TurboSlug22

Sorry, I thought your thread about contacting BDE was a good place to post that I'd contacted BDE And dont worry, i'm not making any moves P.S. Why is this notion of having the client available at cost such a big deal? Cant the consumer be expected to understand that for the exposure there is a cost associated with having the client hosted on DDS Sites... I still dont see such a huge deal with that... The consumer will say "Why did i pay $5 for something that is free elsewhere?" And we will say "Talk to the people that charged you" They'll go to the DDS site and say "Why did i pay money for something thats free elsewhere" and the DDS site will say "Because there is a cost associated with bringing the content to you whereas other organizations will cover that cost themselves" EDIT: OK ok i give... there's too much ugly competing interests involved with having the client hosted at cost - but i think we can achieve the same results with a similar setup. I mean.. having the client hosted for free on these sites seems like the best way to go... of course we'd have to pay them to do that, but ive got $1000 i can put towards that if anyone wants to help out.... EDIT2: Sorry... im hijacking your thread again ... *shoots self*

I think what youve said here is more resasonable... even that witchunt bit. But I'm doing everything i can do preserve our position and I think we've got a few cards to play in order to see to that.

Lynx, thank you for a refreshing voice of reason here. Truly

Yes, im fully aware of the legality - we're talking about having this Ok'd by priitk. Essentially what that means is, priitk changes the users agreement in such a way that PRESERVES the status of the community as being able to distribute the client, but also making an allowance for distributers to sell the client. Which is a compramise sure, but at least we get new players. I get that the best idea is to have these portals host the client for free. Ive even offered to pay them. The reality is, i just dont think they'll go for it unless they can charge for it.

They'll host anything so long you own the rights and can permit them legally to host it and so long they're allowed to CHARGE for it (and so long it doesn't get them in trouble with their data center, AKA no Pornography or things which violate the DMCA). You haven't. The people who already play this for free won't go to pay $5 to download it again. Show me that market - those people who haven't yet to know this game and will pay $5 to download it. Then prove it. Get Gamersgate to give you NUMBERS. Find games which are similar to SubSpace, old, dated graphics, MMO, generally free. And ask for gamersgate's numbers on these games's conversion rates. Go ask the games for their side of the story and if gamersgate are really effective. THAT is how you do your HOMEWORK RESEARCH. THAT is how you PROVE things (especially when talking with VCs, loan bankers, et cetera conducting business). Ah, finally, the cat is out of the sack. So now we know the truth, the real reason here and your own vested interest. SubSpace isn't about YOUR zone or YOUR squad making to YOUR ZONE's league games. This isn't about YOUR needs. Join the club. Mine ended circa Y2K (Inet's SVS zones dying). Burst right ahead. None's stopping you. Bottling up anger will only give you indigestion. Venting is better for your health. You're not the only one who put energy and effort (or even money) onto this game to have it all sput right back in their face. Again, Join the Club, '98 veteran here (VIE shutdown, and many many more times thereafter). I guess youre right - I'm doing it to increase the population to MY zone. But you all benefit too, the population increase will favor us all equally. I dont think its necessary to get the figures on exactly how much money gamersgate projects that the rights holder will make - the reason being, we dont care about money - this is about exposure. And if the client is available on gamersgate's servers, then everyone that uses gamersgate will see it. Oh and, never did i suggest that old players would be made to pay for the client.

@ Ori Continuum was reviewed by a games website - they said our game was kinda fun to shoot people with until you get banned by a moderator for some unknown reason. I dont think asking for reviews, again, is going to get us anywhere I think we're going to need to try new things to get revialized instead of trying the same old tricks

