DoctorSpuds Reviews Things

It's named after an old movie, though the programmer had never heard of it!

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Master_X-7

Had anyone else in 1983 heard about this 25 year old movie, so it made sense for 20th Century Fox to try to milk money out of their franchise? Or perhaps they were planning to revive it in an era where Star Wars was hot and Star Trek was still a thing.

But Fox already had Star Wars... Oops for a moment there I didn't think Fox was that greedy, but what am I saying, of COURSE they are.

Hm, ok. If they came up with a brand new game name and published it, would they automatically obtain copyrights to that or is that a process one has to apply for? I'm thinking if they wanted to save time/money and for that purpose reused some old IP instead of applying for something new.

Hence Fantastic Voyage and Flash Gordon?

But Fox already had Star Wars... Oops for a moment there I didn't think Fox was that greedy, but what am I saying, of COURSE they are.

Fox didn't own the home video game rights to Star Wars. Parker Bros. had those because they'd picked them up with the board game rights. So Fox couldn't do anything with Star Wars. Atari had the arcade rights, but not the home market. So they couldn't do anything for the 2600. So Parker Bros. ended up publishing a home version of an Atari arcade game for an Atari console.

Fox didn't own the home video game rights to Star Wars. Parker Bros. had those because they'd picked them up with the board game rights. So Fox couldn't do anything with Star Wars. Atari had the arcade rights, but not the home market. So they couldn't do anything for the 2600. So Parker Bros. ended up publishing a home version of an Atari arcade game for an Atari console.

 

True, they didn't have the game licenses but they did have the movie license, at least until Disney snapped it up a little while ago. Have you seen how many versions of Star Wars Fox put out, how many special edition VHS, DVD and Blu Ray, are now cluttering up the shelves of every Half-Price Books from New York to L.A., I think Fox still walked away with a tidy profit from Star Wars, probably more than what Atari or Parker Brothers ever saw from game and arcade sales. Fox is still king!

Perhaps you're onto something here. If Fox to begin with had the movie license to Star Wars, but the game licenses had been granted other companies, and then Fox decided they wanted to publish games as well, it almost makes sense for them to dig up something else space-worthy from their back catalog, without having to apply for a copyright on the title if that was required.