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No One Knows Who Owns NOLF[Apr 06, 2013, 11:40 am ET] - 12 CommentsA post on One Of Swords has a new episode of One of Swords TV where "Activision community management team of one" Dan Amrich attempts to sort through the sticky issue of who owns the rights to No One Lives Forever, Monolith's spy spoof series, last known to be the property of Vivendi Games after they acquired with the Fox Interactive catalog. Since Vivendi eventually merged with Activision, he seems like the one to ask, and Dan explains that some of the IP they ended up with as a result of that merger has since been sold off, using the example of Leisure Suit Larry, and that many of the games they retained are now being sold on GOG.com, using the example of the King's Quest series. As for NOLF, he says this is something he's asked about himself, going on to explain:The person that I normally talk to about this stuff does not believe that we currently the rights. They've never seen it, they've never been given the permission to put that stuff on Good Old Games. He said, basically, 'If we had it, I would love to be able to reissue those old games.' So, that leaves the question if Activision no longer has the rights to No One Lives Forever, who does? Monolith was the developer that handled those games, and they are now part of WB. So I thought, maybe at the time when Activision was saying 'we'll keep these, we'll leave these, we'll sell these, whatever,' maybe Monolith stepped up and took their IP back. So I contacted a friend at Monolith... and he doesn't know. Uh, so, unfortunately, all I can definitively say is that at this time I do not believe that Activision has the rights to No One Lives Forever.
I've never played NOLF or the second one. It sounds like I'm really missing out (at least with NOLF 2).
But wouldn’t you know it, the game almost wasn’t made. Not because of quality issues, but because MGM believed that the developer, Monolith, was attempting to infringe on their James Bond film RIGHTS to make the game.According to a cease and desist letter that CEO of MONOLITH, JACE HALL, received from Michael Moore, who back in 1999 sat as one of MGM’s Senior Vice Presidents:“According to the promotional material …the game features ‘over-the-top-action, outrageous villains, and wry humor in the great tradition of a great 1960′s Bond film!’ It is clear the plain intention of Monolith is to draw substantially from the James Bond motion pictures and the James Bond character through the choice of theme, characters, names, plots, gadgetry, action sequences, and the method Monolith has chosen to advertise and promote the game.”...Monolith had ten days to stop the game or else face “further legal action.” So what did they do? They did not cease, nor did they desist. In fact they didn’t even respond, they just kept on making the game, given that the letter was sent almost a year and a half before it eventually hit shelves. Pivotal to the game’s development was a great partnership with Fox Interactive, which was set up and managed by Jace Hall.
JHS: There’s a lot of mystery around who has the rights to the game — some say WB, many believe Activision still has them — can you offer us some insight into who might own them and whether there’s been any recent discussion about making the game again?Craig Hubbard (Lead Game Designer on NOLF): I’m not really the best person to ask, but my understanding was that Monolith owned the IP and Fox owned the title of the first game, which was technically The Operative: No One Lives Forever. I think Monolith actually owned A Spy in H.A.R.M.’s Way, the subtitle of the sequel, but I could be wrong about that.Fox got acquired by VUG, which in turn got acquired by Activision, while Monolith got bought by Warner Brothers, so some stars would have to align for everything to get sorted out. Either way, I hope nobody ever figures out who owns Contract Jack.Anyway, I can safely say that there didn’t seem to be any interest in resurrecting the franchise when I was still at Monolith/WB as of last year. I sometimes fantasize about creating some kind of spiritual successor, but I have too many other ideas I want to explore first.
