Quick example, Full Control Studios is doing Space Hulk. Games Workshop surely put a limit on how it can be released, how often it can be re-released and limits on who it can be sold to in the future (i.e. no GOG release).

What are you talking about? Space Hulk is a new game and clearly a new contract was signed.

What I'm saying, there is probably not a single game that was using third party IP in the past and is being sold today.
Blade Runner? LOTR games? Need for speed 1? Fifa 96?

It's a miracle Sensible World of Soccer got a release.

You said it wasn't common to include time limitation in old contracts, so I would like to see examples of such games being sold today.

Because I'm pretty positive Dune is not being sold today because of the Dune IP, and you're saying it's not a problem at all.

You were unclear in your previous post. It sounded like you were talking about IP holders not issuing work to thrid party devs. Oh, and yeah there are some major titles that are still being sold today that went through third part devs. Doom 1 and 2, Most Apogee games in fact, and you can still get them through original web sites as well as GOG.

I wrote to the Dune IP holders, and they just said that the rights to the old games are unavailable. The Herbert family estate would re-release the games, but apparently the rights situation is messy, but being worked on.

Edit: I wrote to the Blade Runner IP holders too about the game but haven't heard back from them yet. I remember that just re-releasing the film was problematic, though. They got past that of course, but it was messy.
If anyone else wants to give it a shot, you can send a message to the Blade Runner Partnership here:
http://www.alconent.com/contact/contact-form/

I'm pretty sure you are lost as to whom own what when it comes to third part development and games. If you create an IP that becomes famous the world over and allow another company to make a game out of it, you may or may not own the rights to the game. It depends on the contract you make with said company. If you do not specifically stipulate that said company retain no rights to the game after a certain amount of time, then they own that game. They created it, published it, and copy protected their work. It may be based on your IP, but you let them do that. They can then sell that game as long as they want, as often as they want and in anyway they want. Its theirs at that point. Also unless you specifically limited their ability, they can make sequels to said game.

All one has to do is look up the rights to Max Headroom to see a great example of copyrights gone out of control. There are holders of that IP that each claim total ownership but in reality one had the rights to books. Another had the rights to do a game (and therefore claimed digital rights), another had the rights to do a comic, and another claimed the rights to music (and also claimed that enabled digital rights), then there was the TV and movie rights which are all over the board. Nobody can figure out who owns the IP. So the only reason very little has been done with the IP over the past two decades is the constant lawsuits that get flung everywhere. Yet some things have been done like the DVD release about two years ago. That lawsuit is still pending (from last I heard), but the publishers are claiming they bought the original broadcast copies and therefore are entitled to resell it as they are the owners of said material.

Same thing with a lot of older games. But nine times out of ten, older games do sell well many years into the future so you will not find a lot of publishers willing to go through the effort to continue selling them. I'd be willing to bet thats the main reason you don't see the old Dune titles still for sale. EA and Titus own the games they published (EA buying Westwood Studios, and Titus buying Cryo and Virgin Interactive), so they can do what they want. Not to mention, Titus may be bankrupt in the next year or two if their sales keep dropping so they have other matters to contend with and EA is seems very reluctant to offer up their classics on GOG. They keep trying to get people to use their Origin service and see other digital download services more as competition. Look how they treated Steam before they ever offered any of their older titles to GOG.

I'd like to hear from someone at GOG to give us a rough idea about the status at least.

Hopefully the original contract was not so tight that it precludes further release (after all wasn't it a sub license from the Lynch movie folks rather than direct with the IP holders at the estate?) The games are 'based on the movie' rather than the books.

But who knows. Someone is likely holding out for more money, but there's only so much pie to go around in a 5.99 game (I'd guess GOG would stick D2K and D2 as a bundle for 5.99 and maybe Emperor for 9.99... that would work for me)

I'd say to whoever is holding out for more cash, bear in mind that right now, all that's happening is you are getting NOTHING, and people are downloading for free. Better to have some money and keep fans happy.

Frustrating.

I recently played through the original Dune on CD, having picked it up from an op shop for $2. It was as great as I remembered it. I feel bad for peeps who don't own it :(

Ok, so had anyone gotten these to work fairly well in windows 7x64?

http://drackbolt.blogspot.com/

worked pretty well for me. Don't know about dune 2000 and emperor though

nostalgia overload!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn_wNMqIgGE

I will check it out, thanks

The original Dune works perfect in DOSBox with no tweaking of anything. Running the setup lets you pick your video and audio and it all works a treat. It would be an instant up if GOG could get the rights, as it needs nothing but a generic DOSBox config.

I lost my copy of Dune II during amove, many years ago (I let a fridge fall over in the back of the truck and it destroyed a lot of my CD-ROMs and disketts, all my fault), and I know I've got Dune 2000 here someplace, I just have to find it. I never owned Emperor so wont be able to say one way or the other.

As far as I know Titus went bankrupt in 2005.

ok, got dune 1 and 2 too work...Dune 2000 although still working on it...i can get it to run...now just to make it not blink and to see how fast it runs

Lol, it was early when I posted that and I was getting ready for work. My brain was thinking Atlus not Titus. And now that I look them up, I see that they were bought out and their name is the only thing that still lives on. ^_^