Author Topic: Official Rights to Robot Arena 2 (Read 15932 times)

HurricaneAndrew · « **on:** June 23, 2009, 03:01:09 AM »

I saw this...

Quote from: Jeffery;45767

...unless of course he sends them a huge check alongside his complaint letter.

in another thread, and I also saw the thread that moonbear started about the source code, and got to thinking about something. How much money do you think it would take to buy the official and legal rights to RA2 from Atari?

I'm thinking that possibly have our best modders (and anyone else willing to pitch in) get together and maybe buy the rights to RA2. That way we would get the source code, along with everything else that would be needed.

This idea maybe totally insane, because they may want millions for it. But if they could care less about it anymore (which it sounds like they really don't), then they might be willing to let it go cheap.

Just an idea...

tankcat · « **Reply #1 on:** June 23, 2009, 03:53:54 AM »

Quote from: HurricaneAndrew;45997

I saw this...

in another thread, and I also saw the thread that moonbear started about the source code, and got to thinking about something. How much money do you think it would take to buy the official and legal rights to RA2 from Atari?

I'm thinking that possibly have our best modders (and anyone else willing to pitch in) get together and maybe buy the rights to RA2. That way we would get the source code, along with everything else that would be needed.

This idea maybe totally insane, because they may want millions for it. But if they could care less about it anymore (which it sounds like they really don't), then they might be willing to let it go cheap.

Just an idea...

Or instead of owning the rights to a worthless franchise like RA2 without a community of game developers/publishers, we could merely request the source code to their obviously broken and outdated havoc physics engine as well as the RA2 executable... which would be released for free.

JoeBlo · « **Reply #2 on:** June 23, 2009, 04:20:24 AM »

is the game even in production anymore ? or even for sale form the producer ? the game was only licensed in selected areas of the globe which is why many people cant get hold of the demo off internet sites (I know Australia cant)

HurricaneAndrew · « **Reply #3 on:** June 23, 2009, 04:37:38 AM »

Quote from: JoeBlo;46001

is the game even in production anymore ? or even for sale form the producer ? the game was only licensed in selected areas of the globe which is why many people cant get hold of the demo off internet sites (I know Australia cant)

No, I don't believe it is still in production. Which is one of the reasons that I think that Atari would let go of the rights to it pretty cheap.

Technically, if we owned the rights to RA2 then we could market DSL (if we wanted to) and there would be no one else to have to give a share of the money to. We would own the namesake of Robot Arena and could eventually make Robot Arena 3.

Really, I think that our modders would be proud to see DSL hit the market as an actual game.

tankcat · « **Reply #4 on:** June 23, 2009, 04:57:14 AM »

Quote from: HurricaneAndrew;46002

No, I don't believe it is still in production. Which is one of the reasons that I think that Atari would let go of the rights to it pretty cheap.

Technically, if we owned the rights to RA2 then we could market DSL (if we wanted to) and there would be no one else to have to give a share of the money to. We would own the namesake of Robot Arena and could eventually make Robot Arena 3.

Really, I think that our modders would be proud to see DSL hit the market as an actual game.

Do you realize how much what you are saying would cost...? and who would legally be defined as the owner? The modders? They would need to register and license a business/company name before even considering buying RA2, let alone marketing DSL... It would take a ridiculous amount of resource, a ridiculous amount of money, and a ridiculous amount of labor...

You would have to get the game legally certified for content, rated, and then you would have to hire and work through a distributor if you wanted the game to hit the shelves... You'd have to pay for decent advertising if you wanted to see any profit from the countless hours of labor you'd need to put in to make a game worth buying, else no one would know about it except the limited fan base RA2 has...

I agree the modders have done amazing things with RA2, DSL is better than the original... But making a full fledged game for profit based off of something that is already being distributed for free isn't going to happen. DSL was made for the community by the community because they wanted to give back, I doubt the modders want to repackage DSL for profit after DSL being free for so long...

Also you can still buy RA2 off of the official website for download, it doesn't matter if it's in production or not, it doesn't cost them more than a dime to host that content and if they can turn a profit of 20$ to keep RA2 alive as long as they can they will...

Releasing the source to what faithful fanbase they have left would not put a dent in their profit, but at the same time would give us everything the community needs to further enhancement of RA2.

Just don't see why in the world a measley forum like this would need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on the rights to a game owned by a nationally renowned gigantic corporation just to obtain the source which should've been released for free in the first place...

JoeBlo · « **Reply #5 on:** June 23, 2009, 04:59:12 AM »

like I said before infogames only had a license to distribute it within selected regions, if the DSL team were to sell it it would have to be online and if you buy you get access to the download on the file

Naryar · « **Reply #6 on:** June 23, 2009, 05:04:02 AM »

While this is a great idea, i still think it's going to be very, very expensive.

We could ask for how much they would be willing to sell the official rights to us...

tankcat · « **Reply #7 on:** June 23, 2009, 05:24:16 AM »

Quote from: Naryar;46006

While this is a great idea, i still think it's going to be very, very expensive.

We could ask for how much they would be willing to sell the official rights to us...

