Star Control Developer Sues Star Control Creators Over Star Control

Have you heard of Star Control? It’s an old sci-fi game series from the 1990s, and like a lot of old games, it’s also getting a modern revival in the form of Star Control: Origins, a game being developed by Stardock, who purchased the right to the IP back when Atari went under around 2013. It’s currently listed on Steam, but it’s not the only Star Control game in the works, as late last year, the two men who made Star Control, Paul Reiche and Fred Ford, announced that Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters would be getting a direct sequel called Ghosts of the Precursors.

And now, Stardock is suing the pair.

The lawsuit is kind of a mess. Stardock claims that the two cannot rightfully say they “created” the series (the credits of the first game lists Reiche as lead designer, artist, and audio engineer, while Ford is credited as designer and lead programmer), but more importantly, since they own the IP, they’re the ones who have the exclusive rights to publish future Star Control games.

The two men, on the other hand, claim that Atari never had the right to sell the IP, as ownership of it had reverted to them back in 2001 after Accolade let the license expire. Furthermore, they claim that Brad Wardell, the CEO of Stardock, had tried to recruit them to his own project and promised they would never use old Star Control material without their permission: a promise they claim he’s broken.

Here’s where things get really slippery: Paul Reiche and Fred Ford have launched a GoFundMe campaign to help with their legal fees. And they’re putting a lot of faith in fans of this twenty-five year old series, because they’re asking for a whopping 2 million USD to defend what they claim is their IP. And right now, their fans aren’t exactly keeping up, because they’ve raised about $11,000 so far. Which, to be fair, is about $11k more than I’d have guessed, but apparently these fellows still have fans.

As for why they need 2 million? Who knows.

Regardless, this looks like it’s gonna be full of drama, and I’m a sucker for that. So let’s see what happens, shall we?