). I think you, the team, wouldn't have anything against the use of ScummVM as the emulator for the re-release, would you?Well, here's the petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/lecagcp1/petition.html :
I don't know if it will do any good, but it's worth a try. Maybe if enough people will undersign this petition, LEC might think about a re-release. Please undersign.To: Lucas Arts Entertainment company
We, the undersigned, demand for the re-release of the old classic adventure games LEC made with the SPUTM engine (better known as the SCUMM engine in public). These games are known as:
Maniac Mansion
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Loom
The Secret of Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2 - LeChuck's Revenge
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Day of the Tentacle
Sam & Max - Hit the Road
Full Throttle
The Dig
The Curse of Monkey Island
With a re-release of those true classics, many more gamers can be introduced to the adventure genre and LEC could gain money of these games again. It's wrong to think that selling computer games which are over a decade old turns out to be profitless at the end. For example, Vivendi Universal is selling new re-releases of old Sierra adventure games like King's Quest, Space Quest, etc. They just used a the free DOSBox emulator to get the games running on modern machines, so there was no need to spend time and money on the old source code of the games to make them run on newer platforms.
For the SPUTM made games, there is even a more better emulator than DOSBox: SCUMMVM. It can run all those adventure games perfectly nowadays and it's free, too. With modern graphic filters included in this emulator the supported games do look much better. Also, SCUMMVM has many companies support, for example the support of Adventuresoft and Revolution Software. E.g. the first two Broken Sword games are shipped with the SCUMMVM emulator.
So offering a re-release of those classic adventure games won't cost much and can bring big amounts of money. Your company just has to put the game files and the SCUMMVM emulator on a CD or DVD and the re-release is ready for shipping. LEC wouldn't even have to spend huge ammounts of money in the support of these games since SCUMMVM has it's own support forum for the supported games.
It would be a perfect special compilation since next year is the 25th anniversary of Lucas Arts. On your website, you document the history of your company, you mention all the milestones you have achieved, but the fame about your bestseller games like Monkey Island fade away in a few years when all those facts become meaningless since nobody knows Monkey Island anymore by then. To prevent this, a re-release is necessary so future generations of gamers know about Guybrush Threepwood and his adventures.
A good book is still a good book after a few decades or centuries, like Shakespear's Romeo and Juliet is still read and played on the stage. A good film is still a good film even it's made at the beginning of film industry, like the good old Charlie Chaplin movies. So why should a good game, even if it is a decade or two old no be good anymore today? Computer games are also part of the history and as such they need preservation like old books and films, too. It's a new sort of media, where artists want to create something the players will remember long after the games were sold the first time. And old media like floppy discs and CD-ROMs may not work someday, so the users do need new media in order to play their favorite games again and again.
So please, in the name of the true fans of your old but everlasting adventure games worldwide and for the sake of future gamer generations who should experience this part of computer history, please, please re-release the 12 SCUMM games into public again. As Vivendi showed, re-releasing old adventure games is possibble.
Do it to keep your fame for generations to come as a company which created great adventure games.
Sincerely, The Undersigned
