Jagged Alliance (series) - Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property

The Intellectual Property (IP) for Jagged Alliance has been exchanged between many companies. The series and IP were created by Mad Labs Software, who later became a part of the publisher for the first game, Sir-Tech Software, Inc., along with a transfer of IP. The second game, Jagged Alliance 2, was also started by Sir-Tech. When Sir-tech's publishing arm went bankrupt, the game rights were transferred to its development house Sir-Tech Canada, and published by TalonSoft. By the time Jagged Alliance 2: Unfinished Business was released, Sir-Tech's publishing arm was out of business and the game was released by Interplay. Subsequently, Talonsoft went bankrupt. At the moment, Strategy First owns the IP and has published Jagged Alliance: Wildfire. Strategy First made several attempts to extend the series with Jagged Alliance 3D and Jagged Alliance 3, both of which never saw the light of day. Strategy First was acquired by Silverstar Holdings, which then ran into financial problems and was delisted by NASDAQ. It is unclear what effect this will have on future games using the Jagged Alliance IP, though in the final SEC filing before being delisted Silverstar stated that it had reached a settlement of some issues with Russian-based Akella: "Akella and 3A Entertainment have the option to acquire certain intellectual property rights for the Jagged Alliance and Disciples franchises for an additional $100,000."

The first four Jagged Alliance games were developed by Mad Labs, based in Ottawa, Ontario, which was Ian and Linda Currie plus a few other artists and programmers. Ian and Linda Currie were the lead designers on the Jagged Alliance series. Mad Labs was later renamed Sir-Tech Canada, but the company shut down in late 2003. One other notable game Sir-Tech Canada created was Wizardry 8.