Posted August 11, 2013
Novotnus: Tfishell, sorry to bother you again, but did you get any info back from those friendly people from Harvester facebook page or from Eutechnyx?
It's cool. I heard back from the Harvester person that works the page (don't know if I've already posted this): "I know plenty of people (including the director/writer Gilbert Austin) who were making Harvester but none of them have any idea about who or what owns the copyright. Harvester was designed by DigiFX Interactive and published by Merit Studios, and both companies went down after Harvester was released.
The clue I got for you is Lee Jacobson. He was the producer of Harvester and he also owned the company which created the game. I have not been in contact with Lee but I suggest that you'll get in touch with him.
Here is a link to Lee's FB profile (and also link to Harvester's trademark info, if it's any help).
I wish you'll keep me updated about your search for game rights. It's a very interesting issue and you are not the first one who is searching for it.
Good luck! --Aarno Malin"
I sent a Facebook message to Lee Jacobson, but haven't heard back (as has been the case with many other people, sadly). If you want me to PM you his Facebook page, I can.
I also sent a message to the company where he works, http://www.apmetrix.com/ at info@apmetrix.com. I got an "I'll pass this on... - Apmetrix Support " from the support people, but haven't heard back from him here, either.
So for right now, I'm not entirely sure what to do, unfortunately.
-----------------------------------------------------
Regarding Rage of Mages, I heard this back from Nival: "Right to Allods universe (which includes Rage of Mages) are now owned by Mail.ru" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail.Ru
So we would need a Russian speaker to contact them, it seems. (Unfortunately, they seem pretty darn big, so I'm not sure if they'd respond or not.)
-----------------------------------------------------
Also, doing some research on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datasoft, I found this: "The company went into bankruptcy and its name and assets were purchased by two Datasoft executives, Samuel L. Poole and Ted Hoffman. They renamed the company IntelliCreations which distributed Datasoft games until it closed."
Ted Hofmann's profile is here: www.linkedin.com/pub/ted-hofmann/1a/382/886
I believe he is currently working here - http://www.cfoplus.net/faq.html - so I plan on sending an email soon.
EDIT: Bah, the email is buggered. I went ahead and sent him a LinkedIn message via connection, so possibly not the best/most professional thing to do, but I took a chance.
Post edited August 11, 2013 by tfishell