Related: Atari, Hasbro, BioWare (Pre-Origin), Hasbro Interactive, Wizards of the Coast, TSR, D&D, Interplay, Black Isle Studios, SSI, Ubisoft.
For anyone who is still confused about how all of this licensing agreement stuff works and who owns what, I submit the following informational thread. Most of the info here is a correlation of what's coming off of Wikipedia, which itself has a bunch of listed primary sources for the information it contains. Very little (other than the correlation and commentary) is my own work, and most of this can be considered copyright Wikipedia and the other primary sources.
The intent here is to provide the historical reference for how we've all gotten to where we've gotten. Every company in the "related" line above has had a hand in Baldur's Gate and thus every related company above is part of the big puzzle answering the question of who owns what right now.
Here's the status of each part of this puzzle prior to the first part of the Electronic Rights fight.
Atari: Founded 1972 as Atari Inc., Transferred 1984 to Atari Corporation and Atari Games.
Hasbro (Hasbro Interactive): Founded 1968 as Hasbro, subsidiary corporation Hasbro Interactive Founded 1995.
Interplay: Founded 1983 as Interplay Productions
Black Isle Studios: Founded 1996 as a subsidiary division of Interplay
BioWare: Founded 1995 (Co-Founder Trent Oster of BeamDog/OverHaul)
Wizards of the Coast (WotC): Founded 1990
TSR (Tactical Studies Rules): Founded 1973 by Gary Gygax
SSI (Strategic Simulations, Inc.): Founded 1979
UbiSoft: Founded 1986
Whew! Lets start the story with how D&D Came into Hasbro's hands...quickly, and then we'll return to the electronic publishing rights.
The story starts with Gary Gygax and others founding TSR in 1973 and producing D&D, given the age, obviously this was pen and paper. TSR Continued as a company till 1997 where, due to complete insolvency, it was purchased, along with another gaming entity, for $25M. WotC, to this day, still owns the rights to the D&D Intellectual Propery. However, in 1999 Hasbro finally purchases WotC and makes it a subsidiary division of Hasbro making Hasbro the final rights holder for D&D, where it currently resides today.
Electronically, however, the story is more sordid and more complicated. We'll start at the dawn of the personal computer age (where computers started entering the homes of most normal people) the late 1980's. In 1987 video game development and publishing company SSI (Strategic Simulations, Inc.) obtained the rights to publish D&D Based computer games from TSR Inc. They published Pool of Radiance in 1998 and War of the Lance in 1999 and continued producing D&D Based computer games. The were eventually sold to UbiSoft in 2001, but it looks like, Sans the D&D Electronic License.
THIS had been passed to BioWare (though I cannot find information on when or why). Working with Publishing Partner Interplay's money, BioWare created the Infinity Engine (the engine that runs BG, etc.) and produced a proof of concept demo called Battleground: Infinity. Interplay, however, realized that the engine would be well suited to the D&D Franchise and Baldur's Gate was created working with Black Isle Studios a subsidiary of it's publisher Interplay. At this point we can tell who owns what: BioWare owns the rights to the code for the infinity engine, Baldur's Gate which runs on top of it, and Interplay owns the license to publish the game. The time mark here is 1998.
BioWare proceeds to license the Infinity engine to Black Isle Studios who would go on to produce Planescape: Torment and the Icewind Dale series, and a few others.
In the mean time, Hasbro, getting in on the electronic publishing and video gaming industry has created Hasbro Interactive in 1995. Further, in 1998 it buys an important property to this discussion: Wizards of the Coast. D&D Is now owned by Hasbro. WotC is still its own company but now has a parent. All rights to the D&D game moves to Hasbro...however electronic rights are still legally held by BioWare.
Further, in 1996, Atari Corporation merges with a harddrive manufacturer named JT Storage (JTS). In this period the Atari disappears from all production...JT Storage pretty much ONLY holding the rights to the Atari name. JTS then sells these rights to Hasbro's computer division Hasbro Interactive in 1998 creating a new subsidiary company "Atari Interactive".
* In 1998, Both D&D and the Atari Brand are owned by Hasbro. Electronic D&D rights are owned by BioWare but also licensed to Black Isle, and publishing and distribution rights are owned by Interplay.
Here's where the story starts to go south. For the next two years, Interplay continues to publish games in the D&D Franchise including BG2 and it's expansion pack. However, this cannot keep interplay out of debt and in 2001 interplay shuts down Black Isle Studios and files bankruptcy. BioWare starts working with French gaming company Infogrames Interactive to publish games such as Neverwinter Nights and eventually sells their license to produce software based around D&D to them.
From the "just how the hell small is the video game industry anyway?" department, in the same year (2001) Infogrames Interactive buys Hasbro Interactive from Hasbro to become Infogrames Inc. (IESA also known as Atari SA). In 2003 Infogrames Inc. licenses the Atari name and logo from Atari Interactive (still owned by Hasbro) and then in 2008 finishes the purchase to create the wholly owned subsidiary Atari Inc. (or in our case Atari US...the people going through bankruptcy right now). Also in 2008 Atari Inc. (US) and Interplay complete a long standing legal battle for the D&D Rights...Atari "purchasing" them from Interplay for 1,050,000 in debt forgiveness.
The final standing in 2008:
* Hasbro owns WotC who owns D&D the RPG which was purchased from failing TSR.
* Infogrames Inc. (Atari SA) owns the Electronic License and the Distribution license to Electronic D&D Games. The IP License came from BioWare while the electronic distribution rights came from Interplay through Atari Inc.
From Wikipedia regarding the sale of Hasbro Interactive to Infogrames Inc.:
Under the terms of the sale agreement, Infogrames gained the rights to develop games based on Hasbro properties for a period of 15 years plus an option for an additional 5 years based on performance.[7]
http://www.atarihq.com/news/2000/1206.htmlBased upon all of this there are some conclusions we can draw:
* Infogrames Inc. (Atari SA - the ones suing it's own child company Atari US for $230M and change) are the holders of the rights to develop, license, and distribute Electronic D&D properties. They own these rights till a MINIMUM of 2015 whereby the contract can be renewed for 5 years based upon performance.
* Atari US does not now nor has it ever owned any rights to D&D Properties. As a subsidiary company of Atari SA it's had the legal ability to publish games in the US based upon that property, but those rights are not owned by Atari US and thus are not up for sale or management based upon the Atari US bankruptcy.
And that takes us to Today with Atari US in Bankruptcy.
Hopefully this answers the question of who owns what at this point.
