They apparently only had to deal with one giant company, Electronic Arts, and the the rights holder which acquired the rights from Looking Glass Studios, a smaller entity. NOLF had three giant companies to deal with. Still, I wonder if the original System Shock will ever be released on gog or another site. No particular amount of updating is required for that game.

That's too bad. The NOLF games are really great fun!

I can see the raging hordes who are totally ignorant of how intellectual property laws work getting themselves all worked into a lather over this, like when Square-Enix issued a cease and desist to a group of programmers looking to release a 3d version of Chronotrigger. They created a demo version of the game, made videos for Youtube, got the fans of the game worked into a frenzy but didn't own a single right to use the Chronotrigger name or any of the trademarked characters so naturally Square-Enix, in an attempt to protect their rights, issues the letter and the fans turn on them. They have no idea that under trademark law if you don't protect your trademarks by threatening legal action when they are infringed, that the trademark can be invalidated. Copyrights can't be lost that way, but trademarks can. If someone uses Mickey Mouse without Disney's permission and they don't sue, they can lose Mickey. It's the same thing with video game characters. It's not optional that they defend their characters in court, it's built into the law. They MUST defend or risk losing control of them. It never even occurred to these ignoramuses that the people wanting to release the game could have tried to negotiate a licensing agreement, they just wanted Square-Enix to cave and let them make the game with no consideration for their rights at all.

sliderider wrote:

They have no idea that under trademark law if you don't protect your trademarks by threatening legal action when they are infringed, that the trademark can be invalidated. Copyrights can't be lost that way, but trademarks can. If someone uses Mickey Mouse without Disney's permission and they don't sue, they can lose Mickey. It's the same thing with video game characters. It's not optional that they defend their characters in court, it's built into the law. They MUST defend or risk losing control of them.

You seem to be conflating trademarks, copyrights, and some nebulous concept of "characters". Trademarks frequently lapse on their own through no action of anyone. Why should a company care about losing control over a character they haven't given any regard to and are not likely to ever use again?

But I'm "totally ignorant", of course.

The games No One Lives Forever and No One Lives Forever 2 are copyrighted, the question is who owns these rights and to what extent. While Warner seemed to hold the bulk of the rights and was ready to license, neither Activision nor Fox felt like going through their archives to determine whether they had any residual rights to the games. Night Dive Studios obviously did not want to risk getting sued by one or the other and did not want to file a lawsuit to force these companies to prove any rights they may have had. This could cover remakes of and perhaps sequels to the games. Unfortunately, Night Dive's business is bring the classics back, not continuing them, which would require a much more substantial enterprise. A remake or a sequel is beyond this company's resources.

As far as Trademark goes, Night Dive abandoned their efforts to Trademark the name "No One Lives Forever" because of the above licensing issues. I don't believe that Cate Archer or any of the other characters of the series are so well-established with the public to have acquired a secondary meaning in terms of trademark law. A secondary meaning is when the public associates a character which is so well known with a particular source, like Mickey Mouse for Disney, Spider Man for Marvel, or Godzilla for Toho. However, due to their distinctiveness, some of these characters may be so distinctly drawn that they would qualify for copyright protection.

Jorpho wrote:

sliderider wrote:

They have no idea that under trademark law if you don't protect your trademarks by threatening legal action when they are infringed, that the trademark can be invalidated. Copyrights can't be lost that way, but trademarks can. If someone uses Mickey Mouse without Disney's permission and they don't sue, they can lose Mickey. It's the same thing with video game characters. It's not optional that they defend their characters in court, it's built into the law. They MUST defend or risk losing control of them.

You seem to be conflating trademarks, copyrights, and some nebulous concept of "characters". Trademarks frequently lapse on their own through no action of anyone. Why should a company care about losing control over a character they haven't given any regard to and are not likely to ever use again?

But I'm "totally ignorant", of course.

No, I'm not conflating anything. Mickey Mouse, Ronald McDonald, Duke Nukem, Spiderman, etc are all trademarked characters and the law DOES specifically state that if the owners want to retain their trademarks they must defend them. Why should the government extend protection to characters if the owner can't be bothered to challenge anyone who infringes? So yes, you ARE totally ignorant.

Read the article and meh... whatever. Pirate the game and be done with it. What's wrong with you people? I understand buying a product when it's sold by the people who made it, but Night Dive Studios has nothing to deal with NOLF. For me they are worse than pirates, because pirates these days at least don't sell what they have. Yes, I know they make classics available. As if the same classics weren't available for free in the first place.

RacoonRider wrote:

Read the article and meh... whatever. Pirate the game and be done with it. What's wrong with you people? I understand buying a product when it's sold by the people who made it, but Night Dive Studios has nothing to deal with NOLF. For me they are worse than pirates, because pirates these days at least don't sell what they have. Yes, I know they make classics available. As if the same classics weren't available for free in the first place.

sliderider wrote:

No, I'm not conflating anything. Mickey Mouse, Ronald McDonald, Duke Nukem, Spiderman, etc are all trademarked characters and the law DOES specifically state that if the owners want to retain their trademarks they must defend them. Why should the government extend protection to characters if the owner can't be bothered to challenge anyone who infringes?

