So, I ate Chinese food for dinner tonight. Let me tell you, the pork-fried rice was the best in the world. You know what’s even better? Why, this fortune cookie of course.
“Never depend on others to make you happy. You can do it yourself.”
Feel free to interpret the above at your own risk.
They can buy Blizzard if it makes them happy. Heck, they can even continue to milk Guitar Hero for what it’s worth. However, when Activision decides to screw around with someone else’s game, they’ve gone too far.
I’m talking, of course, about Double Fine’s upcoming blockbuster, Brutal Legend, starring Jack Black. This game, developed by Tim Schafer, combines heavy metal music with God of War style action gameplay.
Activision recently sued Double Fine because. Apparently, Activision and Double Fine couldn’t agree on the game after the big A decided to turn it into a new Guitar Hero. Double Fine resolved the quarrel by joining up with another publisher, EA, to make the game. However, according to Activision, they still owned the rights.
Double Fine counter-sued by saying that Activision’s "purpose is not only to cancel ‘Brutal Legend,’ but to kill it completely so that ‘Guitar Hero’ would not have to face the competition,". Activision didn’t seem to care much about the game at all until it became popular.
Why does this news matter? Well, Tim Schafer is one of the greatest video game designers ever known. After all, he was responsible for much of the humor in the older Monkey Island games. You may also remember his more recently released game, Psychonauts. It would be devastating if his first successful game at retail would fall at the hands of lowly lawyers. If all goes well, we will still see this game’s arrival on store shelves on October 13 of this year.
Hindsight 64-bit 