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After acquiring several games formerly owned by the game published Acclaim in an auction last year, Toronto-based Throwback Entertainment announced that several of their higher-profile acquisitions would be brought to the next generation.

This announcement included some ofAcclaim's most recognizable titles, such as Vexx, Extreme-G Racing, and Legends of Wrestling. Now that the appropriately-named Throwback owns the rights to these games, they're well-placed to continue to expand the franchises with new, next-generation content.

This makes me wish that a certain other gaming company would auction some of its "throwback" games. It's sad that it takes dissolution to get a company to poop or get off the pot when it comes to out-dated video game franchises that still claim loyal fans.

Source: GameSpot



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Veni, vidi, dormivi.

You know, Karasuman, I almost wonder why more companies don't do that in general,
or on a case-by-case basis. Worried that sales-per-quarter will fail expectations? License a
classic for revision, either as entirely new content or as a re-release to a modern console.
Maintain a licensing fee or purchase equity in the endeavour. Reap the reward. And since
it's either licensing or equity, initial risk doesn't have to be prohibitively high.

Interesting.

You'd think the lost-opportunity of sales, from cannibalizing their own market, wouldn't be
too much of an issue. After all, if ChronoChross were to come out for the Ps3 (hell, even
the Ps2) in full 3D, new fmvs, etc), I would still be anticipating FinalFantasyXII, and would
keep my reservation on it. But I might not be as quick to pick up another game from some
other company, and it keeps people aware of your brand. Maintains mindshare, as it were.

Very interesting.

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Putting the A's in W lm rt: A11smart, Jobclass: Retailer.

My business sense tells me that while it seems like a decent idea, it's probably not that great an idea in the long run. You can't guarantee that the re-releasers maintain the same quality as the original, and doing so would dilute the strength of your franchise. It could even affect your brand-name.

Suppose Square-Enix licensed out FF4 to random (yet rich) game developer company. New company fails expectations of most gamers, releasing something that is both expensive and poorly ported/upgraded. Now there is a title that is blessed by Square-Enix but fails in everyone's eyes.

What does it matter if it was another company doing it? Square-Enix's franchise just lost credit, and so did the company by association. It is FF4.

And if there is further quality assurance partnership between the two, it moves into the realm of such work that the original company might as well take on the burden themselves.

There seems to be a good reason why even gaming copyrights aren't easily bought. That is, until your company goes bankrupt and needs every cent to pay off the creditors.

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Visions of Peace - Four Generals, One Empire, and the Returners caught in the middle.

I'll grant that's a good point, with licensed companies also picking up a 'license to kill'
goodwill already owned by a game franchise. In the Perfect, Walgreens world, every
company has the fortitude of Blizzard, and their insight in granting licenses to their
product lines. Has everyone seen the WoW boardgame? It's as complex and amazing
as its namesake!

Still, with oversight, I think it could work. As long as the vision is continued; ie, assure
that it doesn't get shopped to an EA studio for processing. With the potential to fail
as Elessar pointed out, though, I think the once-bitten twice-shy Sqeenix would bail.

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Putting the A's in W lm rt: A11smart, Jobclass: Retailer.