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[Nirolak]

When Activision licensed the IP in 2006, it lasted through 2014.

However, there have been whispers indicating that Activision is cutting back vastly on their licensed games portfolio in 2013 given that licensed game sales are so bad these days that they're not especially profitable even with Activision's usually tiny budgets, so it's possible they gave back the license.

If you purchased and downloaded the most recent James Bond game, 007 Legends, from Steam before today, you might be pretty lucky. The Steam service has now pulled all traces of the recent super-spy game from publisher Activision today, along with the two previously released James Bond games from Activision that were made for the PC.

That includes Quantum of Solace, developed by Treyarch and released in 2008, and James Bond 007: Blood Stone, released in 2010 by the now defunct Bizarre Creations. 007 Legends, which fashioned a storyline based on several previous Bond movies and the current film Skyfall, was released for the PC in November and was developed by Eurocom. The game received poor reviews and soon after its release Eurocom closed its doors.

The missing James Bond games on Steam were first noted by Steam users on the forums earlier today. The games are also missing from Activision's own PC game download store. It's possible that Activision's rights to publish James Bond games have now expired. We have contacted Activision's PR rep to obtain more information.

...

Source: http://www.neogamr.net/news/james-bond-activision-games-removed-from-steam

 

[Mr. Enigma]

Let the Goldeneye 007 XBLA rumors begin again.

 

[speculawyer]

"If you purchased and downloaded the most recent James Bond game, 007 Legends, from Steam before today, you might be pretty lucky."

Well . . . that is not what I hear. ;-)


But I'm bummed. I was going to get some of the other Bond games eventually. (Edit: I did get Quantum of Solace but never got Bloodstone.)

 

[JaseC]

It would have been nice if Acti put the games on sale beforehand. Wolf09 was a Daily not long before Acti's publishing contract expired.

 

[Aaron]

Shame. I was hoping for a deep discount on Blood Stone.

 

[grandjedi6]

yeah, the license probably expired (out of apathy). Wonder if anyone is going to try to pick it up now. Seems to be a problematic license.

 

[gabbre]

No more licensed games means COD+Spyro every year until the end of time.

 

[Xater]

If Activision lost the license that would be a good thing in my book.

 

[wazoo]

They did the same for BLUR.

 

[reptilescorpio]

Bloodstone was the decent one out of the 3, enjoyed it on PC. The other 2 weren't a great experience though. Strange they just pulled them without trying to hype it up to maximise sales before they disappeared.

EDIT: Yeah any more news on Blur?

 

[CrunchinJelly]

Looks like Blood Stone and GoldenEye have gone from XBLM, too.

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/GoldenEye-Reloaded/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802415608af

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/P...od-Stone/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8024156081f

Blood Stone is still showing on GFW.

 

[Roo]

yeah, the license probably expired (out of apathy). Wonder if anyone is going to try to pick it up now. Seems to be a problematic license.

The Bond Curse :O

 

[JaseC]

Bloodstone was the decent one out of the 3, enjoyed it on PC. The other 2 weren't a great experience though. Strange they just pulled them without trying to hype it up to maximise sales before they disappeared.

EDIT: Yeah any more news on Blur?

Presumably its disappearance has to do with the cars in the game being licensed and Acti's disinterest in renewing the relevant contracts.

 

[Squire]

Good news.

 

[Mpl90]

And 007 Legends Wii U release in Europe is now TBC for 2013.

Eh, someone will pick the 007 license. Skyfall did astounding, and the brand has never been so popular.

 

[wazoo]

Sales of those games were never good, anyway, otherwise devs would be still around.

 

[Gorillaz]

They did the same for BLUR.

I actually liked blur alot too :/

 

[wazoo]

yeah, the license probably expired (out of apathy). Wonder if anyone is going to try to pick it up now. Seems to be a problematic license.

Eurecom et Bizarre were great devs. Bond is a great licence. Maybe the problem is with Activision here.

 

[speculawyer]

yeah, the license probably expired (out of apathy). Wonder if anyone is going to try to pick it up now. Seems to be a problematic license.

Certainly a strange license. It is well renowned for one of the best movie license game EVER (GoldenEye for the N64) but most of the games since then have been pretty mediocre whether from EA or Activision. I guess the Eurocom GoldenEye Bond game before the latest 007 turd was pretty good.

 

[speculawyer]

Eh, someone will pick the 007 license. Skyfall did astounding, and the brand has never been so popular.

Well Rockstar . . . here is your chance to give 'Agent' a big license.

Does Agent even exist? I haven't heard anything about it for years.

 

[cuyahoga]

They have the Everything or Nothing devs under their roof and didn't give them the Bond license, which I found insane.

Blood Stone was awful—they were hyping it up as EoN redux, but it just felt like a sloggy CoD-type deal. What I played of GoldenEye didn't seem too great either—same game that didn't age terribly well. These games disappearing are no big loss IMO, though I didn't play the PS2 SKU of Quantum of Solace which some people consider a fairly solid game.

 

[StoppedInTracks]

And 007 Legends Wii U release in Europe is now TBC for 2013.

Eh, someone will pick the 007 license. Skyfall did astounding, and the brand has never been so popular.

With how big Skyfall is I do not understand why nobody took the Arkham Asylum and made a Bond game on top of it. It would be perfect.

Do not make Bond a FPS game, you have CoD for that.

 

[Nirolak]

With how big Skyfall is I do not understand why nobody took the Arkham Asylum and made a Bond game on top of it. It would be perfect.