The only point of having the rights would be if modders wanted to sell future installments of DSL packaged with RA2 for a profit... If Atari released the source to RA2, we would be able to do just as much with the game as if we had bought the rights... Except usually companies release the source for FREE.

Once again, let me repeat my main point... BUYING the rights to the game will not enable us further in terms of MODDING the game, it will only give modders who decide to develop further installations of RA2 the chance to sell their work for profit, that's it. It's not like they'll give us some magical RA2 developer's kit with a nice GUI along with the game if we buy the rights...

Let me clarify my post once more, in extremely simple wording; The SOURCE to the game would be free, and would let us mod every aspect of it, including the havoc engine. The RIGHTS cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the only advantage to that is that we would also be able to sell whatever people developed in terms of Robot Arena for profit.

But sure, if close-minded members like Naryar want to spout their nonsensical claims and opinions, go ahead... why not take a high school class of standard business first....

frezal · « **Reply #8 on:** June 23, 2009, 05:36:54 AM »

While it would be cool if we, the community owned the distribution rights, I don't think that's very feasible (unless some of you are very wealthy). In a world where we did have the money to buy the rights to the game under the Game Tech Mods corporation (which we would need to form to severely reduce financial liabilities), it would be great to develop versions of this game for WiiWare, iPhone app store, and/or Xbox Live Arcade. From what I understand, those venues are great for smalltime developers.

tankcat · « **Reply #9 on:** June 23, 2009, 05:50:24 AM »

It would be incredibly hard to accurately port RA2 to other consoles, to the point where the modders of the forum might as well be developing a new game... And even so, RA2 is an intricate, accurate, precision-based game where you need the steady control of the mouse...

Most "smalltime" developers come up with a simple, yet out of the box revolutionary idea. Look at world of goo, simple enough but an amazingly fun and addictive game... Sadly we don't have an idea like that.

EDIT: After rereading HurricaneAndrew's posts, I have come to the conclusion that he doesn't realize a lot of game developers release the source to their old broken games after they've had a good run, as a favor to the community...

Jedi Academy's multiplayer source was released years ago, and JKA put a 10x bigger dent in PC gaming than RA2...

Countless Valve games use the source engine, which is opensource...

The source code of Quake 3 was released, and quake 3 was a HUGE hit for many years.

So yes, expecting Atari to release the source for a broken down pos game like RA2 isn't asking much, despite what you think...

russian roulette · « **Reply #10 on:** June 23, 2009, 05:59:05 AM »

it takes thousands and thousands of dollars to even make a prototype version of dsl on the market. And the fact that people probably wont buy it. Battlebots is airing on a channel that you have to buy so then it would be even harder to advertise and/or to get people to buy it. Then the legal issues of using the name dsl because there is a type of internet connection that already has rights to the name. If we do find the money for the rights to ra2 then we did that for pretty much nothing.

Condor33 · « **Reply #11 on:** June 23, 2009, 06:49:00 AM »

HAs anyone actually contacted Atari? It We should at least know if they're willing to give us the source before we get into a huge debate about this. It really just depends on weather the game counts as abandonware or not.

Naryar · « **Reply #12 on:** June 23, 2009, 07:00:54 AM »

They deleted their official forums, they're not producing the game anymore and there is no update on the site since forever, excepted the redirect to GTM's. Yes, i call that a game forgotten by it's company.

Paying for the source code, Havok engine and .exe would be the idea.

somestrangeguy · « **Reply #13 on:** June 23, 2009, 08:26:31 AM »

C33: ACAMS did contact them quite a LOOOONG while ago and it took them 2 or so YEARS to come up with a negative answer for him...

I really need to start learning that C++ because im already intrested in it, I just cant get my lazy @$$ up and do something about it.

System32 · « **Reply #14 on:** June 23, 2009, 08:47:48 AM »

Honestly, I think I can help....

Now, where is that Physics thing I had....

philetbabe · « **Reply #15 on:** June 23, 2009, 09:31:43 AM »

i think there is another problem : RA2 is based on the Havock motor engine in an old version of this framework (where to find it ?) and maybe an old version of the c++ Microsoft Fundation classes . So, even if we had the source, it is not said that we should be able to compile them. So one should 'rewrite' part of the source code to be compatible with the free version of the havock engine. This is a big amount of work and i don't know if many people can do it but Serge . His opinion should be interesting here.

System32 · « **Reply #16 on:** June 23, 2009, 10:06:51 AM »

I say we rewrite it with another physics engine...

Endorphin?

http://www.naturalmotion.com/endorphin.htm

somestrangeguy · « **Reply #17 on:** June 23, 2009, 10:54:21 AM »

Yeah, Serge possibly could do something about it, but too bad he is not around. If i ever catch him on Steam, ill let him know to check this out.

roboman2444 · « **Reply #18 on:** June 23, 2009, 10:55:47 AM »

it would probably be better to use a different physics engine and completely make the .exe from scratch. I think it should use files other than .gmfs. maybe something simpler so people can mod it easily. like the 3d files from sketchup or some other cad program.

edit: if the whole community pitches in what they can it will be done in no time.

DuckRA2 · « **Reply #19 on:** June 23, 2009, 12:23:28 PM »

I think if we are gonna buy it, maybe non-modders should buy it for the modders as a gift, because the modders do most the work