Surfing HalfOrc
2015-09-10, 12:42 PM
OK, I'm just a little stuck. I want to write a story, or even series of stories based on a computer game I played forever ago. The game was Starflight, Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula. It had a huge universe, dozens of alien races, and a compelling story.
My major change between the game as written and played and what I want to write is changing where "Our Heroes" began their journey. In the game, they start at a newly built Spaceport, in my story I want them to start as lost colonists who discovered an abandoned starship, and a sole survivor of a damaged second ship that had begun at the starport. The colonists have regressed to a steam age society, while their one contact with the rest of the universe will be either a reptilian or insectoid alien. All easy enough.
But if I want to change this to a commercial endeavor, I'm not sure just changing the names to protect the innocent will be enough. As planned, this falls under Fan Fiction, free to distribute like any other bit of Fan Fiction. But if I were to compile it and sell it on Amazon for $2.99 a copy, Electronic Arts' team of lawyers would be on me like... a rude analogy on a poor student's paper. Well, they would most likely simply send me a polite, but firmly worded, Cease and Desist letter.
What can I do? I was going to change the name of an ultra-aggressive tri-alien "nation" from G'nunk to J'nunk so "Our Hero from the Spaceport" could call them "Junkies," and make other changes, but I'm not sure if that would be enough.
I'm also not sure if EA would be interested in publishing such a book, especially of a game so far out of date. This also runs into the fact that the game itself was developed by Binary Systems, a game studio long since out of business. Activision/Blizzard gladly publish Warcraft and Starcraft novels and make a tidy profit split between themselves and the authors.
Any suggestions? I'm probably going to write this for NaNoWriMo this year, and have been putting together the plot outline, character sketches, ship plans, etc.
My major change between the game as written and played and what I want to write is changing where "Our Heroes" began their journey. In the game, they start at a newly built Spaceport, in my story I want them to start as lost colonists who discovered an abandoned starship, and a sole survivor of a damaged second ship that had begun at the starport. The colonists have regressed to a steam age society, while their one contact with the rest of the universe will be either a reptilian or insectoid alien. All easy enough.
But if I want to change this to a commercial endeavor, I'm not sure just changing the names to protect the innocent will be enough. As planned, this falls under Fan Fiction, free to distribute like any other bit of Fan Fiction. But if I were to compile it and sell it on Amazon for $2.99 a copy, Electronic Arts' team of lawyers would be on me like... a rude analogy on a poor student's paper. Well, they would most likely simply send me a polite, but firmly worded, Cease and Desist letter.
What can I do? I was going to change the name of an ultra-aggressive tri-alien "nation" from G'nunk to J'nunk so "Our Hero from the Spaceport" could call them "Junkies," and make other changes, but I'm not sure if that would be enough.
I'm also not sure if EA would be interested in publishing such a book, especially of a game so far out of date. This also runs into the fact that the game itself was developed by Binary Systems, a game studio long since out of business. Activision/Blizzard gladly publish Warcraft and Starcraft novels and make a tidy profit split between themselves and the authors.
Any suggestions? I'm probably going to write this for NaNoWriMo this year, and have been putting together the plot outline, character sketches, ship plans, etc.