A petition to Disney to sell Monkey Island rights to Ron Gilbert

[Cyrus]

I found this today, it's finally our chance to make our opinion count!

https://www.change.org/p/disney-please-sell-the-rights-to-monkey-island-back-to-its-creator-ron-gilbert

[flesk]

As much as I'd love to play another Monkey Island game, I don't think that poll is going to change anything, one way or the other, unfortunately.

[Johro]

Yeah.  It's sad, but Disney absolutely loves sitting on properties.

[Cecil]

Even if they would sell it, would he have the money for it? 

And even if he had the money, or even if they just gave it to him. What happens then? For a new game in the series to happen, with the quality people would expect from it, I would guess that at least the budget Broken Age had would be needed. 

[TimeGentleman]

http://grumpygamer.com/if_i_made_another_monkeyisland

It sounds like he'd go pretty retro with it but with voice-acting - similar to Thimbleweed I guess. Plus he's not averse to crowdfunding. So I think if Ron somehow got the IP, and if he wanted to make the game, he wouldn't have a problem getting that done.

However, I agree that it's extremely unlikely that Disney would let him have the IP. Ironically, if this poll got huge numbers behind it, it would be evidence of a large fanbase and therefore more motivation for Disney to hold onto the IP. Really the only way I see it happening is if someone young enough to have grown up with the first two games and fanboy enough to want to see Ron Gilbert's Monkey Island 3 at all costs gets to a high enough position of power in Disney that they are able to unilaterally make the decision to give Ron the IP.

[Bidiot Bales]

Honestly Thimbleweed Park was so good that I am content for now.

[Jenni]

Disney won't just give away the rights, and Ron Gilbert won't be able to purchase the Monkey Island IP for a price that Disney would accept.  When Disney sold Power Rangers back to Saban, it was believed to be at around the price paid for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - $60 million.  And that was only sold because "it didn't fit with the Disney brand". Considering Monkey Island is influenced by Pirates of the Caribbean, that sentiment wouldn't be true for that IP.  Plus, the Monkey Island special editions are in the top 10 of the Disney published games in digital sales.  So, Disney isn't just sitting on the IP like it was with Power Rangers.  So, $60 million would probably be the low end figure - it's likely they'd want to sell it for even more than that.

The most we could hope for is that Sony works out a deal with Disney for Terrible Toybox, Double Fine, or another company to make a new Monkey Island game, since the rights to the franchise are likely to stay with Disney.

[Noname215]

So really this is a lost cause.

Wait a minute, who bought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Was it Nickelodeon?

Edited October 8, 2017 by Noname215

[TimeGentleman]

1 hour ago, Noname215 said:

Wait a minute, who bought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Was it Nickelodeon?

Yes, in 2009. Although as far as I can tell they bought the rights from Mirage, Disney wasn't involved (not sure if jenni was implying this or not). The closest Disney ever got to them was having the rights to have people in TMNT costume at their parks.

[Johro]

I wasn't really implying that Disney was sitting on Monkey Island.  I was implying that Disney doesn't mind doing it.  If they do nothing more with Monkey Island for however long the copyright allows(there are all sorts of legal issues that arise with pre-existing IPs and time frames), they wouldn't care.  They could do what is minimally allowed to maintain it, just to do so.  They are really weird that way.  They go through spurts where they aren't quite as profitable as projected... and they still hold back.  As much as I would love to paint them as this big evil company, they are one of the best giants at securing their future.  They have so much stuff they could use if they needed to.

[Noname215]

Honestly, if they decided to resurrect Ted Elliott's Curse of Monkey Island movie and do it with Frozen/Big Hero 6 style animation, that would actually be pretty cool. There are things that can be done with the license besides a game, although that is what is really wanted.

[Cecil]

Saw this post by Ron Gilbert, about the likelyhood of a new P&C adventure from him anytime soon. 

Of course, actually having the Monkey Island IP could change a lot about that. and a crowfunding campaign for Monkey Island 3 would probably be much more succesful. 

I knda liked Thimbleweed Park. I didn't reach the heights of the genre, but I think that a third Monkey Island game based on what they did for Thimbleweed at least wouldn't be terrible. 

