Adventure game portal Sarien back with Activision's approval

In a lengthy post on the personal blog of Martin Kool, proprietor of the recently cease-and-desisted Sierra adventure game portal Sarien.net, the lengthy history of the site's development was recounted. We assumed said history would end with the site's closure earlier this week -- but luckily, it looks like a new chapter is set to unfold, as Activision has given Sarien approval to continue running, albeit in a limited fashion.

Kool explained, "Activision proposed to officially authorize Sarien.net to publish the first game of any series in its multiplayer HTML5 form." The portal will include a link from each of these free-to-play first chapters to the series' full collections on Steam. The publisher also demanded that the iPad versions of the titles be removed, on the off chance that they ever decide to drop their own adventure game Apps. Seems like a pretty reasonable response from Activision -- especially when compared to most publishers' policy of "Hey, that's ours, cut that out right away, young man."

Reader Comments (11)

I refuse to accept this. Activision is evil and they must've put viruses on the website or something just to help advance their mission of world domination and the ruination of the almighty video game industry.

I want all 5 of the Quest for Glory games, really bad. I hope they put them out on steam or somewhere someday. I've been waiting for GOG to put them out, but still no luck.

@theSkillfull1

THIS. Seriously, does anyone else think it a little odd that the Quest for Glory series hasn't been seeing the light of day as much as these other titles? I mean come on, even Police Quest has been getting more love.

So... hm. I wonder if that means normal web-based version won't work on the iPad? Obviously, it was fully HTML5/workable in its previous form, so it should have been able to work if you just browsed to the page like a normal browser.

Maybe he'll be required to take out certain UI things that an iPad might have needed in order to work (e.g. make it require arrow keys, which are obviously missing on the iPad).

It was cool while it lasted, although I'd rather have scummvm on the iPad, so I could play these things offline.

That very scene from Space Quest where you step out of the closet with everyone else on the ship dead was really scary back in 1986(on my dad's black & white mac)! I must have been around 8 at the time. I imagine if I had played Amnesia back then I probably would have pissed my pants and died of fright instantly. :-o

Youth of today must be a tough bunch of !¤"%#&.

@Pure Black World Tendency
That's a pretty hardcore take on something that was billed as a funny game.

Don't forget "...and get off my lawn!"

So, what, did Kotick forget to take his jerk pills and decided to let them stay open?

"Don't Touch That!! WE DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU'VE BEEN!!!"

I think this is about as fair as it gets. They don't lose ALL the work they put into this project, but Activision doesn't lose out on an opportunity to release these games themselves and get paid their fair share. Sounds like a win-win, especially given how most cease and desist letters go.

I would really love to see some Mac versions become available on Steam. Those games practically ARE my childhood.

Adventure game portal Sarien back with Activision's approval

Reader Comments (11)

Posted: Jan 29th 2011 7:03PM Sless said

Posted: Jan 29th 2011 7:19PM theSkillfull1 said

Posted: Jan 29th 2011 11:15PM Gaddes said

Posted: Jan 29th 2011 7:41PM sigma8 said

Posted: Jan 29th 2011 7:49PM Pure Black World Tendency said

Posted: Jan 29th 2011 9:51PM sigma8 said

Posted: Jan 29th 2011 8:37PM Mach2 said

Posted: Jan 29th 2011 9:00PM Gibbeynator said

Posted: Jan 30th 2011 2:23AM The Minn said

Posted: Jan 30th 2011 8:37AM Gnoll said

Posted: Jan 30th 2011 11:43AM LoveYouSomeEric said

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