Heroquest returns!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[beefcake]

Here's hoping Milton Bradley, hasbro or whoever decides to pick the game up and run with it. Even employing gamezone to do all the legwork and pay them for it. 1/2 a mill was a lot of cash and if the big company was behind it it would get much more.

[Penchour]

Ok, HQ25 is now officialy dead, at least for the time being :

Dear Backers

Last Friday we were surprised by the pause placed on our kickstarter Project of HQ25. We wrote a communiqué to you, which was also posted on our site heroquestclassic.com. In our letter we tried to communicate to you in the clearest fashion what was happening and as well to share with you all, our petition to kickstarter to have the project reopened. To do all of this publicly was to us the correct way for you as our backers to be informed of the situation and the most correct and transparent way to communicate with you as well, as our backers you have the right to know what was going on with this project.

We have done what you have ask for, we have waited in silence for KS’ answer. It has arrived. KS would prefer to keep the project on hold and wait for us to come to an agreement with third part.
The KS answer can be seen at this LINK (http://gamezoneminiatures.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b41baedd4e20e61cf1416e3d9&id=006d34cfd1&e=10ebbba052).
KS’ position does not agree with as at all. The situation produced by the pause of the project has been harmful.

We do not feel that our legitimate rights over the Trademark have been protected and above all we do not wish to do business with third part under threats or duress of any sort. As a result we are proceeding to solicit KS to cancel our project on their platform.

Is this the end of HQ25? Of course not! Keep reading!
We accept the all of the respectful critics that has come our way because we learn from these things and if someone thinks differently they are free to express those opinions. What we do not accept is the disinformation y distortions that have been happening during the project's pause on KS in which we have remained silent and waited.

During these past few days our creative design crew has still been working on the development of various components, the same as always, the idea being to not lose any energy with this controversy.
The thirteen on the gallows, as we have fondly started calling the 13 professionals that are implicated in the creation of the project, have as a priority the development of this commemorative game.

We are truly more worried about you, the backers. We want thank you for the messages of support that have been rolling in. The public reaction to the news of a new edition of this classic provided undeniable and sincere joy to many. We will hold onto this as the rout to follow.

After this communiqué is sent out we will proceed to ask KS to cancel the project on their platform. After this is done we will immediately restart and continue the HQ25 project. More info at heroquestclassic.com. Therefore the HQ25 project will return to active status. We will move from victims to survivors and conquer as we go.

We understand that KS has a larger public base than any other crowed funding platform today; we understand that moving the project to another site will mean that out backer support will decrease. However we are ready and willing to continue this campaign in a place that will offer us the correct guaranties for our trademark. We would prefer to raise fewer funds and still move forward with and produce it in time for the 25th anniversary.

We await your support and enthusiasm in this renewed crowed funding campaign.
Again, we would like to thank our backers from the bottom of our hearts, please do not regret supporting us. Let us all together get this back on track and make this dream a reality.

Gamezone Team

 

[Dr. The Viking]

Ok, HQ25 is now officialy dead, at least for the time being :

 

It's officially moving to another platform than KS as I read it. 

[beefcake]

That's how I read it too. It's at least a bit fortunate they went through KS to at least advertise.

[FionaWhite]

So the fart goes on.
This turned into a farce real quick, gotta wonder how the rest is going to go.

[Dr. Zombie]

So the fart goes on.

I assume you wanted to write farce. But that was a quite apt autocorrect

[Torben]

Seeing as most of the problems with HQ25 arose when they started, and succeeded, their Kickstarter then I've got a novel idea:

Don't do a kickstarter.

If the HQ brand is that good and GZ are that invested in it, then why don't they make the game for their own money and then release it where they're "allowed" to do so as per Trademark agreements?

[beefcake]

That is an excellent point. Get a loan.

[pixelgeek]

Now if I'm making any sense of this mess, Hasbro has the rights to the actual HeroQuest in the US of A.

No. They don't own the Heroquest trademark in the US, Canada and some EU countries. They have an existing copyright on the material they published but as long as GZ is not reproducing that material it isn't an issue.

BD is afraid that Hasbro will sue them if they don't stop GZ's KickStarter.

My reading of it is that MD don't want to litigate because they don't want to risk Hasbro getting involved in the case. MD don't appear to have the cash to litigate against Hasbro even if Hasbro wouldn't have any actual rights in this issue

If Hasbro says they won't then BD will let the KickStarter continue if they get a "considerable sum and percentage of the KickStarter project".

Not sure what Hasbro can give them thought since they, AFAIK, at this point only have a copyright on their game and have no other IP involved in the countries in question. Hasbro has no US copyright and my understanding is that they also have no Spanish trademark.

[Heyer]

News from Gamezone:
Tomorrow at this time we will reopen the HQ25th project in a spanish crowfunding platform, Verkami. We decided do this so we own the trademark in Spain and avoid that can't be attacked in the middle of crowdfunding under any "suspected remote threat."

Everything will be as a "period followed" except for two main differences:

In Verkami, the money given to the project author undertakes to complete the game, and if he didn't, then he have the obligation to return the money to participants.

The stretch goals that were already released, will return to gain from a base figure, all of them, you won't need to unlock them again.

[beefcake]

Good news. Now ever if anything happens on this part of the project I think I'll be out.

[Lovejoy]

I personally think whatever the legal situation, Gamezone are well out of order, morally. Heroquest simply isn't their game. They are releasing a game designed solely to cash in on people's nostalgia - trying to rake in as much cash as they can using an IP that they did nothing to develop, and they are trying to use legal trickery to sell it around the world, whilst only claiming the legal right to do so from Spain.

Look at the title of this thread - so many exclamation marks! Clearly people are excited, and Gamezone want to make money from that excitement. But they are releasing a different game to the one we remember - new components, new minis, new art, new rules... it's a different game. If they'd simply released a fantasy game called, say, Knights and Wizards, nobody would be that interested. But they've grabbed an IP developed by someone else to catch everyone's attention.


They may well have found a way to legally pull it off, but from my perspective at least, they are still just greedy cash-in merchants. They'll not be getting my money.

[Arthadan]

That's the thing about copyrigts, you buy the rights to produce things you have not created yourself

As I see things, they're doing nothing illegal. Prove of that is that they will go on and nobody can sue them (and we all know that if any other company could, they will).

They are designing a game to get cash (surprise!) and undoubtfully nostalgia gives it an added value. But they are paying attention to details and developing a quality product, listening to the fan base. I rather have this 25th edition which looks great so far than none from the "rightful" copyright holders.


I'm in.

[Penchour]

The tricky part is that they're 2 distinct 'Heroquest' ranges, yet sharing a common copyright on the name itself : the creator of the Heroquest RPG, formerly known from veterans as 'RUNEquest' wanted the name 'HEROquest', and buy it when MB sold it, then he sold the whole RPG packge to the actual owners, who seek to protect their propriety, and take advantage of the mountain of gold the KS was turning into ... ipso facto, the problem isn't concerning the game (neither MB or Hasbro, or even GW), but only its very name ... reason why GW themselves turned their previous reboot in 'WARHAMMERquest'. Words have power my friends, beyond our imagination  

[Lovejoy]

That's the thing about copyrigts, you buy the rights to produce things you have not created yourself

Which would be entirely fair, had they bought the copyrights. But they haven't - they've simply registered the name Heroquest as a trademark in Spain. The copyrights to all the original game material remain with the original companies. That's why Gamezone are having to make a different game, just using the name.

They have a trademark name, not copyright on the game.

That's why I think the whole '25th anniversary edition' bit is such a shameless rip-off; they are implying that the game is theirs - when in fact they just have a name.