It's a shame that neither Broken Age or Thimbleweed seem to spawn more games in the genre, but it really doesn't seem to be that much of an audience for these games now. Broken Age managed reach outside the core fanbase, but I think that also showed that a lot of the gaming audience doesn't really have patience for these kind of games anymore, where constant progression is always expected in the games now. 

Still a bit sad that we can't get a new Loom game, based on the style of Broken Age. :\

[Jenni]

Sorry. My post was quite vague as to who bought TMNT.  I meant that the price Saban paid for Power Rangers was believed to be about the price Viacom (the parent of Nickelodeon) paid for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I don't think a Kickstarter would be something that Disney would be interested in, either.  Plus, since Sony was said to have sought the rights to all of the LucasArts adventures, I really doubt Sony would be too thrilled to dip back into those waters again after the Shenmue III backlash.

Honestly, I think Double Fine might theoretically tackle a Monkey Island game if Sony did the grunt work dealing with Disney and they partially funded the game as well.  I really can't see Terrible Toybox going that route though.  Ron doesn't seem like he's too thrilled with the prospect of publishers these days.  If there ever was a hypethetical Double Fine Monkey Island though, I'd imagine Tim would try to get Ron on board, at least with the initial story and design - as Ron did with Telltale for Tales of Monkey Island (and, since we're going full out hypothetical here, Dave Grossman could be a possibility too, even though he's now at Earplay, judging from the fact that he was the co-designer of Duke Grabowski).

[Fireflower]

Worth a try at least.

[Cyrus]

Wow, it now has over 10000 signatures!

[Fireflower]

Nice

[Right Said Brett]

Ron Gilbert's stance on Monkey Island 3a is frustrating.  He's holding out to reclaim the rights because he fears that Disney wouldn't allow him to make the game that he wants to make.  He thinks that Disney would dictate horrible changes to his vision and as such, is reluctant to ask to license his own creation.  An admirable stance to take, to be sure.  However, I don't know why he thinks that Disney would care to interfere with his vision.  Monkey Island is small potatoes, relatively speaking.  I sincerely doubt that Disney would give a three-headed monkey, as to whatever Gilbert would care to create.  It's not as though Disney were breathing down Tim Schafer's back, during the development of the remasters of Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle.  Somewhat ironically, the only thing stopping a third Ron Gilbert developed Monkey Island game, is Ron Gilbert himself.

[Vainamoinen]

13 hours ago, Right Said Brett said:

the only thing stopping a third Ron Gilbert developed Monkey Island game, is Ron Gilbert himself.

Ron didn't reject any license lending contract that Disney threw at him, and from the look of things, a budget is difficult to come by particularly as the Kickstarter era seems to wind down. Sure, to insist on buying your own license back, that's a game stopper, but it's definitely not the only one and possibly not even the biggest in the journey to 3a. E.g. what stopped Broken Age in its tracks – planning too big – doesn't seem to be an issue. Ron knows how to handle a budget and how to not let his vision explode. Worse than games that are never made are games that are announced and go into full scale production but are then cancelled because they were planned "too big" (or the "vision changed" somewhere down the line). That's the real heart breaker for me. It recently happened with my greatest hope for the genre, The Devil's Men, a game I was really looking forward to. Better to have no hope for a Monkey Island 3a at all than to be bombarded with hopes and dreams and visions and sudden budgets and license miracles and awesome alphas and incredible screenshots only to find out two years later that you'll get jack ship of all that.

[Right Said Brett]

4 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

Ron didn't reject any license lending contract that Disney threw at him, and from the look of things, a budget is difficult to come by particularly as the Kickstarter era seems to wind down. Sure, to insist on buying your own license back, that's a game stopper, but it's definitely not the only one and possibly not even the biggest in the journey to 3a. E.g. what stopped Broken Age in its tracks – planning too big – doesn't seem to be an issue. Ron knows how to handle a budget and how to not let his vision explode. Worse than games that are never made are games that are announced and go into full scale production but are then cancelled because they were planned "too big" (or the "vision changed" somewhere down the line). That's the real heart breaker for me. It recently happened with my greatest hope for the genre, The Devil's Men, a game I was really looking forward to. Better to have no hope for a Monkey Island 3a at all than to be bombarded with hopes and dreams and visions and sudden budgets and license miracles and awesome alphas and incredible screenshots only to find out two years later that you'll get jack ship of all that.