wait... WHAT? Would you mind posting said email? Here's the email with BDE - obviously, nothing has happened yet, I'm waiting to hear back from gamersgate about the specifics of their offer and i've edited out some of the contact info: ----------------------------- k, while i do like what you are trying to do, calling yourself a representative of the community is wrong. No offense, but i'd rather have someone like Polix or Ghost ship, or someone who is a zone owner or bang op taking care of this since they can easily pass around that information. Don't stop what you are trying to do, but imo i don't like having you do it, since, at least to me, you are an unknown. no offense or anything, this is just my view on it. EDIT: oh and no, i didn't want the address, i wanted to know what he said, which, sadly, has not substance... ALso: Turbo, while it might seem that the community is hating on you, dont worry. They are not hating on you, they are hating on the fact that you are pushing this stuff through without proper discussion. Sorry that I'm an unknown to you. I've certainly been around in my zone for many many years. The problem with what youre suggesting is that unless the ball is rolling, people arnt going to jump into action unless you show them the idea is viable Thats what im trying to do here. Ive shown gamersgate we're viable. They want to host our client. Now that ive demonstrated that there's a market for our client, I've come here to prove to you that this is a way we can generage new population for our zones. I just want to emphasize here - im just getting offers from people to show you this is possible. There's no harm done because the rights are held by Priitk and he can do what he pleases in the end. Again, no harm has been done - please dont hate. --- --- Now i get what you all are saying about how ss should be free etc... and yes, that certainly is ideal... but if these people simply arnt going to host the client unless its at a cost, then when does it become ok for us to start entertaining this option? Do we have to wait until our zones are totally dead? Listen, the reason im here posting this at all is because my league squad cant make a showing. We cant qualify for our matches even if most of us show up and there's no new players to recruit. I'm literally facing the end in the face. and right now, i hope youll appreciate that i am trying very very hard to hold back a slew of profanity and anger at how you people have treated the energy ive put in.. both now and over the YEARS that ive devoted to my zone's staff I cant communicate to you the heartbreak....

A) I have contacted Gamersgate, steam, impulse and direct2drive B ) I have offered those companies my own personal money to have them host the continuum client for FREE - The only reply i have recieved so far is from gamersgate who've said they arnt interested in hosting free content, only content for a "very very small price" as they said. Gamers gate also said they would be willing to add the continuum client to their catalogue if they could charge for it. C) Since i am not a rights holder here, i cannot make any money off of this. D) Sorry for not talking to you guys before..... .... wait thats exactly what i did, i came to talk to you guys before anything happened. E) I have been playing SS since `2000 F) Can you please stop talking? Youre saying a bunch of shit that has already been addressed and is completely fabricated. I mean, youve called me a ton of names, impiled many falsehoods about me and generally it appears to me that youre trying to sideline this idea. I get that you dont like it, there's no need for character assassination. I am trying to help you, remember?

Facts: He has repeatedly and strongly pushed for this one deal with this one specific portal. He has made it known that for him it is all business and that is what's important, to him. His plan offers high probability to bite SubSpace in the ass than do any good. He uses words such as volunteer and rip-off, not knowing seemingly their meaning. He cites illegal activity to provide support for his perspective and in general display a behaviour/attitude akin to that of a scam-handling scheming snake. How much is it assumption of me to deduce this individual is up to no good? Post Scriptum For future reference, kindly avoid quoting entire walls of text merely to utter a couple of sentences as reply. You may do so with a summary of relevant bits as well, taking up much less obsolete space on the screen/forum. well, I can see why this idea wasnt going anywhere for 2 years... How do you sleep at night?

