Homeworld Franchise Potentially Ressurected As Relic Owner THQ Acquires Trademark

by Nick Breckon, Nov 03, 2007 6:03pm PDT
Related Topics – Relic Entertainment, THQ, Games: PC

Fans of the groundbreaking Homeworld series of 3D space RTS games may yet have reason to hope for a new sequel. Forum members of the fan site Relic News have today uncovered a US trademark document that appears to prove the rights to the Homeworld name have changed hands from Vivendi Universal to publisher THQ, the owner of original Homeworld developer Relic Entertainment. Though only the trademark is mentioned, it would seem unlikely that THQ attained the name without also acquiring the license to use the intellectual property. The law firm now handling the trademark, Wolf Greenfield, specializes in IP transactions. The document, which appoints a slew of new attorneys to represent Homeworld, is signed by THQ executive vice president of business and legal affairs James M. Kennedy. The transaction took place on August 14, 2007, with a similar transfer of the Homeworld: Cataclysm expansion trademark having been signed on the same day. While the ties to THQ only appear on the most recent documents, Vivendi Universal lawyer Rod Rigole had transferred power of attorney to Douglas R. Wolf, the current Homeworld representative, way back in July 18 of 2006--indicating that some type of transaction may have occured over a year ago. The Homeworld license had been owned by publisher Sierra Online--now a subsidiary of Vivendi--since it released Relic's debut game, the strategy series' first entry, in 1997. Relic was purchased by THQ for $10 million in May of 2004, and has since gone on to produce the critically acclaimed PC RTS titles Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War (2004) and Company of Heroes (2006). THQ has been investing more development effort in ambitious hardcore-oriented PC titles than most major publishers recently, with its acquisition of Relic and its release of games such as Iron Lore's Titan Quest, Gas Powered Games' Supreme Commander, and GSC Game World's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Homeworld puts players in control of a vast space fleet, allowing would-be admirals to move their ships on a fully-3D plane in real time. The first game was released on the PC in 1999, to critical and commercial success. The Homeworld: Cataclysm stand-alone expansion was subsequently developed by Barking Dog Studios, with Relic returning to the franchise in 2003 with Homeworld 2. Both games were published by Sierra.


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Comments

23 Threads | 76 Comments
  • #74
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    By: OJ[GENESIS] x
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    GUYS. This is some of the best news I've had in years. There is still a very vibrant and active community for the Homeworld series of Games. I am in the lobby of HW2 at this very moment and still play almost every day. Goto the mutiplayer section of the game and you can speak to the people there for help with levels and online gaming. The best thing to do is to go thru the tutorial everyday until the command etc become 2nd nature. This is really great news and hope to see u in the lobby of the current game. THE FX MOD 1.72 is one of the best mods available for this game. It has the music from HW1 and CATACLYSM and u can choose from 6 races and more to be added soon. U can play the Progenitors!
    Dec 05, 2007 5:33pm PST
  • #42
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    By: jrock This person is cool! x
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    Part of what would make a Homeworld 3 skirmish/multiplayer fun would be if they found a good way to marry tactical and strategic games into one.

    Think World in Conflict but different. Think one player having the strategic overview of the battlespace (literally space heh) and control of the production facilities and laying out general order requests.
    Other players on the team would then have command of different squads of units produced based on their roles, like Fighter/Escort/Scout, Bomber/Anti-Fighter/Turrets, Bombardment/CapitalShips, etc.

    That way you could assign an AI(or another human) to handle the strategic overview if you wanted to focus on tactical play, or vice versa if you felt like defining the strategy while AI(or other humans) actually giving squad-level orders to the units.

    This combined arms chain-of-command approach would allow more advanced tactics and focused play, instead of Homeworld 2 (for example) where you often under-utilized so much of the vast potential found in ships and their upgrades because it was simply too much for one player to really handle in the course of a match.
    Nov 04, 2007 5:25am PST