Ah they nailed him with a noncompete for that public domain IP. Crafty.
He nailed himself when he took people’s money, spent all his energy on the “game bible,” and then promised he would make a game he did not have authority to make. It’s not like it was a surprise to him. He’s the victim of his own decisions ultimately here.
Alice was a cool game. The 2nd one was…we can say good. He got two at-bats for the game, it never took off, the second sold particularly poorly. The cult following isn’t enough and frankly he has demonstrated very little of what would make this new game so special. He had one cult hit almost 25 years ago and ansolid but not special, kind of buggy follow-up. I just think this entire project is all audience hype at this point.
I mean, I get it. Its a cool idea, a cool world, and its his brain child.
Tbh its kinda bullshit he cant make a game for a world EA will literally never ever ever use. Theyve just shoved it as far up their own asses and plan on keeping it there.
Id rather a shitty 3rd game than never getting another shot at a cool world.
They can’t touch IP based on a public domain work??
It’s very likely that as a part of whatever existing deal he has with EA, he had to specifically sign some form of non-competition clause that made it so he can’t just leave and make “shmalice in shmonderland” and say it’s technically distinct, despite being the obvious follow up to the games owned by EA. Greedy? Yeah. But it’s not like he didn’t know what he was signing up for. There’s plenty of other options for publishers out there who are perfectly willing to not give a fuck about your IP, and just want up front cash and/or a cut of sales. The downside being that, unlike someone like EA, theyre going to have a much more limited reach in terms of getting your game on store shelves, and getting ads in front of eyeballs, if they even do that much.
