After Vivendi Games merged with Activision in 2008, Activision became the new owners of the King's Quest franchise. Subsequently, Activision revoked the non-commercial license agreement previously negotiated between Vivendi and Phoenix Online Studios. After several months of negotiations, Activision issued its own cease-and-desist to "The Silver Lining" team, requesting that they cease production and take down all related materials on the game website. On June 26, 2010, Phoenix Online Studios announced that Activision had changed its mind and decided to allow "The Silver Lining" to be released, which was agreed on condition of TSL remaining a free release and Activision still keeping the rights to all the content bearing resemblance to the original series.