I was wondering if the folks at GOG were planning on getting the rights to sell Monkey Island 3 & 4 on their website? These are the only two games in the series that aren't available to buy as a digital download somewhere online, so I would love to see them on this site!

That is very much dependant on LucasArts wanting to grant those rights. So far there aren't any LucasArts games on GOG. =(

That sucks ... this is by far the best gaming website on the net for classic adventure games.

The answer is always the same:

There's a wishlist.

Also contact the owner of the rights to the game. In this case, that's LucasArts who won't listen to you because they hate people who like their non-Star Wars games.

They hate us so much, that they made a Special Edition for the first two Monkey Island games.

Which I'm thankful for, by the way.

Yes.

The Special Editions were a quick cash in, the interpreter they use is the one written by Aric Wilmunder back when the LucasArts Classics line was released. The actual programming work required to lay the original game "on top" was negligible.

The artwork was all outsourced to a company in South Korea. The team from LucasArts did not communicate with this company, only sent them the original concept artwork and told them to redraw it.

Granted, some actual effort was put into MI2 as a direct result of fan pressure. They knew that we knew that the art was cheap.

They then used the proceeds from the Special Editions to fund Kinect Star Wars.

Only 4 classics ended up on Steam. They specifically modified the games so that they would not be compatible with ScummVM.

I can also tell you that development on the Special Editions only started when LucasArts found out about the short-lived Speech Project (the Special Editions ultimately caused it to close).

If they loved us, they would have recognised the community. They know about ScummVM and they would have made their games compatible with it. They also would have gone the extra mile to get all of their back catalogue on Steam.

They also would not have closed their community outreach program shortly after we started flooding them with requests to put their back catalogue on GOG.

LucasArts are dead. They are now just a machine that pumps out Star Wars games, and they hate you. Try and contact them about their back catalogue. They will ignore you.

And apparently they are psychopaths, or at least treat the companies that they contract incredibly poorly.

Yeah, they basically killed FreeRadical and gave Dr Doak a nervous breakdown in the process. =(

They do make some very strange decisions, yeah.

Sam and Max: Freelance Police was weeks away from going gold, the team were super excited about being able to get it all finely polished and getting it onto the shelves. And then the powers at be burst through the door and said "Freelance Police is cancelled. See you later." So pretty much everyone working on it left and started Telltale.

Full Throttle 2 was, again, weeks away from being finished. Then they cancelled.

Now we find out they've pulled the same shit with Battlefront 3?

Normally, you get 2 types of company. The kind that hates people or the kind that hates money. LucasArts is the third type. They hate money and people. It's bizarre.

Fuck, man. What happened? When did these assholes get to be in charge? I mean, I would have expected that by the late 90s / early 00's gamers would have started getting these jobs! (I mean by that time, all those persons who grew gaming in the eighties/early 90s would have graduated and would be applying for these jobs). Instead it was all - not just LucasArts - co-opted by idiots who started throwing tens and tens of millions around and asked, or rather made, developers cater to the lowest common denominator, simplifying every game mechanic and pumping up graphx and asplosions.

I was going to ask WHY they would be against putting their old games on GOG, aside from worrying about the DRM-free aspect. (Seems like theories have been thrown around, but nothing concrete has turned up.) It's like, "Okay, you guys have classic games people would pay money for, yet you won't provide them in any fashion?"

*Does some snooping*

Okay, it looks like several classics are available on Steam (Monkey Island, Indiana, etc.), but Grim Fandango does not appear, which is surprising. Are there legal knots with that game, or what? And are there other classics inexplicably missing from Steam or elsewhere? So strange.

No. LucasArts are in a legal position where they can put all of their games on GOG or Steam. They've held on to the rights for everything except Sam and Max, which are now split between them and Telltale (Telltale are not in a position where they can release it).

The reason why LucasArts haven't acted is clear as day. They hate you. They hate me. And thy hate Marcin Iwinski. We're people and LucasArts have huge problems with people.

2008, the year when GOG launched, was also the year when Darrell Rodriguez took over at LucasArts and turned the place into a complete hellhole for everyone working there. He cancelled Battlefront 3 and decided it was a good idea to make a cheap as fuck "Special Edition" of Monkey Island so he could fund his goddamn Kinect Star Wars game.

Unless GOG actually buy-out LucasArts, they will continue to hate us.

If you want to try and do something, I'm toying with the idea of flooding LucasArts HQ with postcards, but I'd definitely need other people to pledge to do it, too.

I'm guessing that by 'split between them and Telltale' you mean that LucasArts still own the old game, but not the Sam and Max IP and that Telltale have the exclusive licence of the IP but no rights to the old game.

I'd be very surprised if LucasArts had any ownership of the IP or if Telltale had any ownership of the game. Still, after Tales of Monkey Island you'd think they'd enter into a mutually beneficial agreement to sell the old game... My guess is that LucasArts hates everything so much that they wouldn't want to sell the game in any situation where they're not getting 100% of the money.

It's a strange deal. The situation is weird enough that Telltale had to change the theme tune for Season One, because they weren't sure if they could use the original from Hit the Road. They were also fairly sure they couldn't use the story from Freelance Police, or even take the whole project with them (although bits of Freelance Police can supposedly be seen through the three seasons). Heck, they couldn't even use Bill Farmer for the voice of Sam (Bill was apparently a little bit bummed about that).

Tales of Monkey Island was given to Telltale pretty much because LucasArts didn't want to do any actual work. Monkey Island 5 was always on LucasArts long term planner but I guess Darrell didn't feel like he could get away with getting the game to Gold and then cancelling it.

I really have no idea how LucasArts got into this mess. You can find some videos of Mix 'n' Mojo about how it was on Skywalker Ranch. Thems were the days.

Someone is taking business decisions a little too personal in this thread. Just sayin'.

I still think the massive number of complaints and customer service requests they got for Dark Forces 2 is the reason we have no more LA games on Steam. I would guess they decided the meager profits were not worth the hassle at that point.