Saturday 19 February 2011

canon, fanfic, and licensing

So apparently there's going to be an 'official' new King's Quest coming from Telltale Games.

But what exactly makes it official? The fact that Activision said so? Activision also gave permission to the fangamers to make their own episodic series (with some restrictions). And Activision didn't make the original series, they're just the current license holders.

The article at least has the sense to realise that people might care whether Roberta Williams will be involved (but they don't know the answer to that. According to wikipedia the last time anyone got a quote she was completely disinterested in computer games now and wanted to write a novel, but that was years ago.) That would certainly make it 'more' official in some eyes... of course, she was also involved in Mask Of Eternity and some fans (like myself) will whine endlessly that it wasn't a 'real' King's Quest game... even though it was put out by the original company and the original creator with the proper series title on it.

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