Because characters are copyrighted, and copyright does not magically go away if you don't bother to challenge anyone who infringes your copyright. Why exactly do you think Disney is constantly so desperate to extend the length of copyright?

So yes, you ARE totally ignorant.

Here's a thought: why don't you link to an authoritative source that substantiates your claims? Google <trademark protection for cartoon characters> and see if you can find anything resembling your above statement.

Racoon, not everybody wants to be a pirate. When classics are made available again it also gives a warm cuddly feeling to fans. Not to mention they are always taken care a bit to work on modern systems again.

also, PLEASE DON'T SUGGEST TO ANYONE TO PIRATE GAMES IN THIS FORUM!

Dominus wrote:

Racoon, not everybody wants to be a pirate. When classics are made available again it also gives a warm cuddly feeling to fans. Not to mention they are always taken care a bit to work on modern systems again.

also, PLEASE DON'T SUGGEST TO ANYONE TO PIRATE GAMES IN THIS FORUM!

Not to mention that most part of the income of such companies depends on dosbox, which is free. I would agree to pay dosbox developpers for playing old games, not some third-party company that combines two pieces of software they did not develop to sell the result. Excuse me, I could do the same thing myself. And considering NOLF, I don't remember anything more complex than turning XP compatibility mode to run it on seven. Should I pay for that as well?

YOU don't need to, the world does not revolve around you.
Most people do like that the classics are made available again in a way that is easy to use and does not even mean they need to mess with old hardware or DOSBox with its confusing mounting stuff. And that for a tiny fraction of the original price.
Yes, they do use DOSBox which is free but its license does allow that. As for whether the games are free for them, who knows, but they certainly do have costs that need to be paid.

And I think "I could do that myself" is not a valid point ever since Columbus' egg.

It is a pity though. I have both games (though my copy of NOLF1 is only the budget re-release, IIRC) and they are great, and deserve to be played by the new generation of gamers.

NOLF's stealth parts were often forced, and sometimes felt too trial-and-errorish, with instant game over if you failed them (it would have been much better if it had been like Goldeneye, where if you are spotted then the game becomes harder as more enemies appear, but you can still attempt to complete the level), and some of the levels weren't as enjoyable as they might have been, and there is a severe difficulty spike in one of the levels. Plus little flaws like the nighclub supposedly being too full, so no-one is allowed in, yet when you get in it's almost deserted (down to the limitations of the game engine, and PCs of the time, not as part of the story). Still, it's a mostly very ejoyable game, with some really great levels, assortment of weapons, some great humour and writing, a lot of variation in it's settings, and is a great FPS all told.

NOLF2 is more like Deus Ex, in that you have RPG stats to enhance Cate's (your in-game character) abilities, and it's great earning the skill points (you earn skill points by exploration and achieving objectives) and improving your skills. NOLF2 is a really good FPS/RPG, but I thought that the humour overall wasn't as good as in NOLF1, but the gameplay was very good.

They are ok games if you are into the Austin Powers thing but they have definitely aged in the gameplay dept as much as graphics. I don't know if they would really sell to more than nostalgia seekers. It's interesting that the publishers don't care enough to even figure out if they own the rights. Peanut money to be made.

swaaye wrote:

They are ok games if you are into the Austin Powers thing but they have definitely aged in the gameplay dept as much as graphics. I don't know if they would really sell to more than nostalgia seekers. It's interesting that the publishers don't care enough to even figure out if they own the rights. Peanut money to be made.

Oh, it's true that even if they were superb, all conquering games then they wouldn't sell too well now, since they are old, graphically inferior to modern AAA games, and won't have any marketing behind them, or imbue any 'street cred' on anyone who plays them, unlike the latest Halo of Duty rip off. But playability-wise they are both still great games, and will especially appeal to older FPS players who hate the modern status quo (i.e. most modern FPSs now 'boast' things like reachable health, a weapon carrying limit, the linear path of a game that precludes exploration or having to locate objectives yourself, have constant onscreen prompts for things like "Press E to open door"/"Press USE key to active"/etc). Plus to me, games that avoid those 'features' seem to often have much more replayability.

I love these games and though maybe the graphics have aged I think they beat most modern games in general because of originallity and humor.
I think it's right up there with other old but high rated FPS's like Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Half-Life, etc.
NOLF is probably my favorite amongst those

One of the funniest conversations. 😁

At least we managed to get Tron 2.0.

Procyon wrote:

One of the funniest conversations. 😁

OMG, that's amazing.

Jorpho wrote:

At least we managed to get Tron 2.0.

Was that game any good? I did buy it for the original XBox (I love first person shooters!) but it didn't grab me, so I gave up very early on. If it is a good game then I'll probably give it another go.