I'm bringing this up here because I have no idea where else to ask.

I recently purchased the game Evil Genius off Steam, and let me tell you that it's both incredibly rewarding and incredibly frustrating to actually play. I and much of the reviews I've read both agree that it could have been a truly incredible game if only a few things were changed or fleshed out more. That's when I got thinking about a sequel.

Unfortunately, Evil Genius was made back in 2004, and the company that made it, Elixir, has since dissolved. But would it be at all possible for a company to revive the series? Or any series, for that matter? How does one go about aquiring a dead license? Is it really so expensive for game companies to start new projects, even projects like Evil Genius where much of the framework is already there? I don't mean it has to be a series with a legacy like Diablo, but a minor game that could have been so much more. I also don't mean a straight up remake. I mean a sequel, like Diablo -> Diablo 2.

I'm going into the gaming field, so it's important for me to learn these things. Especially since I wrote about eight pages of ideas for Evil Genius 2 last night.

(\For those of you that don't feel like googling it, Evil Genius came out for the PC in 2004. It cast you as an evil genius from a 60s spy movie, and tasked you with creating an underground lair, managing minions and henchmen, dealing with agents sent to your island to cause trouble, and performing dastardly deeds like murdering the Beatles or Stealing the Eiffel Tower. The plusses were an incredible sense of style and beautiful graphics, and the satisfaction of having your own base running smoothly. The downsides were the amount of waiting you had to do, having very little control over your minions (scientists might run in a neat single-file line into a Marine's gun in their haste to repair a refrigerator), and the under-developed World Domination screen.

http://kotaku.com/5314708/rebellion-goes-bargain-shopping-picks-up-a-ton-of-great-old-ip