Jason Voorhees has met his bitter end in a battle set in the stages of the multiplayer game, Friday the 13th. But who was the Final Girl that finished the job? Lady Justice.
Announced on Monday through a post on the official website, Friday the 13th developers Gun Media and Illfonic have canceled plans for any new DLC content that was scheduled for the online multiplayer video game. The abrupt news comes on the heels of the ongoing legal battle over the Friday the 13th movie rights. In fact, the current legal dispute has nothing to do with the licensed video game itself, which was released in 2017 through a Kickstarter campaign, but the franchise rights overall and new future content.
The legal battle over Friday the 13th has been going on since 2016 between Victor Miller, the screenwriter of the original 1980 film, and Sean Cunningham, the producer who made the films and licensed the rights for the video game. Neither person has agreed over who owns the rights to the franchise, with Cunningham stating Miller was only a work-for-hire and owns nothing. Miller, on the other hand, contests this and states that copyright law is on his side. The consequences of that case have also prevented the film series from creating any new entries.
“When we originally learned that the game fell within the crosshairs of this legal dispute, we tried to balance the creation of new content requested by our fans against the maintenance and bug fixing that our community expects and deserves. We attempted to do both within the limits of the legal case,” said Gun Media, via their online announcement.
Gun Media and Illfonic hoped to weather the storm, but their hands are tied. Content that has been canceled includes the Grendel map, new counselors and Jason models, clothing, play modes and any new content for the future. The developers still plan to add dedicated servers to the console games and work on any bugs that might arise.
This recent development poses an interesting question for other properties of licensed video games. Is it better to license the rights for a full-fledged standalone game or cash in on DLCs?
Entries like Mortal Kombat, Dead by Daylight, and Super Smash Bros. have benefited from the addition of guest characters from other properties – sometimes even as purchasable items. If something were to go amiss, the guest or DLC wouldn’t affect the game as a whole, whereas in a standalone game, it creates the basis of the story. On the other hand, fans of the properties love having a gaming story dedicated to the franchise, so much so that games like Friday the 13th, South Park and Aliens have done pretty well.
Are you upset about no more Friday the 13th DLC? Let us know what you think!
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