Ever since they acquired Relic at last week’s THQ bankruptcy auction, Sega has been very vocal with their excitement about working with the Warhammer 40,000 and Company of Heroes IPs. However, the publisher has remained conspicuously silent about any plans for the developer’s other well-loved license, Homeworld.
Since the rights to THQ’s sci-fi RTS epic could still be up in the air or possibly of little interest to Sega, an indie mobile developer by the name of TeamPixel is trying to see if they can obtain them. They are using the crowd-funding site Indiegogo to fund the project, which in the end is intended to bring Homeworld 1 and 2 to GOG.com, Steam, and iOS, and possibly even deliver a third entry in the series.
While asking for crowd-funding on the purchase of an IP seems more than a little risky, Teampixel’s “Save Homeworld” Indiegogo page pledges to refund contributions if they are unable to obtain the rights. However keep in mind that this is a “Flexible Funding Campaign,” so even if they don’t reach their final goal, they still get the money they raised.
Personally I don’t think Sega would forfeit a series with Homeworld‘s legacy. It was once a major player in the RTS genre, and even if it’s not at the front of the publisher’s consciousness at the moment it could certainly be a boon to bolstering their presence in the PC market. That said, I understand TeamPixel’s concern that Homeworld could get locked away forever, as Sega has a history of sitting on a promising licenses for eons, refusing to take a risk on a new game or at least sell it to someone who is… *COUGH*SHENMUE*COUGH*
[Source: Destructoid]
Totally used to play the demos for these over and over.