The Lost History of System Shock
Ever since the Underworld games arrived on Good Old Games, one of the more commonly-asked questions has been when System Shock and System Shock 2 will show up for sale. Indeed, the people at GOG rather pointedly referenced this series — the other two-part game series built with the 3D engine that also powered both Underworld titles — in a Q&A session, confirming that for now, there was no possibility of seeing either game arrive on GOG.
And in a lengthy retrospective, G4TV’s The Feed blog explains why that is.
For those who haven’t time to read the whole thing, here’s the basic summary (which I admit I did not entirely know, myself):
But even if EA wanted to publish another System Shock, the company didn’t have the rights to do so. Back when the original game was made, producer Warren Spector negotiated a deal in which EA got the trademark to the series, while the developers at Looking Glass Studios kept the rights. To create another System Shock game, you need both. “My thinking was it would force us to be married so it never would be that either party should be able to say we own that, we’re making the next game, screw you,” Spector told the San Jose Mercury News last November.
In hindsight, the deal only jeopardized System Shock’s future. Looking Glass Studios closed in 2000, a year after System Shock 2’s release, and the copyright to the series went into the hands of an insurance company. That left EA with only the System Shock name, but no actual development rights.
Since that time, EA’s trademark on the System Shock name has expired, mind you, and the article goes on to explain why that fact is as much an additional hurdle to the development of a new game in the series as it is an advantage. The legal issues surrounding both the name and development rights for the series are vexingly complicated.
Still: if you were wondering, you can now say you know what the issue with the creation of a new System Shock game is…and you can also quite safely infer that these same issues prevent the games from becoming available for sale through a digital distribution service like Good Old Games.
[Insert Paul Harvey joke here.]
Actually AFAIK, EA -did- began development of a new System Shock game back in the mid-2000 (approximately when they had that Doom 3-based System Shock remake shut down), but it eventually got cancelled.
Perhaps they aimed to buy back the rights at that point for some reason but it did not happen.
Still it’s a very odd process there… it’s rare that rights like this aren’t straight with the publishers.
There’s something off about this article.
I’m thinking they looked up “System Shock” on TESS, saw the word ‘DEAD’ and decided that meant EA wasn’t going to use their rights anymore. That’s not really how it would work.
EA has no problem claiming ownership of System Shock. They’ve spent some money on SS projects over the last few years that didn’t pan out. The thing that has probably killed the idea for the foreseeable future is the success of BioShock. No one is going to put out a similarly designed called ‘System Shock’ in 2011… because they’ll be accused of ripping off BioShock by that series’ millions of players. (The success of Dead Space also hurts.)
And they missed the best piece of forgotten System Shock lore of all–that it started life as a Wing Commander game!
Yeah, I think the right issues about System Shock might relate in term of re-releasing the original games… but somehow I doubt it would prevent EA to create new System Shock games. And assuming this insurance company does have the SS rights for sale, EA would probably buy them back and voilà.
I don’t think EA would have any issue release a System Shock 3 even if people would go “Bioshock ripoff!”.
I mean they did Dante’s Inferno which was a (pretty good) God of War rip off, and they didn’t seem to feel bad about it.
God know why the SS projects over the last years didn’t pan out. The Syndicate game being done at Starbreeze doesn’t seem to be progressing either, so it’s odd.