that we dealt with, there wasn't anyone at either Warner Bros., Activision, or 20th Century Fox who said, 'Here's a copy of the contract that we have, and as you can see, we own all rights.' We don't know of any… we didn't see any of that documentation. And probably, without going to court, we never will.", then there was at least the option where WB could have gotten a cut of the profits regardless of whether or not they could supply physical proof of ownership. WB flat out refused.

This part, "They come back with a response that said they're not looking to either publish the game themselves at this time, or to partner with us," suggests to me that WB is thinking about doing something else with the IP that doesn't involve NDS, but could involve another third-party.

Of course, this is all idle speculation, without any hard evidence.
Post edited March 09, 2015 by rampancy
Night Dive hinting that there have been 'developments' with NOLF after GDC

https://twitter.com/NightDiveStudio/status/575522745443827713?lang=en
Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure, drop a bomb and then shut up again. It's just meaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan. Maybe it would have been better, if they told us after all contracts are signed and stamped.
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JMich: ...If GOG does the work though, WB's cut would be the standard 70%....
So we just have to wait and see if NOLF appears on GOG. If not, WB just killed NOLF or is afraid of not having all the rights.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/ahvm9d/monolith_hints_about_no_one_lives_forever/
Gorgeous poster! Thanks for sharing. ;) Feeling pretty nostalgic right now...
Post edited January 22, 2019 by matterbandit
Fantastic news. Great games and deserves to be able to live on so new players can enjoy the games. If Night Drive has got it might give us hope on other games stuck in legal hell
Old news. The tweet mentioned is two-months-old.
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/vague_signs_that_a_game_might_be_released_here_not_even_unofficial_confirmations/post182
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/did_i_dream_this_or_did_this_actually_happen_no_one_lives_forever_related/post6
So, can't this game be downloaded free and legally at UnityHQ?

I saw a thread here on GOG wanting the original C&C collection released too, but I know that was made full and free a long time ago as well. Even EA made TFD free for D/L.

(I'm glad I still have my NOLF CD. One of the best games ever.)
Post edited January 22, 2019 by BStone
Hello old thread of mine.
I see you're coming up again.
Damn fine necro there. Also some good news - fingers crossed.
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stupiddumbsht that was from last year.