Fans Save King's Quest IX

Posted on December 19, 2005

They did it. Fans of the King's Quest series of games managed to save the King's Quest series and encourage the continuation of a fan developed trilogy project called The Silver Lining. The Save King's Quest IX campaign was launched in mid-October, a few weeks after Vivendi issued a cease and desist order to the fans making the game. The campaign focused on asking fans to send letters and emails to Vivendi, as well as having bloggers write about it. On November 29th, 2005, Vivendi Universal Games (VUG) granted a fan license to Phoenix Online Studios to continue work on the KQIX project. In a statement the King's Quest IX website Phoenix Online Studios thanks SaveKQIX.org and the fans for all the support:

The statement says, "On behalf of The Silver Lining Development Team, we would like to thank the thousands of fans that made this possible by emailing VUG and spreading the news; we would also like to give a special thanks to Matt Compton and Cat Tyson, organizers of SaveKQIX.org for such unconditional and wonderful support, as well as everyone who helped them in this kind effort. Also, special thanks to Rod Rigole "Vice-President of Legal Affairs" and Marcus Beer "Senior Public Relations Manager", both from VUG, for their great help during the negotiation. Without any of the aforementioned, none of this would have happened."

Matt Compton, one of the members of the Save King's Quest IX campaign, was pleased with the campaign's success: "We are so thrilled with this news," said Compton. "We were very hopeful that if weorganized the fans of the King's Quest series, we would be able to get Vivendi's attention. It feels so good to know that we were successful in doing that."