All I know is they said something about a "soft launch", coming "this summer".
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aintnofuntime wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2019 1:40
Dude, chill. It's just a mobile game. No one's gonna remember this game ever existed in a couple years.
Yeah, you're probably right... just the amount of shock from the announcement sparked a pretty strong reaction. I've cooled off now that I've done some venting.
ScarletFlame wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2019 17:28
proYorp wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2019 6:06
Now that Zenimax or Bethesda or whoever owns the IP is taking advantage of it,
are they going to be cracking down on mods and fan games if they find them?
I highly doubt it. Commander Keen doesn't create a large profit. It's why the games on Steam are worth pennies, and why Bethesda made a cost-effective mobile game rather than a big budget 3D platformer. Doom on the other hand, is a million dollar franchise, which is why Zenimax cracked down DoomRL, because of the possibility of lost profit. As long as Commander Keen remains the obscure PC title it is, Zenimax won't crack down on the Keen fangames.... at least not yet anyway.
True, the small size of the modding community probably doesn't pose much of a threat to them anyway. I wonder if they are even aware of it's existence.
Did some of my own research into this, and it seems that Bethesda is usually pretty cool with mods for their other IP's such as Fallout. One exception I found is something called "Doom Remake 4" which apparently got a Cease and Desist recently, allegedly for being "a stand-alone release using the Doom IP". Possibly not a good sign for fan-made games.
This is only from my light research though, so I probably don't have as complete of an idea as someone actually involved with any of these communities.
Benvolio wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2019 15:53
We can bridge this difficult time if forums and keenwiki go down, by sending paper newsletters and 3 1/2 " diskettes to each other!
You know, the recent PCKF outage makes me wonder if we actually should have some sort of contact info directory (for emails or whatever) outside of here, just for the sake of preparedness. (I actually
still can't load this site through my usual means, neither can T-Squared, hopefully there's not anyone else who's totally in the dark.) There's the PCKF Discord, but not everyone is on there and it'd be hard to join without any prior connections, such as the invite link in the thread here, or already having friended someone on there....
Bonevelous wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2019 20:49
Roobar wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2019 16:37
The Tom Hall revival dream, the true sequel - it's over. It's never gonna happen. That's it.
Ah, that absolutely crushes me.
That's just... that's depressing. I can't even imagine how it must be for Tom. I mean, I've invented characters and stories before, to have your own creation held hostage like that would be the most disheartening thing. Especially one with such a personal connection as being based on one's own childhood.
For me that's the biggest issue here. If it was Tom rebooting the series I'd be happy, even though it would likely still have some changes here and there. But the fact that it's just done by whoever they happened to put on this team of devs, who may or may not care about the series, it does not feel like a genuine continuation. They might legally own the IP, but to me, it's always just felt stolen. And this reboot is just insult to injury. I really wish there was something we could do.
Man, I wonder what it would even take, realistically, for Bethesda to even consider selling the IP. An offer from a company bigger than they are, with all their $2.5 billion net worth? Their own bankruptcy? Or something else equally unlikely?
At the very least, Tom did say that he'd reveal the plot for "The Universe is Toast" on Keen's 30th birthday if he didn't have any other opportunities. Something to look forward to at least, I guess.
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So a really weird thing happened. I got an ad for this on YouTube.
I'm guessing the chances that I would get such an ad were pretty high, as the video was related to E3 and I'm sure the ad algorithm is very aware of my Keen-related search history.
That was
super trippy though. For as long as I've known about Keen it's just been really obscure, rare to hear about outside of very specific groups. And now I've gotten an ad for it. When I think of ads I usually think of big things like Honda and Avengers. So that was just a huge mindflip for me. Like what is this world now.
