Westwood Studios’ Dune 2: The Building of a Dynasty isn’t the first real-time strategy game ever made, but it is one of the earliest examples of the genre and essentially provided the blueprint for what RTS games would be moving forward, inspiring Blizzard and other studios in the process. But it seems very unlikely that this important bit of PC gaming history will get an official re-release anytime soon or be part of GOG’s preservation program.
In a new interview with GamesRadar, Marcin Paczynski, senior business development and partnerships manager at PC gaming store GOG, explained just how complicated and messy the rights are to 1992’s Dune 2. And it comes down to the influential RTS being based on a movie based on a book, from a studio owned by another company; in this case, EA.
“So currently, Electronic Arts has the game code, the assets, all of the rights to those things, and all the materials around the game,” explained Paczynski.
“But of course, they do not own the [Dune] IP. The problem with the IP is that it is not directly owned by [Dune writer Frank Herbert’s estate], because the games were not based on the books; they were actually based on the movie from 1984. That movie was created by Universal Pictures, and the main producer for that movie was [Dino De Laurentiis]. The problem is that he also has part of that movie license with him. But he died 15 years ago.”
That means De Laurentiis’ estate owns a “portion” of Dune 2. And then there’s another complication. Legendary Pictures owns the IP rights for the new Dune movies and has a deal with Funcom to create Dune Awakening, a survival game set in the Dune universe. And there’s some amount of “exclusivity” included in that deal
Exactly how or even if that deal would get in the way of re-releasing Westwood’s classic Dune games, including Dune 2000, is “currently not clear,” says Paczynski. But it’s yet one more issue to deal with if anyone were to try to bring back these important classics.
For Paczynski, this is likely a frustrating situation as he considers Dune 2 as one of his personal “holy grails” for GOG to bring back and preserve.
“It’s on the top of my list, my personal one, because this is a game that I have a lot of nostalgia for,” said Paczynski. “The situation is a good example of how bad it can get with the licensing situation of a game.”
It’s also a great example of why fan projects tend to be the better—and often only—option for playing classic games decades after launch. Fans making patches and mods don’t (generally) have to deal with lawyers and legal hurdles in the same way GOG and other companies have to when trying to bring back a classic.
Still, I hope one day Dune 2 is given a proper, officially supported re-release on modern PC storefronts so it can be easily played by new gamers. Dune essentially ushered in what would become the modern RTS and, as a result, led to the creation of games like Warcraft, which then led to MOBAs like League of Legends. It’s an important piece of gaming history that deserves a return.
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