10 Real Reasons Why Popular Video Games Died Overnight
2. Friday The 13th: The Game - Lawsuits Killed Development
Adding a new game to the Friday the 13th franchise seemed at first a fun idea, but after releasing the game in 2017 its team entered into some unexpected legal trouble.
In 2018, Gun Media, the game’s publisher, announced that all development of the game was being cancelled because of a copyright dispute over the IP. Friday the 13th’s original screenwriter, Victor Miller, put in a copyright claim against it, trying to claim ownership of the IP over the current owner Sean Cunningham.
Because the lawsuit is ongoing in determining the true owner of the IP, the game cannot release any new content.
"We can’t add any content, whatsoever. Nada. Not even a new tree or rock. We can only focus on console dedicated servers, bug fixes, and maintenance." - Gun Media Founder, Wes Keltner
Before the lawsuit became an issue the game was set to continue releasing new content and drawing in more players; however because of the legal complications they became restricted just to fixing bugs and server issues, leaving everything else untouched.
With the developers unable to keep the game growing and moving, fans lost interest and usership took a dive - unfortunately meaning that Jason Voorhees’ ultimate death was at the hands of the slow US legal system.