Freespace was the world’s last great space combat series, a genre you may not even be aware of if you’re under the age of 20. Yet it’s still quite active today; the amazing Battlestar Galactica mod Diaspora is built on Freespace 2’s engine.
Given its popularity, reverence and continued practical uses, it seems insane to me that publishers Interplay have been able to very quietly sneak in and buy the rights to the series for $US7500 from creators Volition and the bones of THQ.
Seriously, $US7500? I could have saved up and done that. That seems insanely cheap. Well, good for them. I’m looking forward to Freespace 2: HD on Steam in 2014, followed swiftly by the “Freespace 2: HD becomes most profitable title in Interplay history” press release.
Court Documents [via Polygon]
Comments
5 responses to “Classic PC Franchise Quietly Purchased For $7500”
Love FreeSpace 2, got it bundled with some fancy joystick years ago, still have the cds 🙂 one day I’ll reinstall it with the FreeSpace Open enhancements.
I played so very much of Freespace. I have been waiting and hoping for someone to buy the rights so that a sequel could be made, I’m just a little excited by this.
Went back and played it earlier this year with the mods, even managed to map a set of controls to my xbox controller since I no longer own a joystick.
Anyone interested in replaying these games before next years steam release, they are available on Good Old Games here http://www.gog.com/gamecard/freespace_2
It was sold off on its own for 7.5k? Wow. There were a few licences that I was idly keeping an eye on, but 1: they were sold off in bundles, and 2: I had no idea the prices were so very low.
should of been $75000 $7500 is way too cheap!
Christ I would bought it for that, had someone make it work properly with new windowses and make like 5000 times that in sales to fund a kickstarter for Freespace 3.
I’m not sure if I should be excited or appalled.
Part of me is super excited (who doesn’t want to see a sequel!!)
Part of me is not (I don’t think anybody is about to ‘recreate’ the game with as much care or attention to detail as the Volition/Interplay crew)
Oh well, someone has picked it up (do we know who purchased it? it’s not one of those ‘Itellectual Property law firms’ is it?) the torch; here’s hoping they know what to do with it!