One of the frightning and very real prospects of Corrosion’s future is that Microsoft will start sending cease and desist orders, much like they did with shadowrunonline.com, which was a fan-based project to make a Shadowrun-based, full fledged MMO. Why would Microsoft do such a thing? In 1980 FASA Corporation was founded by Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock. They started developing different gaming related things, including Shadowrun and Battletech. Eventually, this lead to them founding FASA Interactive, a division that dealt exclusively with the development of computer games based on FASA intellectual property. They went on to make the very popular game franchise Mechwarrior. From what I understand, in 1999 Microsoft purchased FASA Interactive and all the rights to their digital IP, including the rights to produce Shadowrun computer games, exclusively. So when shadowrunonline.com was being made, they felt it infringe on their IP and the same could happen to Corrosion.
However, there’s been different online Shadowrun games over time, like Awakened Worlds, an online Shadowrun MUD which has been around since forever and they don’t seem to bother Microsoft, perhaps because they don’t deem this to be cannabalising their market. Hopefully they’ll think the same of a browser game. I guess we just continue until we receive cease and desist orders from them. We don’t intend to infringe upon the Shadowrun IP (which is partly the reason why we chose to use the out-dated SR3 rules set) nor the digital IP, actually, we’re hoping to promote it!