Do not make Bond a FPS game, you have CoD for that.

The key different with Batman is that Warner owns the IP, meaning they don't get diluted profits like a third party using a license does.

 

[pieatorium]

What was the biggest factor in liscensed games tie in market dying?

I assume more complex developement making it harder to hit the same time frame as the film was probably pretty big factor as well as developement costs.

I think a shift in just general attitudes towards what IPs are interesting may be a factor aswel, gaming has established it's own blockbusters.

I think the Avatar game did hit at the same time as the movie did semi ok? but a game for the biggest film of the decade landing right in the prime of the expansion of gaming on pretty much every platform available doing semi ok doesn't bode well for the rest of that market.

I think licensing is used best when not trying to tie in with whatever else the license is doing like Dawn of War, Batman, Transformers Cybertron etc

Hopefully somone gets ahold of Bond and can give us an Arkham style new story and take

 

[Jive Turkey]

Shame. I was hoping for a deep discount on Blood Stone.

Yeah me too. Bloodstone actually looked kinda good.

 

[Card Boy]

Oh noes the $89.99 USD Bond games got taken down!

I'm still bitter.

 

[Joni]

What was the biggest factor in liscensed games tie in market dying?

People don't buy sucky games anymore. This generation more than any before it sales and Metacritic ratings are tied.

Eh, someone will pick the 007 license. Skyfall did astounding, and the brand has never been so popular.

The problem is that license itself has become a bit of a clusterfuck over the years due to all the parties involved.

 

[pa22word]

They have the Everything or Nothing devs under their roof and didn't give them the Bond license, which I found insane.

The EoN guys were EA Redwood Shores, who later went on to become Visceral Games (Dead Space 1, 2).

 

[Macho Madness]

What was the biggest factor in liscensed games tie in market dying?

The rise of mobile gaming. They can make an app that serves the same audience they were selling their licensed games to for a lot cheaper. You see tons of licensed games and apps on iOS, Facebook and Android but very little in the way of console anymore.

 

[trinest]

So who do we think will pick up the licence if it is indeed returned? EA again? Rockstar seems like an interesting choice Agent wise. What about Ubisoft? The type of games they develop are more story based then other big publishers, could be good for the licence.

 

[RadioHeadAche]

Interesting. I guess it explains why I can't find the Goldeneye Reloaded and 007 Legends DLC on the PlayStation Store.

 

[Xanathus]

So wait, was Activision actually paying whoever owns the James Bond IP a fixed amount of dollars annually in order to sell each game, instead of just a percentage of the revenue? That's insane.

 

[tolkir]

And 007 Legends Wii U release in Europe is now TBC for 2013.

Eh, someone will pick the 007 license. Skyfall did astounding, and the brand has never been so popular.

¿?

In Spain, it released last december with a price of 70 €.
Most expensive Wii U game. :lol

 

[Mpl90]

In order to understand what company could eventually buy the righs...Who owns them?

 

[pieatorium]

In order to understand what company could eventually buy the righs...Who owns them?

MGM i believe

 

[erpg]

In order to understand what company could eventually buy the righs...Who owns them?

Sony through MGM.

 

[reggie]

.

 

[Goldrusher]

If you purchased and downloaded the most recent James Bond game, 007 Legends, from Steam before today, you might be pretty lucky.

Surely you can still download it?

 

[Macho Madness]

Surely you can still download it?

If you already purchased it, yes.

 

[CorrisD]

Always surprised Sony didn't try to get more off the whole James Bond thing considering the part they have in making the movies these days and having their name plastered across everything in them.

Should work out a cheap license deal, then build a third Naughty Dog team for licensed games rather than their own IPs, looking at Uncharted and TLoU they could make a fantastic James Bond game with their technology and some proper direction.

 

[Returners]

If licensing fails, Sony could do a game in house right?

 

[wildfire]

If Activision lost the license that would be a good thing in my book.

Does that really matter. Who has made licensed games better than LJN in their heyday?

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

Someone really needs to make Everthing or Nothing 2.
Bloodstone was actually good though.

 

[wazoo]

Activision never understood Steam sales.

I just bougt Blur and Activision on retail much cheaper than what they were during the sales. Since the games are DRM free, I am all good, too bad for the steam integration.

 

[Malvingt2]

Golden Eye Wii 007 sold well correct?

 

[Delusibeta]

Presumably its disappearance has to do with the cars in the game being licensed and Acti's disinterest in renewing the relevant contracts.

It's far, far too soon to be pulling the game if licensed cars is the problem. Either Activision can't negotiate contracts for toffee or they're burying the game and hoping people forget about it. (Considering all of the CoDs are still available with their licensed guns, it's definitely the latter)

 

[teruterubozu]

Maybe they'll give back The Walking Dead too.

 

[thefro]

If licensing fails, Sony could do a game in house right?

I'm pretty sure the Broccolli Family controls the movie licensing through their EON and Danjaq (which MGM has either has a stake in or an exclusive movie distribution deal) companies, not Sony.

Sony Pictures just distributes the movies. They have no ownership in MGM anymore.

 

[TaroYamada]

Presumably its disappearance has to do with the cars in the game being licensed and Acti's disinterest in renewing the relevant contracts.

Nah, you can still buy it in the GFWL store. So that's not true.

 

[Chairmanchuck]

Just a question. If I would have bought Blur or James Bond on Steam, can I still download the Game, even though it is not available to buy there anymore?