EvaUnit02 on 14/9/2016 at 03:28
Quote Posted by Fafhrd
The Weinsteins are
notorious for buying the rights to well regarded Asian films and then not releasing them.
Actually no, they do release them, just with 30mins cut out and with new scores featuring dated rap music! 5 years after the original theatrical release, straight to DVD.
Tony_Tarantula on 19/9/2016 at 13:49
Quote Posted by Fafhrd
Tell that to Patrice Desilets. Or Stephen Chow, or Zhang Yimou, or Park Chan-Wook.
Companies buy shit purely to do fuck all with it all the fucking time.
Ubisoft bought THQ Montreal and 1666: Amsterdam entirely so they could put it on hold and fire Patrice Desilets. (seriously. As part of the bidding process potential bidders were given access to design docs, and 1666's design doc was
shit. There was no reason to spend money on it. And it's not like Ubisoft needed THQ Montreal's fucking QA office.)
THQ bought the Homeworld IP and then proceeded to do nothing with it until they went bankrupt (coincidentally they bought the IP right around the same time as Alex Garden's non-compete ended and he was re-entering the games industry. Doesn't take a genius to figure out they bought it because they were afraid he was going to buy it and use the promise of making another Homeworld game to tempt the remaining talent at Relic into jumping ship).
The Weinsteins are
notorious for buying the rights to well regarded Asian films and then not releasing them.
You really need to stop pretending you know what you're talking about when it comes to, well, anything, really.
You really need to stop pretending you know what the fuck you're talking about until you learn reading comprehension.
This post being a prime example. You went all half cocked convinced of your own superior intelligence, fully convinced that you were entitled to talk down to somebody who's a fucking clueless idiot.
And in so doing you missed the entire point.
INTENT OF SITTING ON THEM. Key word being "intent". They buy them thinking that they can make a game out of it, then they either decide to allocate the resources to something else or give up on it after they realize that the IP isn't as lucrative as they thought it would be. Or internal politics, or whatever. There's a shitload of things that need to go right for any project to get greenlit in a major corporation including winning any political battles involved.
That's true in general. Most projects that people push for in a big company (like the ones we're talking about) either never get started or die shortly after being started. Other projects get pushed back to "let's schedule development of X title to begin in 2020" or something like that, and by the time that year rolls around nobody cares and the project can be scrapped in favor of the current executive's pet project.
That's a huge difference. Buying them with the intent to make something based on the IP later and then half assing it so nothing gets released is very different from buying it with the intent to sit on it. The only reason to buy it with the intent to sit on it is if you're trying to deny a competitor access to a valuable IP.....in which case it would make even more sense to use it yourself.
Starker on 19/9/2016 at 19:17
From a gamer's point of view it really makes no difference whether a company buys an IP without ever intending to do anything with it or whether it buys the IP and then does nothing with it.
Tony_Tarantula on 20/9/2016 at 00:30
True. I will give you that. The other implication is that a lot of corporate managers are as dumb as everyone suspects. Not necessarily individually, but the adage that "none of us is as dumb as all of us put together" applies. The tragedy is that this results in a lot of IP's being sucked up and then forgotten about once whoever was originally pushing for the project moves on or finds another great idea.
Regarding the sale THQ would actually be the first potential buyer I'd run to if I was sell-side on the deal. They are historically acquisitive of IPs and as mentioned do tend to actually use them.
TannisRoot on 20/9/2016 at 02:01
Sure companies will buy the rights to things purely with the intent of sitting on them. The music industry does this all the time to new artists to prevent competion with established artists. They'll sign them for a couple albums worth of material and then shelve them. If the artist ever tries to release the material independently they'll be sued. It's how they protect their monopolies.
faetal on 20/9/2016 at 09:04
Also, there's no way to tell the difference between a company lying and one telling the truth about the decision to not go ahead with development after obtaining IP.
They can intend to sit on it while professing the opposite.
Starker on 20/9/2016 at 20:26
Not to mention that they might want to buy it "just in case". Not necessarily to cockblock, but just because it's being offered and it's cheap enough. Well, cheap for a FUGPUSC, that is.
faetal on 20/9/2016 at 21:57
It's fairly common practice to buy IP quickly just to prevent competitors from doing so. After that, sitting on it or not becomes a simple matter of whether they think there's any real money to be made.
Neb on 20/9/2016 at 22:58
TBH, when I become hideously rich, I'm just going to buy up all of the IP and sit on it indefinitely to save us from the endless deluge of sequels and reboots.
Yakoob on 21/9/2016 at 05:12
well i did just buy a domain i dont intend to use any time (soon at least) but one that might be valuable few years down the line :p
