Old games with bust developers!

ShadowFox

Im curious as to what happens to a games licence per se, when their developer goes bust?

Im guessing the title and names and such are not burned and left in the dirt and someone cant just come along and pick the title up then remake it.

For instance, an old game I have lying about is martian gothic, now its developer was creative reality which seems to have a dead website im assuming they are no more. and their publisher was talonsoft which was taken over by take 2 then shut down, im guessing all rights passed on to take 2 or due to it being a publisher means that they have no access to the actual creative content just the publishing rights?

Are their instances where this doesnt happen? and if so can someone recreate the game?

rooster

sounds like shaky ground to me.. if there's any doubt, do you really want to put all that effort into a project just to have it 'foxed'?

just make a tribute to it.. call it something similar and make everything highly reminiscent without being a direct copy

Cybroxide

I figure publishers buy things out and then shut them down just for the rights to the IP's. I wonder if you can call up the company and just ask what the deal is with that.

ShadowFox

Yeah that's what I thought the approach would be, making a very sneaky look a like!

Its just there are plenty of old games which would be awesome with today's technology if done correctly!

Im a big fan of older games as I feel that they werent as constrained by marketing and media although thats generally what ive viewed.