LucasArts issued a simple yet conclusive statement announcing the cancellation of Sam and Max 2 : Freelance Police. "After careful evaluation of current market place realities and underlying economic considerations, we've decided that this was not the appropriate time to launch a graphic adventure on the PC" said Mike Nelson, Acting General Manager and VP of Finance and Operations.
As you may be able to read in the statement the reason behind the axing of the sequel is not the quality of the game or some problem in its development but financial considerations and estimates regarding the market. Basically LucasArts don't believe that there is a market out there for adventures games. In most cases such a conclusive statement would be enough to end any discussion on a sequel but Sam and Max are not ready to give up just yet.
The original game, described by many as one of the best adventure games ever, has created a large fanbase which is proving itself to be quite devoted too. Thousands of fans have started signing an online petition, in fact in just over 24 hours they already have over 2,000 signees.
Although, typically, petitions about cancellations are ignored it would be interesting to see how LucasArts will react to this one. If enough people sign-up the petition would immediately prove LucasArts' main argument for the cancellation as invalid. So if you are a fan of the original or just looking forward to an adventure game, then sign-up and prove to LucasArts that there still is a market for Sam and Max out there.
You can find the online petition at www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?LACOSAM&1