If it quaks like a duck... Right, and if you want to go and listen to the duck quack again, you can go and re-read your own post where you called me juvinile hypocritical twit. Are you just trying to get this thread locked? Youre trolling sir. BDE are NOT giving us more players. This scam-portal is NOT giving us more players. There is no guarantee to that. It IS guaranteed that anyone coming through there, paying $5 for the client download, then finding out it's FREE, is going to bust nuts and slander this game and its community to kingdom come giving us far more harm than any good this could ever do. Im very interested in how youve arrived at this conclusion which you present as "guaranteed" to use your words. People on those pay sites are used to paying for games, they wont complain about paying $5 (not $59.99, the retail cost of new games, but FIVE dollars) for an excellent game. I am also interested in how youve concluded that this wont generate any traffic for us. Being made available at cost? You mean MADE AVAILABLE FOR A FEE TO THE DOWNLOADER/POTENTIAL FUTURE PLAYER, not to YOU, not to US, not to BDE. TO THE PLAYER. Who wants to play a game that is available FOR FREE. The distributer would charge a distribution fee, yes. If the player wants to get the client from a distributer that makes it available for free, so be it. No. This is not. But for you, mr. "business man", mr. "I'm looking to make a quick profit on back of poor suckers I can easily scam and then send crying home", it sure seems to be the case. The only discussion here is why a scumbag like you is even permitted to speak such vile filth and attain some sort of sponsorship/support from rest of the community. The only discussion here is how Subspace can be pushed forward, in a POSITIVE manner. Not by SCAMMING THE PLAYERS FOR YOUR POCKET"S PROFIT. I dont really think youre reading what I've been posting... Im not looking to make a profit here - how can i? Im just looking to revitialize our zones. It just so happens that in order to make that happen, the rights holders need to be compensated because the distributer wants to get paid. Ive offered to pay the distributer myself.. but this distributer wants to post the client for a cost. Again, with the name calling... I'm a scumbag for wanting to revitalize the community? By wanting the software to be available to swaths of users of other online communities... Sorry if they want to charge for it, but i think we stand to gain a lot. You obviously arnt interested in this idea, thats fair - ive noted your input, Thank you. There is no need to further reiterate your point

Yes, they are interested in getting money over the client being SOLD by someone else while they can just sit back and collect checks. Which is exactly what I've said. (Not to mention, AGAIN, how immoral of US to allow it would be and howHARMFULLY DAMAGING to our community, this game, and the collectivereputation thereof it will be. It still does not mean they're willing to provide any sort of support for the game. So, how is my argument wrong at any level? I never said they won't do it, of COURSE they'll do it. It brings them money for doing practically jack shit nothing at all. What sane commercial "for-profit" company would refuse such an opportunity to exploit their IP? And I believe that the continuum license falls under the aforementioned unofficial agreement. I'm done handling kids. Summon forth Hoch (is he even still around?), let the (official Subspace) professional lawyer explain it to the herd. Yes call me a child. Please, go ahead and insult me more. I'll just continue to donate money to this community and continue to offer to design banner ads and pay to have them posted so we can all enjoy new population in our zones. Why dont you hack me while youre at it... I'll just go right ahead and continue to offer to pay for the cost of having the client hosted for free all over the net. The whole point of this arrangement would be to make the client available at cost SO we can get the exposure. From what I can see here, the ONLY issue is a bunch people who insist on having this game be free for everyone but look where thats brought us over the years, free client, dwindling population. Well, this is a great opportunity where we can tap a HUGE population resource at NO cost to ourselves and repopulate our zones. So what if the game is available for free elsewhere. I think you people are dilusional if you think people are going to be pissed off over paying $5 for an exceptional game. Software is free if you know where to look on the internet. Thats not going to change here. People arnt going to get up in arms becuse they suddenly realized the game is available for free elsewhere (just like everything eles) Its up to the consumer to decide if they want to get it for free or if they want to pay for it. You dont need to make that decision for these people.

Not a good way to earn a good reputation in this community. What Grav is saying is that... ...does not matter if BDE is interested or not. They are interested because of the money. Who doesn't want free money? Grav is also saying that selling the game is unethical and simply wrong. Furthermore, he is also saying that if BDE were to sell the rights to the game, it would be for $100,000+. It's all about the money. BDE doesn't care about you or me. And it doesn't matter if you believe if Continuum is a separate entity or not. In the legal world, there is no "I believe." It either is or isn't. Uh he started off by calling ME a juvinile hypocritical twit and I'm the one that needs to be concerned about making a good impression? Yes ofcourse BDE is interested in $ - what else is a rights holder going to be interested in? So we give them what they want and we get what we want; more players in our zones. its win/win As well, I'm not suggesting that BDE sells the rights to this game. We're talking about getting permission to funnel money their way in exchange for our client getting exposure by being made available at cost on various websites. And regarding who the rights holders are... well thats why we're all here discussing this isnt it?

