I doubt that's what is going to happen in this particular case.

We'd rather see it return with the new Descent game and maybe remakes of the old ones too.

Interplay now only exists to earn money on old IPs and does nothing with them at all. Remember their "Black Isle is back!" debacle a year or so ago? Yeah, that's that.

With Descent IP in new hands (which Interplay probably sold them anyway) we are going to have old games back soon and a new, gorgeous one as well. And I'm sure all of them are going to be on GOG in no time.
There's a new Descent game in the works, and since noone is stopping them from making it, the guess is there's no problem with Descent IP at the moment.

Unless you're suggesting the guys who make new Descent game don't own the IP and just like to be sued into bankruptcy as their hobby.

I hope you're right about the games coming back in a short time along with the new game in the franchise but I'm not so confident. We'll see.

But jbartus took that into consideration in his post. It's been confirmed that there's an agreement between Interplay and Descendent Studios and thus they can name their game "Descent". We don't know what part of the older games are being disputed - be it the game engine, the maps, visual assets, audio assets, or anything else I may be forgetting. It's possible none of these are owned by Interplay anymore.

Still, as long as Descendent Studios doesn't use those assets and develop their own, they can slap the name on their brand new game and whoever owns those parts of the older games have no basis to sue them at all.

This should have been a news post.

On paper, Descent 3 was developed by Parallax Software, with all actual coding work subcontracted out to Outrage. It may ultimately have wound up in THQ's hands, but Parallax did maintain an independent legal existence even after the formal split of the AA and CU branches, and was the holder of the relevant Descent rights.

makes sense, hey descent: freespace is still up cause interplay aquired the rest of the rights for 7500 from THQ

Great time to introduce Freespace 2 Open, its an Open source port for FS2 called OpenFS2 I think

Descendent Studios has made a point of making a point about not having rights to things like the Pyro-GX and the like.

That doesn't prove independence, actually it seems to indicate the opposite, that Parallax became a DBA for Outrage. No way to know for sure but either way my point stands that Interplay making this move doesn't make sense.

Hey, Folks. Here's the story.

Parallax Software still exists and still owns the copyrights to the Descent games. Under our 21-year-old agreement, Interplay has the exclusive rights to sell Descent and Descent II, and they have been doing so on Good Old Games and Steam.

The problem is that Interplay has not paid to Parallax any royalties since 2007. We've talked to them about this numerous times over the years, and finally took action this fall. We served Interplay official notice that they were in breach of the contract, and when they still failed to pay we terminated the agreement.

This means that Interplay has lost the right to sell the Descent games, which is why they came down from GOG. (We're not sure why they're still on Steam; they shouldn't be.)

Interplay does, however, still own the Descent trademark, which they are free to use or license as they see fit (such as for Descent: Underground) as long as they don't violate our copyrights.

As for whether Descent and Descent II will be available for purchase again, we hope so. We'd be very happy to work things out with Interplay.

Matt Toschlog & Mike Kulas
Parallax Software

wait they own freespace right? oh shit heres another fallout gig get the popcorn ready

wait how long does interplay have to pay royalties? Forever? They will just market descent underground since that is a game they fully well control

are we going to loose descent games from our library? I just got descent 3 and descent on steam

interesting how Parallax decided to take action after Descent: Underground appeared

what about freespace and fs2, any titles relating to freespace, amazed interplay didnt pick up descent when thq went bankrupt, opting to get freespace at a firesale for 7500

Even if this catch you in the last minute, you should make an official post about it. My two cents.

Hope to see the games back soon. I been lucky enough to pick them up time ago.

Matt, Mike - Does this mean you have the rights to sell the original Descent games? If so - I'm hoping you'll form a partnership with the folks that have made the recent patches (D1-Retro) and release a truly network-playable steam-integrated game on steam.

+1 and thanks for the explanation. It probably deserves its own thread unless you don't want to call too much attention to it. :)

Hi Matt,

Thanks for posting and clearing that all up, tracing out details about events so far in the past is difficult so I was taking my best guess as to the order of events. Best of luck on resolving your differences with Interplay, I'm sorry to hear about the royalty situation.

That changing hands comment from Konrad was confusing, I guess he didn't realize you guys were the original creators. :D

So thats what happened. Why the fuck didnt they pay you guys the royalties. I mean you guys made the game