«
»
White Collar Criminals

IF YOU’RE EXCITEDLY WAITING FOR THE RELEASE OF BRUTAL LEGEND, YOU MAY HAVE TO WAIT A LITTLE LONGER

 Friday, June 5th, 2009 at 10:30am by

A lot of you have e-mailed us over the past few weeks to express excitement for the October release of the metal-themed video game Brutal Legend (trailer above), which stars the voice of Jack Black as as “a heavy metal roadie who is transported to a mythical ancient world where he is called upon to fight evil.” Or something.

As far as I can tell, the excitement for the game comes from a) Black’s participation and b) the fact that there’s going to be a metal game that isn’t a rhythm game (e.g., Guitar Hero).

Unfortunately, Variety reports that a lawsuit might hold up the release of the game:

Activision has filed a lawsuit against videogame developer Double Fine Prods. that may prevent Electronic Arts from releasing “Brutal Legend” in October.

The videogame publisher claims that Double Fine missed a key deadline for “Brutal Legend” last year during its development and then set up the game with rival EA when it needed $7 million more and an additional nine months to finish it.

But Activision said in a lawsuit filed in the Santa Monica Courthouse, that it had never relinquished the rights to the game, in which it had already invested $15 million to develop. It also wasn’t paid back any money Double Fine was given to produce the game.

Company will suffer “irreparable harm” and lose not only sales from the game but also revenue from downloadable content, in-game advertising, merchandise and other opportunities if the release isn’t stopped, Activision said in the filing.

Now, this is not dissimilar from the lawsuit Fox filed against Warner Bros. prior to the release of the Watchmen movie this year, and this suit seems kinda similar; basically, one company dropped the ball on a property, another company picked it up, and now that said property looks to be very, very profitable, the original company wants a slice of the pie.

But Fox basically won their lawsuit, settling out of court for a nice chunk of change, and the Watchmen movie came out at its scheduled release date. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a similar outcome in this instance.

But just in case, maybe my fellow gamers should find another toy to get excited about for the fall.

-AR

Tags: , , , ,
  • Fizzy G

    Actually I thought the big excitement for the game came from the fact that Tim Schafer’s doing it and Psychonauts was awesome.

    • seveword

      Pretty much this, not only Psychonauts but everything else that Schafer has done with Double Fine is worth its weight in gold.

      • jason

        I am pretty much a pedestrian in the video game world, what else have they produced?

        • You Don’t Know Me

          As someone already stated below, Tim Schafer, who founded Double Fine, produced the Monkey Island games as well as Full Throttle and my personal favorite, Grim Fandango.

  • Joe the Destroyer

    I’m fucking getting that

  • http://extrememusicportal.blogspot.com Joseph Schafer

    Tim Schafer also did the Monkey Island games which, as anyone who played them will tell you, are some of the funniest shit you’ll ever see.

    Tim Schafer is a big plus for this game.

  • ashley

    I am so pumped!!!

  • Kye

    I already have an indefinite wait for the new Agalloch CD because of corporate bullshit, don’t take Brutal Legend from me too you damn…rich…company… people

  • Brock

    I remember hearing about this and thinking, “Oh, cool”. Since then I had forgot about it. I guess I have more time to forget about it now.

  • Carter

    Jack Black sucks though..

  • -gODGRINDER-

    Jack Black is a fuckwitted douchetard and anyone who thinks he’s funny is a fuckwitted douchetard.

    Die.

    • ashley

      I think your irrational hatred for Jack Black may actually be a hidden interest in the man, no?

      Don’t worry… I used to hate him. He grew on me like staphylococcus, though.