Remember Area 51? No, not that Area 51. I’m talking about the game from Midway. No, not the light gun game. I’m talking about the 2005 remake that had boasted the likes of David Duchovny, Marilyn Manson, Powers Boothe, Nolan North and Ian Abercrombie. That had a 2007 sequel, Area 51: BlackSite, that didn’t exactly do so well. So much so, that the game’s director, Harvey Smith, had quit over the game’s development.
So why are we telling you this? Well, BlackSite is actually getting a Steam release. Or was, until it came out that MB Publishing (who had uploaded the game to Steam) confessed that this was done without the permission of Warner Brothers, who still hold the rights to the game after absorbing Midway back in 2009.
It’s all a strange tale, but this all started when BlackSite appeared on Steam with next to nothing in terms of promotion, and now the page is gone. Digging into Discord logs, a Steam group investigated the publisher, who revealed that this was all done for a quick buck. The reasoning? No one had ever attempted to do this before, and so they were “curious” to see if it would work.
It’s all sad, since the reboot of the Area 51 franchise, flawed as it might be, could’ve led to some cool premises for games. In the end, we have that game, a troubled sequel that was disowned by the director, and a huckster trying to cash in on fans’ feelings.
source https://bloody-disgusting.com/video-games/3626926/recently-announced-area-51-blacksite-steam-listing-fraudulent-title-no-longer-steam/
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