The heart of the damned.
Edwin
Member Posts: 480
In my mind, two issues are central to the compromised version of BGEE that was released and its current state of limbo.
1. Promises were made prematurely:
The original product was promoted promising an extensive 'overhaul' of the game to include reworking the graphical assets befitting high resolution display. This never happened. Easy online connectivity for multiplayer games was also promised. Thus never happened. It is my understanding that much of this was a result of being unable to recover the original assets from their grave on a server from which they were ultimately deleted.
if claims made are contingent on the existence of assets that were only presumed to be available the wise thing to have done would have been to wait until those assets were in hand before those promises were made.
2. Inadequate legal protection of distribution rights.
The current brick wall jeopardizing current and future development of BGEE is simply legal negligence. Beamdog simply should have had better legally binding protections of their right to develop and distribute BGEE. If they had entered into contracts more carefully and those contracts reflected and protected their intentions with BGEE adequately then there would be no legal way for the current dispute to happen in the first place.
There are a few people who could doubtlessly shed more light on the particulars of both those shortcomings in the product delivery chain and promises made but apart from additional illumination on those matters the two points seem obvious and avoidable.
Disclaimer: I am reasonably satisfied with the current incarnation of BGEE and was willing to lend my modest economic support to the project based on promises sight/unseen in the form of a pre-order. I do not regret buying it.
1. Promises were made prematurely:
The original product was promoted promising an extensive 'overhaul' of the game to include reworking the graphical assets befitting high resolution display. This never happened. Easy online connectivity for multiplayer games was also promised. Thus never happened. It is my understanding that much of this was a result of being unable to recover the original assets from their grave on a server from which they were ultimately deleted.
if claims made are contingent on the existence of assets that were only presumed to be available the wise thing to have done would have been to wait until those assets were in hand before those promises were made.
2. Inadequate legal protection of distribution rights.
The current brick wall jeopardizing current and future development of BGEE is simply legal negligence. Beamdog simply should have had better legally binding protections of their right to develop and distribute BGEE. If they had entered into contracts more carefully and those contracts reflected and protected their intentions with BGEE adequately then there would be no legal way for the current dispute to happen in the first place.
There are a few people who could doubtlessly shed more light on the particulars of both those shortcomings in the product delivery chain and promises made but apart from additional illumination on those matters the two points seem obvious and avoidable.
Disclaimer: I am reasonably satisfied with the current incarnation of BGEE and was willing to lend my modest economic support to the project based on promises sight/unseen in the form of a pre-order. I do not regret buying it.
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Comments
Chapter 11 isn't a 'get out of jail free card' if the contracts are carefully crafted and filed appropriately.
What is clear if you find yourself researching this story, trying to figure out what obstacles led up to all of this, is that atari has been a thorn from beginning to (end?) or present date at any rate. Let us hope that the last selling point of "Ongoing Support" doesn't fall to the wayside consequently.
I won't comment on the rest, largely because the details of our contract have always been confidential.
Secondly, it is all well and good to say that, in hind site, no one should have gotten in bed with Atari because they went bankrupt. Well, if we all had time machines, no one would. But companies have recovered from dire straits before. New cash flow can open opportunities. And doing business even with a healthy and thriving company doesn't guarantee that it will remain so. No one can predict the future.
Hopefully there are clauses in the contract that Beamdog signed (and again we none of us consumers have seen it so we don't know) that they are able to leverage. It sounds indeed like there are as otherwise they would have merely closed the doors and been done. But that isn't something they care to comment on publicly, so we have only speculation.
Being critical and negative without all of the facts isn't helping anything. People are frustrated. From what has been posted, it sounds like the good folks at Beamdog not the least of them. Hopefully this will get favorably resolved. If not, no amount of hate or blame directed at Beamdog is going to make it any better or any faster.
All in my own personal opinion.
Lost the rights to this game?
(typically of a man, sometimes of a man and a woman) Bring (a child) into existence by the process of reproduction.
...so his quote is even better. Yes, totally unrelated to the thread, but there's little else to say. All this Atari thing has been a mess for all parts involved, but that's how it usually goes.