On today's episode of "You've Wasted Eight Years of Your Life", we focus on the Phoenix Online Studios. Phoenix Online Studios (I’m on their side, so don’t expect me to use the acronym “POS“) has spent the last eight years toiling on a fan-made love-labored sequel to King's Quest 8 called "The Silver Lining".

A lot can happen in eight years. Originally, when Phoenix began The Silver Lining, the King's Quest properties were owned by Vivendi, who took them over from Sierra. Today, though, the Sierra library is owned by the game industries own Oceania, Activision.

 Videndi actually had given Phoenix Online Studios permission to run with The Silver Lining, granting them a non-commercial license for it, something Phoenix was planning to run with when they launched The Silver Lining as a episodic release this Spring.

 Then, in a move that perhaps doesn't pull as many heartstrings as Squenix killing the fan-made Chrono Trigger sequel a few months ago, but one much more insidious, the enchanted sword fell. Activision's legal team (which I can only assume is referred to as the unfortunately catchy "Actilegal") has apparently reneged that decision and issued Phoenix a cease and desist order on The Silver Lining, going so far as forcing The Silver Lining's forums to be taken down.

 Let's pause there for a second, and reflect. Activision literally removed The Silver Lining from gaming. Tell me that's not a metaphor coming to life.

 This comes on the heels of the gaming community's favorite carrion crawler, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick (Bo-Kot on the streets) announcing during his keynote at DICE that Activision is going to take pains to work more closely and cooperative with its licensees. Which, judging by how they handled Red Octane, means they'll co-opt The Silver Lining, farm it out to another developer, complain when it doesn't change the industry as they expect, kill the whole studio, and say they should have gone with Phoenix to begin with.

On a side note, I’m disappointed that no one caught on that Bo-Kot did NOT deliver a real keynote at DICE. His “business casual” and message of peace and love was obviously a performance piece meant to satire Steve Jobbs. My personal favorite part was when he explained he started out as "just a developer". Historical note: Hitler started out as "just a painter". Moving on...

 Personally, I'm hoping that Phoenix Online Studios can find a way to strip The Silver Lining of its King's Quest heritage enough to dodge copyright restrictions and release it. And I hope it sells a ton, when it does. I'll personally buy and give away several copies if they can manage to do so, in fact, if for no reason other than to stick it to an biased and inefficient copyright system.

 But that’s a gripe for another day.