The lawsuit is done. The lawyers have packed it up and went back into their stucco caves, and the original makers of Star Control are now graciously in the company of Stardock Entertainment, where the trio will be working together on a new Star Control adventure.
The news was originally rolled out during this year’s E3 back on June 11th, 2019, but absolutely no one was trawling through websites at that time while there were gobs, and gobs, and gobs of terrible presentations, boring interviews, and forgettable CGI videos to get through at the annual entertainment expo. But I digress.
Over on the official Star Control website it was revealed that the three parties managed to reach a settlement and come to an agreement after Paul Reiche picked up the phone to call Wardell directly. Both he and Wardell had a bonding moment over video games, design, and beekeeping. Yes, beekeeping.
Reiche explained…
“The magic trick to resolving this was just picking up the phone and calling each other directly. Brad suggested this back in 2017 and it worked! By talking directly to each other, we were actually able to put something together that we both liked before all the legal mumbo-jumbo got in the way.”
Wardell concurred, noting that the lawyers mucked everything up by adding more complicated legalese and minutiae than what was required or what was needed. Thus the lawsuit was drawn out longer than it needed to be when the lawyers were involved, it also resulted in unnecessary DMCA strikes, and a lot of heart ache for gamers.
In the end, it turns out that bees can actually bring people together, and get the original Star Control games restored to GOG.com and Steam.
Wardell noted that he’ll even be helping Reiche out with his own endeavors into keeping bees, saying…
“We figured out what we wanted in just a couple hours of talking. The rest of the time was the lawyers smithing out exact, agonizingly precise, verbiage. That took much longer. Usually these things claim to be amicable but it’s just both sides trying to spin things. In this case, it really was amicable.
“We added a section in which I’ll be working with Paul on beekeeping. He’s going to send me some meade, I’m going to send him some honey. I don’t think the lawyers were particularly enthusiastic about us incorporating some of this into the agreement. I did a tutorial video on beekeeping I was going to send over but got stung in the video, so thought better than to actually send it.”
No details about the new game were actually revealed, but information is coming soon. In the meantime you can still purchase the original Star Control games from Steam or GOG.com, along with Star Control: Origins and its expansion pack Earth Rising. For more info feel free to hit up the official Star Control website.
