A community-driven effort to resurrect the Homeworld series has been outbid on the rights to the franchise, the campaign's organisers revealed.
Developer TeamPixel began a crowdsourced campaign to obtain the rights to Relic's space RTS Homeworld back in January, saying it would make Homeworld 3 for PC, Mac and Linux, and Homeworld Touch for iOS and Android.
"The auction for the Homeworld license ended April 15 2013, and while we reached qualified bidder status for the bankruptcy auction, we were unable to raise the necessary funds to remain competitive against the other parties at the auction," wrote the studio in a Kickstarter update.
Refunds are now being given to backers of the campaign.
The new owner of the Homeworld IP was not mentioned, but TeamPixel expects an announcement during May after the sale is finalised.
Homeworld creator Relic was purchased by Sega in January for $26.6 million after THQ auctioned off its assets. The rights to Homeworld were not purchased by Sega at the time.
Homeworld II was the last time the series was seen. It was released in 2003. Relic's next game, WWII-themed RTS Company of Heroes 2, will be released for PC on June 25.
Discussion
Should have kept the Homeworld saga going very disappointing.
Best game ever Homeworld series
omg my eyes ...iam crying i've play Homeworld in 99 and at last there will be Homeworld 3 ..the music ..one of best space RPG ...
Darn it! Its Gearbox! Homeworld is dead!
100 to 1 chance they plan to release it in a FTP model and it will be absolute garbage.
But here's hoping for the best!
Obviously some bigger company wanted to put a stop to this smaller company.
I wouldn't hold out hope of seeing Homeworld until somebody specifically say they are making the next homeworld.
Sorry for the double post
Obviouly some bigger company wanted to put a stop to this smaller company form making money.
I know who it is, Activision, they're going to use stuff from the game to implement into Destiny.
Relic = Homeworld. so i can't say i'm terribly interested in H3 even though i consider Homeworld one of the all time greats.
Whoever the owner is, just please push for a re-release on Steam and GOG.
homeworld 2 was amazing with that star wars mod, but that mod also burned my computer after a while years and years ago, the comp I have now would play it no problem a shame it will never get the chance to experience a 3rd game.
I loved homeworld 1 and 2, hopefully it lands in good hands
Hopefully it will rest in good hands, I wouldn't mind seeing a prequel to HW addressing the Kushan Tiidan conflict that lead to the great exile.
In the end, hope for the best, expect the worst is all I can say when it comes to HW3.
OMG OMG OMG! HW3 FTW!
Homeworld was a sweet game. Not sure how it would translate now, though.
woohoo
homeworld3 would AWSOME but not by EA..............
if it is anyone but sega and relic.... then this series is dead to me
PLEASE not EA..i beg of you not them...
BREAKING NEWS!
New owner is Electronic Arts.
And they plan to micro transaction and DLC the franchise to death , which is now also a FPS set in a modern setting where evil middle eastern terrorists are the bad guys.
I asked Stardock to buy that Homeworld ip. Not sure whether they are the one.
Please be Relic, please be Relic, please be Relic.
call of home world: modern space fare
:(
I pray that the new "Mystery" owners is just Sega! because Relic really needs their baby back!
I wish the Kickstarter campaign had worked that way the game would be made by people who love it instead of some publisher that just want to make a buck. Love of the game should lead to the profit and not the other way around.
Damn Sega! I wish you bought the rights to Homeworld. I would seriously rather have Homeworld 3 by Relic or no Homeworld 3 at all. That's like having someone else other than Valve make Half-Life 3.
Unless the "new owner" is actually Sega or a former Relic employee, I'm going to remain skeptical until a product is released.
Homeworld 1 and 2...amazing games. Have searched for similar games over the past 10 years and always end up going back to play the originals.
This can either end in something awesome, or more horrible than hell itself. If Homeworld 3 flops because the new devs didn't really put much care into it (or if they flat out ignore the series just cuz), I vote we march over their and peel their flesh off.
This was the best game series I ever played. Relic did very good job on everything, especcially I loved nice long interesting cinematics and superb music, it felt like playing movie/game at same time. I wish new publisher would hire Relic or a new developer would follow Relic style of making the Homeworld
Homeworld 3 yes please :) ... if it's as good as the two previous entries that is.
@ender707 Yeah. Unless this company happens to be run by a big Homeworld fan, we're not gonna see another. I got into the series too late, but HW2 was a fine game.
@sonicare if Blizzard can revive starcraft then Homeworld can be revived being that they where both great games and both are RTS. Success or failure totally depends on the next creators level of talent. Blizzard's (activision's) Diablo 3 team had no talent. and in my opinion they got by with starcraf 2.
Just as well as it did back then I imagine. None of the mechanics it introduced would be outdated today.
@AlphaWolF_J That's the tragedy. You start with only the mothership and have to buy all other ships if EA owned it. Buy missles, resources, etc.
@AlphaWolF_J Don't even joke about that. I've been waiting for Homeworld 3 for a long time now, and EA getting their hands on it would ruin my day.
Always on Homeworld? No thanks.
@MetalGinger
They tried: http://www.pcgamesn.com/update-paradox-and-stardock-lost-bid-homeworld-ip
I'm pretty sure that it was SEGA/Relic. And it could be that Relic has been developing HW3 in secret for years. Who knows... and we can hope.
@MetalGinger Stardock is working for Sins of a Solar Empire 2
@predailen or Rockstar, RS Vancouver studio made Cataclysm back when it was called Barking Dog studio.
@predailen It's not, nor can it be since Sega is now their parent company. If it's unannounced, you can immediately rule out Sega and Relic. Basically, the game franchise is probably dead.
Nervous breakdown commencing in...
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@tim1935
I disagree with this. Mainly because Team Pixel didn't really have a track record in game development.
I'm not saying Team Pixel (Kickstarter Team) didn't love the game but, when did loving something translate automatically into developing a great game.
@tim1935 I wasn't very confident in that campaign from the start. I hope, along with others posting here that Sega managed to grap the IP and let Relic back at it. Aside from former Relic devs I'd only like to see well established RTS devs work on it.
well to be fair you dont know who actually purchased it so it could turn out to be a good thing.
@wwlettsome That's because the only other game that's even somewhat like it is O-R-B. And even that is sub-par at best.
*Sigh* This is depressing news.
@strayfies @ender707 They claimed they where a huge fan of Aliens and look what happened. They are also claiming to be a huge fan of Relics Homeworld and Homeworld 2.
Its done! Its over. Just forget about it.
Waited so log for a new homeworld and now look at what we are going to get.
@jadaski1 It might not be something to joke about, but he probably isn't joking. EA is willing to get their destructive hands on almost any company they can milk into the ground and when the cow is useless they replace it with another one.
@Halloll @predailen RS Vancouver is dead, moved everyone to Toronto :(
@Halloll @predailen No . Not Rockstar , EA or UBISOFT .
@Kyere @predailen True but being unannounced does not rule out Sega or Relic. Sage could just be holding out to rise hype for a new Homeworld game, or I could be grasping at straws in intent to hope that this Franchise does not die.
@Kyere @wwlettsome Nexus: The Jupiter Incident while different, is pretty great.
@predailen @Kyere I don't think anybody wants Sega to make a game at this point. Not after hyping up a really crappy game just recently.