I've asked about this before (not here) but never really got a answer, is it a massive licencing nightmare? Can't they just pay a cut of the profits to the publishers or is the problem that some of them don't exist anymore? I think its pretty complicated tbh, would like to hear others thoughts on it if they know more.
In some cases, you're right. It's as simple as paying a cut of the profits and hoping the publisher agrees to let you re-release it without taking too big a cut.
Your Spyro and Crash Bandicoots are almost certainly completely locked down by Activision, not least because they've had very recent remakes and were already released.
But take something a little more confusing. Let's pick the first Discworld game as a fun thought experiment.
Note: I don't know who currently holds the rights to this game. I'd love to know if anybody has any idea.
Discworld, based on the work author Terry Pratchett, was made by Psygnosis, which became Sony Studio Liverpool. It had Eric Idle in it, along with Rob Brydon, Tony Richardson, Nigel Planer and a host of other big British comedy names.
To re-release that on PS4, even without any changes, you would need to find out whether the rights reverted to Terry Pratchett*, or are they owned by Sony? The developers don't exist anymore - was there some kind of clause in the contract about that? Who knows? Do the contracts even still exist?
Is the code owned by the person who wrote it, by the rights holder? What about the music? What about the art?
Let's say the artist is just excited to know their work is being shown again and signs off on it, but the guy who wrote all the music wants a big payday. That could potentially outweigh any potential income.
But let's presume a best-case scenario. Everybody who can sign off on it, does sign off on it. Sony has permission to release the game digitally.
But back in the days of PS1, there was zero futureproofing. There was no clause saying that Eric Idle's voice work was owned by the rights holder indefinitely. You would get away with letting people play their PS1 discs on PS4, but reselling it? Eric Idle would, rightly so, expect to be paid again for his work.
Rob Brydon did a ton of work on that game, and in the time since has become a household name. Hell, he'd be a selling point now more than some of the others. What did his contract say originally and will he need to be paid more again?
At this point, you're into serious change just to get this game on the store. And will people buy it? For Discworld? It's a great game and I'd love to play it again on console, but I'd say not. Anybody who would want to play it has it on PC, can emulate it or has long forgotten it.
So long as the contracts still exist, the rights holders play ball and you have unlimited funds, all of this can be solved. But on a case by case basis, you're almost always going to come out at a loss.
As someone who cares deeply about preservation of media, I think it's money worth spending and work worth doing. But at this point, a faithful remake, possibly using machine learning, would be about as difficult and would make a bigger splash.
*Terry Pratchett has since died, obviously. What is dealing with his estate like? In his case, I think it'd probably be fairly easy. It's run by his daughter and his trusted assistant, but what if they DO own the rights and disagree about the quality of the games? It's another potential hurdle that you wouldn't find out about until you were already neck-deep in the project.
