I tweeted him, lets seee if he responds.

(me message: @berndbeyreuther I would like to know about something Project Nomads, just some basic questions about who now holds the rights to it ?) (it's a twitter version of your question)

Fab, thanks te_lanus! If he wants someone to get in touch with directly afterwards, I am happy to provide my email address to you to pass along.

Oh boy. Okay, so apparently there is one person that can contact Karsten on that Atari page you posted, but it is the same person that said he would not help me anymore.

"I can contact Karsten if you give me a message. I cannot give out email addresses, or you can post a message to the Thalion Webshrine which he reads."

Ha, the way of the world. ;) You could try posting on the Thalion Webshrine, or otherwise one of us could contact your uncooperative friend and scrupulously avoid any mention of GOG and other retailers.

Just 2cts.

I find what you are doing cool. Still, I think you should keep it clean. No need to cheat, lie (by omission) or manipulate. When you ask for someone's help or time or attention, you can also respect his conditions, interests and intentions, in all honesty, instead of trying to circumvent them...

Sorry, I'm not with you on that. That guy doesn't want to help and even if we find his reasoning ... lacking, we should just move on and try another angle.

Have a look here at the Portfolio and scroll down to the bottom. This guy apparently worked on Lionheart and Ambermoon, and I believe that he was with Thalion for quite some time. Maybe he knows something.

And...
I found Erik Simon of Thalion at LinkedIn (one of the founders!)
http://de.linkedin.com/in/eriksimongamedev
And you might laugh when you see where he's apparently working now, because I was on the phone with that company today. :-P
He might be a better lead than Henk Nieborg, I'd say.

Points taken, I'll refrain from scurrilous methods, even if it they are against a nominal software pirate. Two wrongs and all that.

Perhaps those other links will bear fruits. I've not heard back from either of my LinkedIn requests, but it's early yet. I could put one it for Erik Simon if you all determine he's a good contact as well.

You're right.

Just so you know, though, I've already been in contact with Erik Simon. I sent a message and got a reply about a week ago.

"unfortunately, neither me nor my old colleagues own the rights to Amberstar, so there's not much we can do to bring the DOS version to GOG I am afraid.

But thanks for even remembering our old work :-)"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------

Message sent to http://www.henknieborg.nl/, though.

A shame, that, though I'm glad you gave him a happy moment. I guess the rights lie in that long chain of buyouts then, probably languishing in the equivalent of a corporate dungeon. Do you know the chain of corporate acquisitions post-Thalion?

I do not, unfortunately. Sometimes one just has to let some things go, and that may or may not be the case here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalion_Software

It appears Holger Flottmann was co-founder, went on to found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascaron#Background_and_history. Ascaron properties were purchased by Kalypso Media, and various Ascaron employees went on to found Gaming Minds Studios. I sent a message to them but have not heard back yet.

"As of April 2010, Ascaron UK was still in operation, acting as a distributor for other publishers. Clients include Paradox Interactive."

If you want to see the data I've collected, I have it in a Dropbox folder. Send me a PM and I'll give you the link.

As far as I can see Thalion didn't go bankrupt nor was it sold. It just closed down and dissolved. Which means that the firm's property had to be distributed.
This is all a bit strange.
Erik Simon didn't even give a hint to where the rights might be if they aren't with him or his colleagues?

That would be useful, thanks. Hopefully it would stop me asking questions which were already answered. Hey, here's one now - has anyone been in touch with Kalypso Media directly about this?

I'll provide the lengthy email from the person that is unwilling to help us anymore:

---

Erik and Holger probably won't be able to help. They were never able to help me. They founded Thalion but because there was a "Management buy out" in 1991/2. I don't know who this was with. I thought it had something to do with the publishing deal they had with Grandslam Entertaiment UK? I know that the late Willie Carminke (who was credited as being part of United Software) was involved. One of the Thalion games "Neuronics" was a thalion game but came in a "United Software" box rather than the traditional Thalion boxes. Holger left shortly after this buyout and formed his own company Ascaron. Erik and the others were only employees from this point until the end. They had no ownership of IP or the financial running of the company. Speculation has it they left at least 6 months before Thalion stopped trading. I imagine best they could possibly do is give you information about the buy out in 1991 and you could follow this trail.

But in late 1994 when Thalion closed, from what I can tell, all the employees just up and left. (because they hadn't been paid?) The remaining Management tried to buy some new IP from other developers (Such as X-Fighter) but in the end all they did was sell licenses of existing Thalion titles to get every last scrap of cash from their IP.

They sold various licenses for different titles on different platforms to various people.

Which titles are you interested in?

The DOS version of A320 Airbus remains the property of Rainer Bopf. http://www.flightmedia.de/

The DOS versions of Dragonflight and Amberstar were last published by Computec Verlag GmbH & Co. KG (a magazine publisher) in 1994 Germany. As to whether this was a one off license or if they bought the publication rights completely. Who knows? They never replied to any of my emails.

The DOS version of Atomix probably remains the property of Soft-Touch & RoSt (aka Guenter Kraemer and Rolf Steffans). This year they gave permission for a PC-Remake which used the original graphics. I am not sure they could authorise the re-publication of the original Thalion Atomix binaries. You could offer the remake though. http://www.viste-family.net/mateusz/software/atomiks/

In the end (author) decided to publish all the game binaries without licenses. Illegal yes but in the 15 years since we went on-line I've never had one copyright infringement claim. I wouldn't recommend that you do the same.

I would be curious to help you track down the current ownership. If you find any details or require any help or contacts just ask.

I have the personal contact details for everyone who worked at Thalion. David "Spaz" Moss was only an employee for one year between 1990 and 1991. It was probably the year of the management buyout so he might have details about that. He won't know who owns what.

Heinz Rudolf is not a native english speaking person. I am sure he meant "sold" rather than "gave away".

---

Perhaps there are some clues here that somebody will be able to use. It's hard for me to remember what all I've tried to follow up on, but you're welcome to try to use the info here.

Not me. Kalypso Media already has some games here on GOG - also from Westwood (YAY!).
So THE question is: Who bought Thalion?