It seems like it’s happening more and more: a grassroots following for a property brings that property back to life. It happened with Family Guy when DVD sales went through the roof and Fox took a second look at the show. Every science fiction fan in the world still refuses to get over the fact that there was never a full season of Firefly. There is a sense, now more than ever, that the hardcore fans out in the big wide world can affect what gets released and what doesn’t. Some Firefly fans like to think that their love for the series helped make the movie Serenity happen. After a long wait and absolute lack of hope, it seems as if that’s happened with Uru Live, the Cyan-developed online version of Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. The studio crushed the hopes of longtime fans when they announced they were canning the project, but with a company as big as UbiSoft, you simply have to be able to shift enough units of a game for it make financial sense to release it.

In the time since the game’s cancellation a rabid online following developed. There was an Uru section of Second Life, the game was kept running on private servers, and the fans just refused to give up the ghost. This attracted GameTap, of all people, who will now be releasing the gameon their service.

"One of the reasons we were so attracted to ’Uru Live’ for GameTap is that it had this persistent group that kept it alive during the dark days of it not being a product," said Ricardo Sanchez, GameTap’s vice president of content. "There’s a community that would love to see it brought back."

With GameTap’s online infrastructure already in place it will be much easier for them to release the product as a direct download and profit with less units sold. It’s a great case of a company using their resources in unexpected ways and giving the gaming community something they want. It also makes a good case for digital distribution as a viable way of bringing back franchises with a dedicated user base that doesn’t have to be a mass-market hit.

This is great news for everyone involved, and should really make GameTap more popular in the eyes of many gamers.