Argentum MODS legal stuff

[Malmer]

k, thought you wrote other things there aswell...

[Jaybot]

Man, I still want my free taco from Taco Bell.

[CARPEDIEM]

well, i haven't received any mails yet, send it to carpediem@velocom.com.ar<br>we've talked about this issue just a minute ago so i'll be able to tell you officially how things will be.<br>

[Malmer]

Apart from that I consider this thread closed. We'll reveal all the details when we release. The sollution we've came up with will probably make everyone happy. Including Randall.<br><br>Be well.<br><br>Fredrik.<br><br>Oh, I've released a bug minor update of skinion.

[randall]

so am I going to be privy to the information when Carpe and I finally connect? And with whom am I allowed to share this information with?

[randall]

I forgot to mention that I sent a new email to Carpediem. I sent the other one to the Ionside address.

[Jaybot]

Um, I have no comment yet, because I still have not recieved my free Taco from Taco Bell.  Speaking of Tacos...<br><br>Dan, what do you think about this whole modding business?  Seeing as you ported a title by Id software, who deal with a lot of mods, you'd seem to know the business pretty well.<br><br>Man, I'm hungry again...

[Dan East]

I wrote this a few days ago, and decided not to post it, then to post it, then, well, whatever. Here it is. <br><br>I don't do mods, so this doesn't directly pertain to me. However, I thought I might add my 2 cents in. First off, the backlash from your "you wanna get paid for a mod, then we must get paid" stance is already being felt. You've got people tripping all over themselves to be loyal to a product that hasn't even been released yet. Exhibiting the attitude that you want to make a buck coming and going with an iron fist (ala Micro$oft, Nintendo, etc) does not portrait the best face to the Pocket PC community, and will (has) put a bitter taste into some of your potential customers’ mouths. That's certainly true for those who were going to exhibit the ultimate support for your product by creating new levels.<br><br>Most importantly, legally, you don't really have any ground to stand on in the area of “mods must be freeware or else”. If a mod is comprised of 100% new content (which of course is the requirement to be able to sell mods for id Software titles like Quake), then there is nothing you can do to restrict someone else's work, even if it “happens” to be a chunk of data the Argentum engine can use. Of course when I say 100% content, I'm talking about the AI, binaries, images, etc, that are embedded in the mod pak. That’s also assuming that you aren’t “ionice’ing” or otherwise processing / building mods for the authors.  In addition, to be safe, the author should not even use the word “Argentum”, or any part of the Argentum story line if they wish to create a commercial mod (per my dialog with id Software).  Now if your datafiles contain some algorithm you invented and hold a US patent to, then you can regulate that (for example, Compuserve’s GIF algorithm, Nintendo’s NES cartridge format, etc). I'm sure Argentum hasn't generated any patents, so you can't regulate it in that way.  Now, regardless of anything I’ve said to this point, if you litigate, you lose, regardless of the court’s outcome. Of course I’m not talking about warez here, but releasing commercial mods. You might, by a miracle, be able to win litigation against someone for misusing your product. However that litigation would be against someone using a mod, not the mod’s author / seller. Prosecuting your paying customers would be an incredibly stupid thing to do (obviously). Even trying to prosecute someone who is selling their mod would be a stupid thing to do. The Pocket PC community is very informed and close-knit (certainly true for those that actually go online and buy Pocket PC software). Word of such litigation would quickly spread, and the word 'Ionside' would be forever tainted.  Further, the “Iron Fist control” mentality I keep talking about would give hackers some sense of misguided purpose or cause to their warez actions as well.<br><br>Finally, I don’t see how you “lose” money by not getting a cut if someone else sells a mod your company didn’t work on at all. I certainly don’t see how you can say that someone is stealing your cut from writing Argentum.  Using that logic, you would “lose” far more money if the mod was never written in the first place.  I think it likely that any commercial 3rd party mods would be fresh and of a totally different genre than what Ionside offers.  That would likely prompt people to buy Argentum that never would have otherwise.  Also, the “any press is good press” would definitely apply here.<br> <br>You need to let loose on the reigns just enough to allow room for Argentum to grow beyond would you can manufacture, produce or cajole by forcing (attempting) absolute control.<br> <br>Again, I don't make mods. I'm just providing you with an opinion from someone outside your company, who doesn't stand to make or loose a buck no matter what bad decisions are made.  If I had ill will toward Ionside, then I wouldn’t be saying anything now, but wait and put you down after the fact. But of course I’m not that type of person in the first place.. Again, again, I know Carp and Fredrick are generous people. Carp gave Pocket Quake to thousands of MIPS users, and Fredrick gave the whole community Weeboo, so I want to see you guys get your due reward (me too!), and I think you will reap more with a more lenient stance with Argentum.<br><br>Dan East

[TBone]

To add to what Dan's saying, I think the best comparison would be Half-Life. Is it a great engine? Not really. It's nice, but nothing fantastic. Is the mod structure itself great? Probably not any better than Quake 3 or Unreal. In fact, requiring real C++ and therefore a real compiler is probably a turn-off for a lot of developers. So what's the appeal? Simple: from the very start, Valve has actively encouraged Mods, and has refused to take action against anyone. They're generally very cooperative, to the point of sometimes opening up their code to modders with problems due therein. <br><br>The point is that Half-Life still tops or comes close to the top game played over the net, one of the best measures of its popularity I can think of. Check gamespy.com any time, and HL usually is the most popular title online. It's all about the mods, and those mods have probably sold more copies of the retail game than anything else. Popularity is all about the mods: let them free, and your title will last many, many times what it would otherwise.

