›

Winslow's Legal Status?

RAnthonyMahanRAnthonyMahan
edited April 2013 in Poker Night at the Inventory / Poker Night 2
This is a really minor issue, but it's kind of bugging me, so I figured I'd bring it up.

In the first Poker Night, while it was pretty obvious, Winslow's identity was never explicitly stated (even in the credits he was just called "The Host"). I assumed this was because, since the Monkey Island series (Tales included) was owned by LucasArts, Telltale didn't have the right to use any characters without their permission, leading to an original character that heavily resembles but is legally distinct from Winslow. ;) Then again, I'm not a lawyer, so I could very well be wrong about this.

Anyway, I was pretty surprised to hear Winslow introduce himself by name in Poker Night 2, since it proves that theory wrong.

So...what's the deal? Has Telltale been allowed to use him this whole time? Is Poker Night Winslow officially still a separate character that just happens to have the same appearance, voice, and name as Monkey Island Winslow?(Ah, loopholes.) Or, if I can let the wishful thinking kick in, did Telltale get the Monkey Island license back?

Comments

  • SN202SN202
    edited April 2013
    They probably just had their guys talk with disney, like "hey yo can we use winslow?" and they were like "Yeah sure whatever" .
  • ScnewScnew
    edited April 2013
    I'm going to guess Telltale had the rights to him all along. I sincerely doubt they'd get the Monkey Island license without it being big news.
  • Rather DashingRather Dashing
    edited April 2013
    I'm pretty sure the last time something was said about it(I think around the time the first Poker Night happened) was that Telltale owned the characters that they made for Tales, and could use them in non-Tales things.
  • HudomonkeyHudomonkey
    edited April 2013
    It makes sense that Telltale own Winslow as how isn't part of Monkey Island as a Franchise and is instead part of their game so I guess he is their character
  • furrykeffurrykef
    edited April 2013
    Hudomonkey wrote: »
    It makes sense that Telltale own Winslow as how isn't part of Monkey Island as a Franchise and is instead part of their game so I guess he is their character
    Licensing agreements don't always work that way. One counterexample I can think of is that Sega owns Princess Sally even though she originally appeared in a Sonic cartoon created by DiC. Granted, this is probably an unusual case -- Sega was strongly considering using her in the Sonic games at one time, so most likely they bought her at that point.
Sign in to comment in this discussion.