Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

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Ngruk_foh

shitlord
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Neric said:
I hope you have considered picking up this engine:Project Offset - Main

Haven"t followed the development lately, but it made a huge impression on me a while ago. Rumors are, there is a leaked video on youtube
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One of the pre-reqs of picking an engine, or more than one engine, is the companies that have made or are making said engines to literally be "at our beckoned call".

I am not talking specifically about PO, but they are certainly one of the companies that taught me a few things.

When you are dealing with a company licensing tech, and also using that same tech to make their own product you can enter into a situation that might be good an well at the outset, but the potential for disaster comes right along with it.

PO is making a kick ass game from everything I have seen. During the production of that game PO has commitments to be met to make this game.

Any company finding themselves in that situation HAS to take care of internal business first and foremost, as they should.

However entering into a partnership with a company doing this means you are not the priority when it comes to the software and building, maintaining, supporting it.

We are talking about a multi-million dollar purchase in some cases. Money aside the decision you make here is still one of the most, if not the most, important one you"ll make for a product. If you aren"t 100% sure that the company creating the software is able to support the product in your studio, 24/7, do you take that risk?

I don"t.

One more. We worked hard with a company during this process. Thought we were into some real cool stuff. As we near potential completion of a deal we"re at one final roadblock. We need our techs to look at some very key pieces of code to know if what we want it for and what we intend to do with it, is actually possible.

We were told no. You cannot have access to the code, nor see it, until you"ve purchased it.....

Huh?
 
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Aamina_foh

shitlord
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Ngruk said:
..."at our beckoned call". ..

...We need our techs to look at some very key pieces of code to know if what we want it for and what we intend to do with it, is actually possible.

We were told no. You cannot have access to the code, nor see it, until you"ve purchased it.....

Huh?
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Maybe that"s cause they were "at our beckoned call" instead of "at our beck and call".

But seriously, it sounds like making a game entails much more than Timmy Power Gamer ever envisions. You gotta shovel a lot of crap to get anything done, and anyone who is successful in the game industry, I respect, because there sure aren"t a ton of ways to do it while kicking back.

And freak, if someone won"t show you anything, tell them to go fly a kite. If you need some key specifications and they can make or break a game, and someone says too bad, buy it first, then someone obviously doesn"t want their engine purchased.
 
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gnomad_foh

shitlord
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Aamina said:
Maybe that"s cause they were "at our beckoned call" instead of "at our beck and call".

But seriously, it sounds like making a game entails much more than Timmy Power Gamer ever envisions. You gotta shovel a lot of crap to get anything done, and anyone who is successful in the game industry, I respect, because there sure aren"t a ton of ways to do it while kicking back.

And freak, if someone won"t show you anything, tell them to go fly a kite. If you need some key specifications and they can make or break a game, and someone says too bad, buy it first, then someone obviously doesn"t want their engine purchased.
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Wow all the software business experts coming out of the woodwork.

You really think that companies let you see their source code that they hold copyright on unless you license it? BWAHAHAHA....Tell that to IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Symantec, etc...hell good luck even if you license it...of course Johnny Flynightly game engine writer may operate differently. Maybe that is why there are so many shitty games out there with horrid frame rates, you think?

Good luck Kurt seeing code without a commitment. Wish you luck with your continuing project with that type of an attitude.

BTW don"t call any fortune 1000 companies for help with that type of an attitude, they would laugh you out of the office
 
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Ngruk_foh

shitlord
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gnomad said:
Wow all the software business experts coming out of the woodwork.

You really think that companies let you see their source code that they hold copyright on unless you license it? BWAHAHAHA....Tell that to IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Symantec, etc...hell good luck even if you license it...of course Johnny Flynightly game engine writer may operate differently. Maybe that is why there are so many shitty games out there with horrid frame rates, you think?

Good luck Kurt seeing code without a commitment. Wish you luck with your continuing project with that type of an attitude.

BTW don"t call any fortune 1000 companies for help with that type of an attitude, they would laugh you out of the office
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My guess would be that you are shortsighted, or are not in the industry. Given that this is the first company that refused us access to their code to complete a deal.

When having your techs root through the last parts of code to insure what you are buying is what you are buying, stops a deal, that tells me something.

Here, let me sell you this car.
Can I look under the hood?
Sure, after you buy it. You can drive it, and disregard the pings and stuff, it"s what you are asking for.
But I want to look under the hood before I buy it, to make sure it"s running right and what I am looking for....
Sorry, no can do.
But the other dealer let me look under their hood, before I was going to buy their car.
Cool, but you can"t see under our hood until it"s paid in full.......

Is it "beck and call"? I always thought it was one word, "beckoned". Dang!
 
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Ukerric_foh

shitlord
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gnomad said:
You really think that companies let you see their source code that they hold copyright on unless you license it? BWAHAHAHA....
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That"s what those nice little contracts called "NDA" are for. No, I don"t mean the click-thru version you skimmed during your last MMO beta, I mean the big folder of papers that you sign on each and every page.

Tell that to IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Symantec, etc...hell good luck even if you license it...
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Apple and Oranges. For all those things, you purchase servers and external products. And yes, you"re going to get evaluation versions to see if they do what you want, and all that. For a game engine, you purchase source code. And you want an evaluation version of what you purchase, meaning... the source code.

The equivalence would be IBM, Microsoft and Oracle refusing to put evaluation versions of their corporate products unless you pay an Enterprise License first. Want to evaluate SQL Server? Sorry sir, No Can Do (last time I checked, I could get a 180 days trial version with all features, with relatively little hassle).

The "you can"t see the code until you pay" is fishy. No one is going to steal your code: most of what you pay in a license engine is support for the code, training for your developpers, explaining why this features bugs with NVidia latest card under DX10. You know, the 24/7 they say they wanted. You can"t steal that. And doing without it is probably going to cost you as much as the license would have - after all, that"s the goal of licensing a game engine, freeing your developpers from the hassles. If the middleware company is still afraid of people stealing their code, they don"t understand their own market, which is a strike against them.
 
Rangoth

Rangoth

Blackwing Lair Raider
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gnomad said:
Wow all the software business experts coming out of the woodwork.

You really think that companies let you see their source code that they hold copyright on unless you license it? BWAHAHAHA....Tell that to IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Symantec, etc...hell good luck even if you license it...of course Johnny Flynightly game engine writer may operate differently. Maybe that is why there are so many shitty games out there with horrid frame rates, you think?

Good luck Kurt seeing code without a commitment. Wish you luck with your continuing project with that type of an attitude.

BTW don"t call any fortune 1000 companies for help with that type of an attitude, they would laugh you out of the office
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What everyone else said man. You must not be in the industry at all. I am not in the "game" industry, but software. And it is very common for this sort of thing when you buy a solution of some kind. And yes, there are huge NDA"s you sign when you view/buy/talk to people about certain products and topics. My company has people sign them, and almost every client I work with except "the little guy" has me sign them before I can do anything other than shake a hand when I get on-site.

As Curt said, you are spending thousands(in this case he may have hinted millions) for something you are damn well going to inspect it first. This isn"t ordering a movie from amazon.
 
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Cowbell_foh

shitlord
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Curt, and I mean this in the most respectful way possible, but set aside any ego you may have about setting up an MMO since it will be your first, and hire Scott ASAP. It would be the smartest thing you could ever do.
 
tyen

tyen

EQ in a browser wait time: ____
<Banned>
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I foresee a new Screenshots poll:

If you were a woman whose baby would you carry: Brad Pitt or Scott Hartsman
 
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