Only in ideal do law and ethics match. It may not seem ethically correct for someone to try to make profit off of a free game, but if proper consent is given (see above) then it's perfectly legal. Not saying if it's right or wrong to do, just weighing in on some information. Yes this is spot on. Priitk may be totally against this idea - thats fine From my point of view, marketting the client in the past was a bad idea because nobody would buy it. The idea of having the client available for download from games websites is a totally new marketting strategy and i think it would work with the continuum client. Ill tell you what, if it was available on steam for $5 and nobody bought it... just wait till a free weekend comes.... People love free weekends because it gives them a chance to try out new software - and thats just what we're looking for. in reiteration, even if nobody buys the damn client off their servers, we still get tonnes of advertising - for free. But remember.. the people that use those services are used to dropping cash for games there.. i expect to see a lot of sales of the client if it makes its way to gamersgate or steam's servers etc..

This has already been brought up. It is ILLEGAL to make money off of freeware UNLESS youre the rights holder. You can consider the $5 the cost of distribution. We're just friendly enough to distribute it for free. Whereas other companies are less generous and insist on charging money for a legitimate service. If you as a consumer want to blame the GAME or the Game's community for that, well... dont let the door hit you on the way out because a reasonable thinking person would see that the real issue is with the retailer who'se decided to charge money for something thats otherwise free. It is up to the consumer to find the best deal on whatever they want to acquire. It just so happens that the best deal is getting the client for free from our servers. But again... we dont care about that... we just want new players to our zone and any news is good news for us in that regard because even controvercy is advertising.

Man, its you again, just speaking words... Look, Ive already posted that BDE has already said they are interested in taking a cut of the revenue brought in by gamersgate's offer to post the client for sale on their servers. So... no need to say BDE wont do it, theyve already said theyre interested. The real issue here is if we even need to talk to BDE about this - I believe the continuum client is a totally separate entity, the rights for which are held by Priitk i THINK But anyway, PoLiX is going to talk to ghost ship about that... i hope

You're not really looking at this from a realistic framework. The reality is - bottled water is a scam but to the people who buy it, it isnt. Theyre happy to pay for it. I pay for bottled water. This is the same idea, we're making the client available, and in order to do so, its at a cost. How else can you expect a 3rd party company to volunteer their bandwidth? Of course theyre gonna want a cut. Our client is worth $5 why not let people pay for it? And ya, if its available for free elsewhere then fine, the consumer can do his homework and decide where to get the client from. Consider the game Abuse - you can get it for free on abandonware websites. You can also get it for a cost from games websites. I dont consider it a scam at all that retailer chooses to make the client available for a price. Its a ripoff sure, but its not a scam. Even calling it a ripoff is a stretch because the client is definitely worth $5. If polix needs money, im happy to donate, this issue isnt over money though, its over population to our zones and if you think we should divert resources for ad space, well, I'm doing that also. Thanks for calling me a juvenile hypocritical twit. As a matter of fact, I'm nearly 30, I purchase all the games I believe are worth the price, ive held multiple subscriptions to the same MMO and I certainly have no problem paying for good quality software. Furthermore, while SS is free for the rest of you, I've donated to server funds, as well, did you not even read where i said I would personally front the cost associated with having steam make available the content for everyone for free? Do i get to call you a bunch of names now too? look, the bottom line here is business is business and we stand to gain a lot if we want to do some. wait... WHAT? Would you mind posting said email? babble booble I think rootbear was asking for BDE's e-mail message rather than the e-mail conversation. I included the entire email thread - BDE's reply was the first thing posted. Er whoops. I meant to say "e-mail address". He can ask me for it then if thats what he wants, but it was my impression that he wanted to know what was said..

