Topic: RAGE

[kat]

Zenimax acquires rights to publish. Not been able to find any info on this yet other than this brief press release that drop into my in-box.

December 15, 2009 (Rockville, MD) – ZeniMax Media Inc., parent company of id Software, announced today that it has picked up the publishing rights for RAGE™, the video game under development at id Software.

RAGE will be published by Bethesda Softworks, another ZeniMax subsidiary. As a result, Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) will not be involved in the sales and marketing of RAGE. The ongoing development of RAGE is unaffected by this development.

It's unusual for a big publisher like EA to give up one of their projects so I wonder if idsoftware kept hold of the rights to have final say in who gets to publish, it obviously makes sense for Zenimax (Bethesda) with them being the parent company, but maybe EA is letting projects go to reduce projected overheads and reduce costs?.

[ratty redemption]

I was wondering the same, also I wonder if rage will have eny effect on the next fallout game, what do you guys think?

[CityGirl]

I was reading about that, apparently the company that originated the 'Fallout' IP (Interplay?) won a court case recently (just the other day in fact) against Bethesda/Zenimax to keep publishing their own material under the brand.. So perhaps 'RAGE' could become Bethesda's replacement 'brand' for post-apocalyptic gaming?

(This is kat posting under a 'normal' account on another PC btw )

[kat]

Another interesting bit of news, idsoftware sent a DMCA take-down notice to Google to get them to remove copies of Doom, Wolfenstein from Andriod Store - speculation is they may release official version for sale. Andriod for developers.

[ratty redemption]

interesting that besthesda lost that court case. and I would like to see a rage type game with the rpg elements of f3.

[kat]

Reading around the dev sites and some comments it's speculated that Interplay only sold certain production rights and not of the entire franchise to Zenimax/Bethesda; there appears to be whispers of other aspects of the brand being resurrected, which to me reads like they let Bethesda re-establish the brand with their coffers so that Interplay could benefit from the 'hype' the recent game got.

[ratty redemption]

that's the impression I've had from following this on ign which if true is very underhand of interplay.

[kat]

I forgot about this one.. I read an article the other week that on reading between the lines, gave the reason for EA letting the rights to RAGE go to Zenimax; they're tightening their belts and trying to reduce costs by consolidating their catalogue on IPs & brands they know they can sell; it's probably got very little to do with ID software in the sense that people think they have more of a say over publishing than is probably assumed.

[ratty redemption]

interesting and thanks for the update.

[ratty redemption]

new video interview with id, the devs working on rage:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/more-than-rage/65220

edit: disappointingly game trailers don't appear to be showing much if any new content. over at ign they have apparently some new in game still images:

http://uk.media.xbox360.ign.com/media/926/926417/imgs_1.html

[kat]

Aw dammit! I was fully about to post "meh" to that video as it doesn't really reveal anything of much importance other than the same talking points said in a different way (except that they do seem to hint more at the 'RPG' type elements, something I'd much prefer myself. Ed.). But then I had a look at the screen shots

[ratty redemption]

hehe, agreed, plus this ign article does sound encouraging:

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/108/1087379p1.html

edit: this g4 video discussion is again very positive imo:

http://g4tv.com/videos/45710/Talkabouts-Rage/?quality=hd