In case you missed it, the Commodore computer brand has been bought again, this time by a YouTuber. You can watch the whole bizarre thing here if you want. I saw some people on social media being excited about this I’m not even sure what you can do with what he bought. He got a bunch of trademarks and some people from the original run of Commodore as advisors, with the argument that if you get all this stuff, it does become the original company again and does it? Unless you can jump back in time and start manufacturing computers in a world where most people don’t have them, I still don’t see the point of what any of this is other than the opportunity to be an IP landlord. They spent all their money buying the brand so there isn’t really anything left to actually do something with it. But I guess this is the kind of thing the retro gaming community loves to get excited about, the tiniest possibility that a brand will continue to have its name on things. It doesn’t matter that it won’t be anything people actually want, it will still be alive. I guess this is why a lot of adventure game folks were willing to cheer on the acquisition of Activision by Microsoft. Didn’t matter how much of a disaster it would be, maybe Microsoft would be more willing to do something with old Sierra and Infocom properties (they aren’t).

It’s also just hard to get excited about that announcement when it’s filled with AI generated slop and the inclusion of disgraced actor and repeated sexual harasser Thomas Middleditch as an investor and member of the board. I would simply not include an incredibly problematic in my announcement video or let them have anything to do with my company!

My dream scenario that will probably never happen is that the retro gaming community buys the rights to obscure things that aren’t available today and have very little financial value, and makes them public domain instead of being IP landlords. Why aren’t we pooling our money together to buy the rights to Dot Gobbler and Pyst? They belong to the people.