Dispute ensues over rights to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise

BitComposer Games, the publisher of open world action game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat in Europe and the U.S., today claimed that it has acquired the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. license, and plans to release new games in the franchise. The future of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series has been unclear for some time, since reports surfaced around a year ago that developer GSC Game World was closing down. With this acquisition, the Eschborn-based BitComposer says that it now has the exclusive worldwide rights to future video game adaptations of the brand. A statement from BitComposer notes, "So far, the three titles in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series have been released exclusively for Windows PC." Wolfgang Duhr, member of the BitComposer Entertainment AG executive board, noted, "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a reputable brand with a long history of success. Naturally, we'd like to tap into the success of this series, and we see a great deal of potential for the future." The company also noted that Boris Natanovich Strugatsky, one of two brothers behind the original Roadside Picnic novel series, on which S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is based, passed away on November 19, 2012. All other rights outside of video game adaptations remain with the Strugatsky brothers, says BitComposer. This is the second international license that BitComposer has acquired in recent years, as the company grabbed the Jagged Alliance license back in 2010. [Update:: Following confusion regarding whether BitComposer owns the video game rights to S.T.A.L.K.E.R., or whether GSC Game World's Sergiy Grygorovich owns it, a spokesperson for BitComposer has told Gamasutra that it is the sole owner of the license. "We hold the license for PC and video games from the Strugatsky brothers," he said. He reiterated, "The owner of the license was the Strugatsky brothers. As far as we know, GSC never had the license for S.T.A.L.K.E.R." Update 2: Sergey Galyonkin, director of marketing at Russian games company Nival, has suggested that BitComposer has in fact bought the rights to the original Roadside Picnic universe, and the Stalker license that comes from those books, rather than the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. movie and video game franchise. It's still not 100 percent clear whether this is the case, as BitComposer is adamant that it has bought the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. license. Gamasutra has contacted GSC Game World associates for confirmation. Update 3: Eugene Kuchma, who works in sales and marketing for GSC Game World, told Gamasutra in an email that -- as trademark filings show -- BitComposer does not own the right to make S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video games. Kuchma's email in full reads: "In view of the rumors appearing in press, we find it necessary to inform that GSC Game World and Sergey Grigorovich [GSC CEO] remain to be the sole owners of all the intellectual property rights to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game series and the brand overall, including all the trademarks, the game universe, the technology etc. This can be easily verified with the trademark services online. "From time to time news on the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. brand purchase by this or that company appear over the Internet. We relate such a keen interest in the brand to its exceptional popularity. Even the purchase of rights to create a a€œRoadside picnica€ book-based game by a small publisher is presented as the continuation of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise. We have doubts regarding the mentioned product by BitComposer (the publisher of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat in some territories), since the latter has significant debts in terms of fulfilling the obligations under the existing contract between our companies.]