Making a business out of bringing games like System Shock back

- Night Dive Studios chief Stephen Kick tries to describe the joy he gets from cutting deals to republish old games, and how it's much akin to -- wait for it -- night dives at sea.

Hey, remember when Looking Glass Studios' classic game System Shock suddenly popped up on Steam last month? Did you wonder where it came from, or how it came to be put on sale again more than twenty years after its 1994 release?

If so you'll probably appreciate this Fast Company interview with the folks at Night Dive Studios about how the company makes a business out of buying the rights to old PC games, patching them to work on modern machines and putting them back on sale via platforms like Steam and GOG.

"Every day is filled with surprises," said Kick, a former character artist for Sony Online Entertainment (now Daybreak Games.) "Not all of them are great, but for the most part we've got our fingers everywhere . . . I'd say it's almost on a weekly basis that something will come through."

What's especially intriguing about Night Dive's M.O. is the way it's shifting away from just wrangling the rights to rerelease old games and towards broader rights-buying deals that may see the company developing new games using old IP -- including console ports, board games, and even new sequels to decades-old games.

For more comments on where the company is headed and how it got into the business of breathing new life into old games, check out the full interview over on Fast Company.