Who owns the copyright on Civ II?

[jkp1187]

Just curious if anyone knows the answer to this question.... Thanks.

 

[Empire Engineer]

Just curious if anyone knows the answer to this question.... Thanks.

Since it is part of the Civilization Chronicles box set, I would assume that the Civ II copyright is now controlled by 2K/Fireaxis.

 

[Sub]

The real question is who owns the source code? Is the source code even still in existence?

 

[Ondskan]

Check my thread in: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6312318#post6312318

I am also curious.
I belive there's a dirty game being played by ESA and that they are forcing game developers not to give up their games even when they are as old as Civ2 because they can still squeze a penny or two from them.

I used to have access to a few sites that let you download content freely and safely and those sites still let you download Civ2 I belive.
The open sites such as Abadonia do not tho as it seems that somehow ESA has stoped them.

 

[Tholish]

I also want to know, because I want to use the art from the TOT sci fi scenario for my Civ IV mod, and to do it legitimately. I paid something like 12 dollars to download Civ 2TOT, from Direct 2 Drive as I recall, and it was placed in an Atari folder. Firaxis and Moby and other people that sell downloads of it online may have all licensed it from whoever has inherited the rights.

 

[Blasph23]

It seems that something called Interactive Game Group has more or less recently bought MicroProse from Infogrames, or so I read. IGG has been created by a former Atari employee but I'm not sure if they purchased the rights to old games as well, or if those stayed under Infogrames. I believe they went to IGG but of course it's just my thought, nothing official. If anything, IGG are the guys that should be asked about Civ2 copyrights, I think.

EDIT: I just read this on wiki:

In 2004 Infogrames sold the rights to the Civilization franchise to Take-Two Interactive for $22.3 million.

So it may seem that IGG/Infogrames/Atari/MicroProse are outta picture.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

EDIT2: Another one from wiki:

Take-Two bought the rights to the Civilization franchise from Infogrames in 2004 for $22.3 million.
In October 2005, 2K Games, a Take-Two subsidiary, published Civilization IV, which was developed by Firaxis and had Soren Johnson as game designer.
Take Two bought Firaxis for $26.7 million including possible performance bonuses in November 2005. So as of 2008, Take Two owns both the developer and the publisher of the Civilization franchise.

 

[Nylan]

If you're just looking for a free version of CivII, you can always just get freeciv.

 

[Blasph23]

I own an original copy of civ 2. What I'm looking for is the source code of civilization 2, so I can get into remaking the game as I think it should have been - improving the AI, maybe adding some new options if possible, removing some obvious flaws/mistakes that, despite playing the game for a couple of years, still drive me crazy at times (AI triremes, launching B2 from an aircraft carrier, AI randomly sneak attacking you with 2-3 destroyers and then losing half their cities in a pointless war and so on).