A question of sorts for us to talk about...  Since I am considering a project on it.

What would happen if someone were to take a game they really love and develop it into a fictional story to read?  (I'm talking to publish, not fan fiction.)  I would imagine that the game company would have some propietary rights to it and one could even be sued.  I wonder to what extent they would pursue smething like this to a game that has been out of production for 5-10 years.

Any thoughts or comments?

Someone would own the rights to all of the video game characters.  It could be the video game company, it could be someone else.

But such a novelization without permission would put you at risk of a lawsuit.  They probably wouldn't ever even know unless it was really successful, though.

I wouldn't even touch into that. Lawsuit wrote all over it. Plus companys (like Nintendo) have people where the sole job is to look for that. But if you do it I'll buy one!