You raise some good and valid points.  I know that Disney didn't offer to license out the I.P. to Gilbert but at the same time, he's gone on record as saying that he would only make the game if the rights were sold back to him.  I don't know, it just seems kind of stubborn to me but then again, that's his prerogative and like you say, maybe it's for the best.

[Vainamoinen]

19 hours ago, Right Said Brett said:

maybe it's for the best.

It's REALLY REALLY difficult to swallow, but yeah.

[Jenni]

To be fair to Ron, LucasArts worked directly with Telltale in the planning stages so that they got the characters designed in the Curse of Monkey Island style when they made Tales of Monkey Island. Ron was a part of that early planning, and it's quite likely he didn't like the fact that the license holder was dictating how the game should look to two out of three of the original game's creators themselves (Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman).

Since the games division of Lucasfilm is still involved in licensing their games, he'd have to deal with two or possibly three parties, depending on how many rights Sony obtained for the LucasArts adventure games. So, he'd need to get a contract via Lucasfilm, Disney, and possibly Sony. Plus, he knows that Lucasfilm would probably dictate the direction of art assets, based on past experience. Who knows what influence Disney and/or Sony would want to have.

[Right Said Brett]

1 hour ago, Jenni said:

Who knows what influence Disney and/or Sony would want to have.

Too much influence, if you ask me.  I say that as a film fan.

[Chyron]

I'm not sure I like the idea of 3a. To me, that's kind of like saying if Lucas had actually bothered to make Star Wars: Episode VII, he would have made it differently, and therefore GL's Ep7a is a better concept than TFA is a film. Nevermind that GL wasn't the only person with input on the original Star Wars project itself, despite people erroneously crediting Star Wars as wholly his baby.

Monkey Island is what it is. Ron had his shot at creating MI3 back in the day, and he missed it. Curse, despite its flaws, isn't an awful game or even a terrible sequel. So I don't really see the need for Ron's MI3a at this point.

MI6, though, sure. Let Ron keep going with the story as it currently is and give him rights to use Morgan LeFlay.

Edited May 17, 2018 by Chyron

[Right Said Brett]

On 5/17/2018 at 4:14 PM, Chyron said:

Curse, despite its flaws, isn't an awful game or even a terrible sequel.

Not only is The Curse of Monkey Island not an awful game or a terrible sequel; in my opinion, it's one of the best adventure games ever created (admittedly, the last act is a bit gubbins though).

Quote

MI6, though, sure. Let Ron keep going with the story as it currently is and give him rights to use Morgan LeFlay.

Ick!  No.  Tales of Monkey Island irritates the heck out of me.  I liked it plenty, upon its initial release but in hindsight, it feels like an official piece of fan-fiction (which it essentially is).  It felt as much of a betrayal of the universe of Monkey Island as the fourth game, possibly even more so.  I don't ever want to see Moran LeFlay or any of the other original characters from that game, ever again.

[Cyrus]

It's now even in the news!

https://thenextweb.com/gaming/2018/05/15/monkey-island-fans-are-begging-disney-to-sell-the-rights-back-to-its-creator/

As someone put it, "Let's feed the Disney snake 🐍 an ipecac flower with pancake syrup and get them to vomit Monkey Island back up" 

 

[Right Said Brett]

2 hours ago, Cyrus said:

It's now even in the news!

https://thenextweb.com/gaming/2018/05/15/monkey-island-fans-are-begging-disney-to-sell-the-rights-back-to-its-creator/

As someone put it, "Let's feed the Disney snake 🐍 an ipecac flower with pancake syrup and get them to vomit Monkey Island back up" 

 

Sadly, I can't think of a single case where a petition has worked and even if there is an occasion, then it's the exception to the rule.