Yes, I believe you are correct - however I made this assertion earlier and also asked who are the actual rights holders to continuum. If thats Priitk - then I just need to wait for PoLiX to do his thing and get in touch with them. Anyway ya, we might not even need to talk with BDE

wait... WHAT? Would you mind posting said email? babble booble I think rootbear was asking for BDE's e-mail message rather than the e-mail conversation. I included the entire email thread - BDE's reply was the first thing posted.

well actually, to my knowledge, PoLiX' thread was posted after mine was and like I said, I'm here to try to coordinate with you guys; I dont plan on doing anything without you folks Hell, i cant do anything at all - - except get the ball rolling

Re-read the licence. The terms are very explict, Continuum has to be free of charge at source. There are no get outs or loopholes Right but the rights holder can change that at anytime. That is to say, whoever had the authority to write that in the first place can make it say w/e they want. Im assuming thats Priitk?

I was JUST going to edit my post and say exactly this It will take very delicate negotation but i think everyone involved can be made happy. Lets see what Ghost Ship / Priitk has to say PoLiX can you get in touch with Ghost Ship and see what he says? I think if we take this path and secure our status we're better off than if we sit back and do nothing. Reason being, with that xbox 'subspace' ripoff on the horizon, things might get interesting around here. It might just be best to solidify our quasi-open source status with BDE while we allow for them to still make money by making the client available to people who are willing to pay for it. Again, its up to the gamersgate consumer if they want to dig through the internet and find the free download, all we care about is that gamersgate is bringing new users to our community via their network of regular buyers. Thoughts?

I hate to say it, but youre right. This is _THE_ only negative outcome that can come of this realistically and it is a real concern. Our privalige to use the game over the years has been allowed by the fact that its been deemed not profitable to sell the client. In our day and age though, thats changed. The client can be made available via online stores and it could be made profitable - albeit barely. What we need is a contractual agreement that allows us to continue to operate as we are currently operating (with free client and community supported servers etc..) If we can get a contract with the rights holders that allows us those things while making the client available for sale - we're good. Again, if BDE wants to make money off of SS AND mess with the community, nobody will make any money because we wont stand for it.

*sigh* I'm sincerely sorry. Im just so used to NOTHING getting done in this community unless you do it yourself - its that kind of additude that's made huge positive changes in my zone and i'm just doing what I know works. I had no plan to make any arrangement without you guys (thats why i posted here in the first place) and you'll note that I took care to contact the rights holders. From my POV i've been handling this with care, so far just gathering information and I have no intention to do anything other than provide a win/win/win scenario for all parties involved. Youre right though, we ought to have only 1 or 2 reps. Since ive already talked to them, i vote that to maintain our professionalism, I can relay anything you guys decide over to them, I'm more than happy to have PoLiX also get in touch with them if we cant get Ghost Ship or Priitk to wake up. Or whatever you guys think is best. Sorry :\

Youre right I did make a mistake - I was told that BDE owned the rights to continuum when i contacted them but they own the rights to the subspace client. Can anyone shed any light on how that translates to the continuum client? Do we even need to talk to BDE at all? Either way, nothing has been decided, everything is ok. Plus, we hold a big barganing chip here, we run the servers for this game so if anything goes screwy, we have the power to shut down any idea we dont like. So as long as everyone plays nice, i cant see this being anything other than win/win/win and if the stakeholders/retailers dont play nice, we have the final say. In regards to your other concern, perhaps an analogy would help: 7-11 doesnt try to claim ownership/rights over Dasani because they sell it at their stores. GamesGate is a retailer, they gain no rights over the software they retail. Furthermore, 7-11 doesnt sue the government for infrigement because tap water provides the same content to people for free. The consumer has the choice to buy it or get it for free. Same idea here except we benefit from a huge amount of exposure. Someone said something about people having paid $5 getting pissed off and boycotting the game. Well... its great advertising isnt it? Honestly, if you bought it from a retailer when it was available for free, you can feel proud to support the rights holders or you can do your homework next time and get stuff for free if its available for free, thats up to the consumer. It sounds to me like talking to priitk or ghost ship is the best course of action - does anyone have any contact information?

From my understanding, I'm the only one thats contacted BDE and all ive said is that gamersgate wants to make continuum available for a small cost. No promises have been made, no arrangements made, only interested parties interested in hearing offers. In fact, I posted the email to them in my other thread. I realize that BDE doesnt fully hold the rights to continuum though so I also need to talk to Priitk. And dont worry, i'll post here before anything else happens.