Okey, we can finally talk about this...
On Wednesday 12th Sep we received a Cease and Desist from CBS requiring us to cease development. We made every effort to approach them to discuss modifying the project to meet their criteria, but they are refusing to even discuss the matter. We'll be making a longer statement on Discord shortly. We hope you enjoyed Stage 9 while it lasted!
From all the team, Live long and prosper.
I get needing to protect the IP and all, but shutting down Stage 9 is just something that I don't understand.
CBS released fan project guidelines... For films. Nothing game-related. Stage 9 went out of their way to ensure that they didn't compete with Bridge Crew's TNG DLC by removing VR and laying low for a bit to let that game have its moment. Stage 9 didn't collect any profits.
What's next? Shutting down fan web sites like Ex Astris Scientia? Shutting down modding sites? Seriously, this just threw so much uncertainty into the air.
I'm thoroughly disgusted with CBS & ParamountIt's truly fucked up. Since Trek first came out there's been an unspoken agreement between fans and the studio: We don't profit from our projects; the fun police don't ruin our fun. If anything, it was just free promotion for Trek with a bunch of Enterprise's, Defiant's, and Voyager's flying around the digital sphere.
You do realize that Star Trek Bridge Crew TNG extension was at the root case of thisI think Bridge Crew is definitely a part of it, but I also think Axanar just poisoned the well in more ways than we probably know about. If Alec Peters hadn't been the kind of asshole who used the Star Trek IP to try and create his own for-profit production studio, I don't think we'd be in this mess. He basically laughed in CBS' faces and said "sue me". So they sued him. And slapped his ass silly. Now fans are paying the price because if CBS let Alec Peters get away with what he tried to pull with Axanar, others would have done the same thing, and that means lost revenue for CBS. Fuck Alec Peters.
What the Stage:9 team proved, fans can put out a "High Quality" non-profit product, and had the gual to release it for free. The team is abandoning the "Trek" theme for an original Sci-fi approachFans have been releasing free, high-quality products for decades - one need not look further than our own little modding community. Wiley's ships have been featured in officially licensed stuff for Christ's sake! He's one of our very own members whos work originally created for BC is on the covers of some of Pocket Books Trek works.
The team don't want to make a fuss, and have basically abandoned the Trek themeIt's a damn shame, but I can understand why. Sadly, most any middle-class person, whether they be American, British, German, what have you, simply doesn't have the resources to fight a battle with a major company who can wipe their ass with $100 bills. And sadly, as much as we hate it, CBS does own Trek and they have the right to do this. There's just no case.
Instead of CBS/Paramount working with fans, they are being dismissed out of hand.This just makes me want to boycott the fuck out of CBS. I already bootlegged season one of Discovery as it was airing - not out of malice, but simply because I can't afford another streaming service (especially one as shitty as CBS All Access - I'm not paying more for a subscription to avoid commercials. A paid service should be commercial free by default). I had planned to buy the blu rays, however. Now I'm not.
I'm going to see if I can get a copy of v.0.11 build; I had plans of exploring the DefiantShoot us some PM's if you're successful :wink: