just imho hirez did not spend a lot to get the tribes IP it was a very modest upfront investment to get the IP - i am not speaking of how much they put into it to go somewhere with it.
perhaps hirez would now be willing to sell the IP for a slightly more modest amount if the approach were right.
remember i am not bugspray and i am not in project z - different bugs different schemes different projects
this is what i wanted to do 2 years ago, just kickstarter for money to buy the ip and then make it public under creative commons. i made a thread about this in gd
the thing is though that after looking up the hoovers.com yearly revenues for hirez and quote farming stuff about their plans to make a 2nd tribes ascend as well as how much they made off t:a (it wasn't a commercial failure but it also wasn't a super success like SMITE is) and after emailing their company a bunch of times its pretty clear these guys do not want to sell the IP at all