Author: Albert Silver
Date: 20:47:27 08/16/02
Go up one level in this thread
On August 16, 2002 at 19:53:47, John Merlino wrote:
>On August 16, 2002 at 19:05:09, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>
>>On August 16, 2002 at 15:38:13, John Merlino wrote:
>>
>>>On August 16, 2002 at 15:21:55, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>>>
>>>>On August 16, 2002 at 11:53:23, John Merlino wrote:
>>>>
>>>>the spirit of the argument is that if it would have worked for
>>>>NT 4.0 it would work for 2000/xp too!!
>>>>
>>>>obviously we're not personally blaming you. ubisoft wasn't owning
>>>>CM yet when 6000 was released, were they?
>>>
>>>No, they were not the owners. Nor were the people who Ubi Soft bought it from
>>>(Gores Technology group), nor were the people that THEY bought it from (Mattel
>>>Interactive).
>>>
>>>At that time Chessmaster was owned by The Learning Company and was released as a
>>>Mindscape product. This was almost exactly four years ago.
>>
>>Wow, that sounds real weird. Buying a product from someone who doesn't
>>own the rights on it. What happened that in the end ubisoft DID get the
>>rights?
>
>All of the owners mentioned above had the rights to the program at the time they
>owned it. I'm sorry if I made it sound confusing (or, rather, more confusing
>than it already is). The Chessmaster product line is just one of many that were
>sold when the above companies were sold. Here's the complete timeline:
>
>The Software Toolworks were the original owners of Chessmaster, first published
>in 1986. The Software Toolworks bought Mindscape around 1991 and shortly
>thereafter changed their name to Mindscape.
>
>Pearson PLC (a British publising congolmerate) bought Mindscape around 1993.
>They owned many companies, so Mindscape was still a separate entity, wholly
>owned by Pearson.
>
>Mindscape was then sold by Pearson to The Learning Company around 1995. The
>Learning Company was based in Massachusetts and specialized in educational and
>edutainment software.
>
>The Learning Company was bought by Mattel in 1998 and renamed to Mattel
>Interactive (we actually merged with Mattel's software division). We've all
>heard of Mattel, and their software division was riding high on huge Barbie game
>sales. However, the executives of The Learning Company did an excellent job of
>hiding how badly their company was doing overall, and less than a year later
>Mattel Interactive was losing $1 million per day. Mattel's CEO, Jill Barad,
>resigned less than 18 months later. From then on, Mattel tried desperately to
>find a buyer for Mattel Interactive.
>
>In late 2000, Mattel Interactive was sold to Gores Technologies Group (an
>American holding company that specialized in turning around financially troubled
>companies, sometimes selling them, sometimes keeping them). The price was, for
>all intents and purposes, "free". Actually, no cash was exchanged up front, but
>I believe quite a bit of money in "future considerations" eventually traded
>hands -- I really do not know.
>
>A few months later, after laying off a large amount of employees and cancelling
>many projects that were currently in development, Gores DID turn us around. They
>then sold us to Ubi Soft. The only internal development team that remained was
>Chessmaster -- all other developers were laid off.
Congratulations on making the squeeze on every turn. No mean feat that.
Albert
>
>The rights to Chessmaster went along with every sale.
>
>jm
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