Over the last week, much has been written about the upcoming James Pond Legacy: The Pond is Not Enough. A compilation of older James Bond games “updated” to modern standards, developer System 3 has been under fire for allegedly utilizing AI generated assets to complete the collection. While I’m undecided on if the key art is AI or just really awful looking, James Pond creator Chris Sorrell had some choice words for the businessmen behind the game: “I hope they choke on an AI-generated fishbone.”
As reported by Time Extension, Sorrell asserts that he wasn’t involved or consulted in any fashion during the creation of this new remaster collection. “I’m sure it won’t shock you to hear that I was in no way consulted or involved with this ‘legacy’ collection,” he told the outlet. “For that to have happened there would have to have been someone with at least a scrap of respect for James Pond involved, when clearly, as their every action demonstrates, that’s very far from the case.” He then lamented the “ongoing rape-and-pillage of James Pond” before saying he wasn’t too shocked that System 3 would stoop to utilizing GenAI.
How did Sorrell come to be excluded from any future James Pond projects? As is always the case, it has to do with corporate mergers and buyouts. The rights to James Pond were purchased by Millennium Interactive years ago before Sony acquired the company in 1997. The development arm of Millennium, CyberLife Technology, retained character rights, but when that company was sold to Gameware Europe in 2003, the trademark then shifted to a split agreement between Gameware and current developer System 3. As such, Sorrell is unable to do anything about new games or compilations.
In a fuller statement, he told Time Extension:
“I guess it does make me a little sad to see that this James Pond collection is happening. I mean, as a developer, I would love to take pride in having just a few people fondly remembering my work 30+ years later.
Seeing it properly celebrated in an artfully produced ‘museum’ format would be an outstanding honour. Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story springs to mind as an excellent example of a deserving body of work and its creator being treated with the respect they deserve.
But no, all we have here is a giant reminder of how soulless businessmen have been exploiting a brand for decades, have zero respect for anyone who made the original games, and prefer to use garbage AI over paying developers for any new material. So, yeah, I wish them the worst – I hope they choke on an AI-generated fishbone.”
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