[Weaaddar]

looking around at the q3a community you do see a great deal of mods and good ones at that, but what I'd like to see is more starcraft like mods or have them incorporated. Like a super mapeditor built in allowing you to change weapon and having a bizzilion and one upgrades if possible, and the ability to do trigger maps..wouldn't it be cool to have an Dbz rpg using the argentuim engine on your pda now this maybe a bit offtopic but will there be multiplayer? Cuz if it is if you could support a battle.net like a server you would really change the pda gamming community.<br>I think I have a solution to the mod problem make the mods like expansion packs you must own the original game to use the mods, so if you want that warcraft mod you gota own argentum. I also think your wrong that no one is gonna make a mod for argentum for free, if the coding program is well friendly enough, people will be more then willing to make mods, look at infoceptor's starcraft-> warcraft mod jeeze that practicly converted the whole game, and they got sounds and voice over, and the price only the time it takes to download 28.9 megs. Also alot of Q3 mods are exceptional look at bidforpower.com notice the price free! , and artofwar turning q3 into a stradegy game!!! (planetquake.com/artofwar) another way to keep the community lively keep updating it regularly, strangly it works for starcraft as soon as 1.08 was released they were a sudden burst in sales and it arose to number 9 in top selling pc games (for a 4 year old game thats not bad)

[suchiaruzu]

Uhm, the "You-cant-play-a-mod-without-owning-the-game"-thing wasnt worth discussion, as they are MODS. We're not speaking about Tomb Raider, where every single Mission CD runs without the original game and gets its own number.<br>And I think there should be some professional MODs. I dont really think there will be 5 meg mods (or there will be, but they are 1)ugly 2)stupid 3)not interesting). Think of HalfLife and CounterStrike. They did a great MOD, but 1 of 100 people in the world owns a PC. How many own a PPC? 1 of 10000? 1 of 1000000? The audience and the community are larger.<br>I rather want one or two professional MODs for 5-10 bucks than 20 shitty ones. How about you?

[Dan East]

Certainly you would have to buy Argentum to be able to play mods. Also, the issue wasn't whether all mods are free, or all mods commercial, but whether or not someone could create a large mod that is not free, and whether or not Ionside should get a percentage of that mod's sale.<br><br>Assuming there are 5 billion people on earth, then 1 out of every 5000 own an iPaq.<br><br>Dan East<br>

[Malmer]

Good post(s) Dan,<br><br>We've actually been overwhelmed by the reactions on this matter just recently, and we will take a good time thinking these matters over. We don't want to look like bad guys and stuff like that. We love our potential mod-makers, and don't want them to feel like we have an iron fist against them. So we really appreciate your input as long as it is too the point and not abusive or anything. I mean we could have chosen not to make the game mod-able, but we decided we wanted that and invested quite some time in it. So don't come after us with blow torches and stuff. Try do keep the discussion on a high level. I know this is a sensitive subject.<br><br>So the final word hasn't been said yet. Actually Shapeshifter had a very good idea earlier today which I will discuss with the other team members. We'll keep you posted <br><br>Be well everybody. I appreciate you!<br><br>// Fredrik<br><br>PS. Skinion is free too DS.

[Moose or Chuck]

AHH!!! Lots of long posts...<br><br>Just remember, Ionside, the only reason why Half-Life is so popular is because of valve's commitment to the modding community. Make whatever it is (an SDK, Source, Editing App) easy to learn, easy to use, and very versatile. Oh, and free.

[John Lomax]

To be honest, I have been pondering this over the last couple of days, and I think I may bow out after finishing up on argentum. <br><br>My reasons for this are long, but mainly due to me just starting a new ps2 game, and the juggling of time given to these things is hard.<br><br>My view on the mod bit:<br><br>The Mod should be free. I would never expect anyone to create anything based on our inhouse engine, then sell it on without paying some fee, either a one off payment or a royalty payment / %cut of the price of the mod. 99% of mods out there are free anyway (CS one good example). If you go all the way and create essentialy a new game but based on the engine (i.e halflife) then sure it should be paid for, but you would (should) still pay a fee to ionside, because the initial technology was theirs, and it was only built on by the modders. You wouldnt expect I.D to let people grab their source / sdk and make quake4 and then dont give them any money for it !<br><br>Halflife itself was a mod of the quake engine, which they themselves had to pay a license for.<br>If Ionside give out the modding tools for free (map editors, scripting tools), then that would be a great help to anyone who is interested in creating there own versions. Although they would still have to get hold of a good 3d package and a 2d package for handling everything else <br><br>I am not secretive on my mod ideas, I would love to see a fantasy one, or a mod based on all wars of the last century, just wish I had more time on my hands, but I have bills to pay and my game job pays the bills <br><br>I have the building methods for units nailed down now pretty tight. If it would help people I could write up a doc explaining how to go about creating the units, tips, and pointers on what to do and what not.<br><br>Anyhow, argentum has been good fun. Hopefully it will be the biggest pocketpc game for a long time. It certainly is one of (if not the) best pocketpc games I have played ever.<br><br>Take care.<br><br>Who knows, maybe I will suprise you and release a tasty mod soon <br><br>Sorry for the long post, and hope you guys like our work in argentum.<br><br>John<br><br>