What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?

@nflanders nobody knows due to nobody could get a response. More that we could afford.

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" - Spock

@rowey said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

@nflanders nobody knows due to nobody could get a response. More that we could afford.

I read old topics, they wrote that Nordic is the only company that responded. Nordics wrote that the source code is lost. Did they ask about buying rights?

Square enix bought the IP. It's impossible to geht a response from them and buying the IP would be pretty useless to us anyway.

@blackyps said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

Square enix bought the IP. It's impossible to geht a response from them and buying the IP would be pretty useless to us anyway.

Correct me if I'm not mistaken. Square Enix have the right to create, for example, SupCom 3.
The rights to SC:FA belong to Nordic Games. Why get a response from Square Enix? I'm not a legal expert, but Nordic Games has everything the FAF community needs.
And you need to negotiate only with Nordic Games. Am I wrong?

@blackyps said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

[...] and buying the IP would be pretty useless to us anyway.

I wouldn't agree to that. Imagine we could distribute SC:FA for free. Steam linking/ GoG linking still puts off a lot of new players.

Nevertheless. People always say the IP is here or there. Can someone give an actual proof or is it all hearsay?

"Nerds have a really complicated relationship with change: Change is awesome when WE'RE the ones doing it. As soon as change is coming from outside of us it becomes untrustworthy and it threatens what we think of is the familiar."
ā€“ Benno Rice

Afaik, Nordic owns the publishing rights for SC1. Squeenix owns the publishing rights for SC2 as well as the overall IP.

We can see Squeenix still owns the trademark here, with the latest update on it being on 2021.

Either way, I can't imagine any company letting go of an IP for anywhere near cheap enough for a bunch of people on the internet to afford. I'm talking several million if not 10s of millions regardless of if a game is in active development.

Fact is, FAF existing just increases the IP's worth even more so we're making it harder to buy just by being here.

@snagglefox said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

I'm talking several million if not 10s of millions regardless of if a game is in active development.

Isn't that too much for SC:FA?

Nordic Games acquires THQ's Darksiders, Red Faction and more in $4.9M bid

Nordic Games will acquire over 150 individual games along with SC:FA for $5 million.

@snagglefox is right, FAF has added value to Supcom. šŸ™‚

Would it be worth it for FAF to contact Nordic Games\Squeenix to see what it would cost or to get more information such as do they still have the source code?

Never Fear, A Geek is Here!

@thecore

Would it be worth it for FAF to contact Nordic Games\Squeenix to see what it would cost or to get more information such as do they still have the source code?

I think attempts have been made and the reallty is that they don't care much for a hand full 2000~ player base, and yet they not going to relinquish the IP to us cuz because of us IP is getting value that we will never be able to buy out.
Source code is at most likelyhood lost since they are not even attempting to make a remake that is pretty cheap to do all things considered.

Analyze, Adapt, Overcome...

@thecore said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

Would it be worth it for FAF to contact Nordic Games\Squeenix to see what it would cost or to get more information such as do they still have the source code?

Nobody stops you from trying. If against all odds they give you a positive response feel free to contact an association board member for further negotiations.

"Nerds have a really complicated relationship with change: Change is awesome when WE'RE the ones doing it. As soon as change is coming from outside of us it becomes untrustworthy and it threatens what we think of is the familiar."
ā€“ Benno Rice

@brutus5000 said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

Nobody stops you from trying. If against all odds they give you a positive response feel free to contact an association board member for further negotiations.

What amount would be acceptable for FAF?

If you manage to make them name a price you are already further than anyone before you. If that happens just take it to the board and they can continue the negotiation

@blackyps there are many threads on the old forum (eg https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=15268) about buying copyrights.

In one of the topics I read that the Nordics responded to FAF requests. The result of the negotiations is not clear. Did FAF ask Nordic Games to sell SCFA copyrights? Nordic Games did not respond? What was the result?

I am not aware of any game company responding to requests

@ftxcommando said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

Do another user group study to see the onboarding issues now since the steamlink page was made more steamlined. If it's still a big problem, we're probably losing half the retention thanks to that. If nobody cares about that being a problem, then it's pointless to cite retention as a problem holding external promotion back.

YES

What about having an ACTUAL UX assessment of the onboarding process across say 20 people onboarding. Then iterate with improvements.

This post is deleted!

@gabrilend said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

A couple years back there was a community run tournament for Overwatch called "The Scrub Cup" ..

Great idea

@rowey .. " integrate faf into steam.."

We can't package ourselves around the game and, say, pay the IP owner 2x of what they normally get for a sale?

@defiant said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

@rowey .. " integrate faf into steam.."

We can't package ourselves around the game and, say, pay the IP owner 2x of what they normally get for a sale?

@blackyps said in What would be an efficient use of FAF's funds to improve FAF?:

I am not aware of any game company responding to requests

All I know I learned from the old threads on the forum. Here is one of them https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7358

 IceDreamer:

PilOt's already spoken to them after the breakup of THQ. Yes, doing this IS possible if Nordic were to allow it, but it would require expertise, time, and money and cooperation from other involved parties on the scale of making a brand new game. Parallelisation is not easy, and in effect requires the entire game engine to be rewritten from the ground up, not to mention that if this were to happen we would want to fix bugs, change the pathfinding, and do all sorts of other things too. It's a 2 year, 5 person full time project, and it's just not going to happen.

 Crotalus:

Since Nordic Games is a swedish company I contacted the chairman/owner of the holding company, Lars Wingefors, about this issue and he redirected me to their Business Developer Reinhard Pollice. I got the following answer:

"I am well aware of FAF and its effort. Its really great and we would like to support you but unfortunately at the moment we can't untie the situation. We hope to be able to do that in the future though."

Nordic is a big company and I guess they are not interested in cooperation with FAF as it doesn't promise much profit.

Let's politely ask the Nordic Games :

  • Make SCFA free on steam

  • Allocate money to improve the game in technical terms.

     Ze_PilOt's:
    

    t's a 2 year, 5 person full time project, and it's just not
    going to happen.

    This is the ultimate improvement program for SCFA. If you fix only critical parts of the game, I think, 1 year and  2 person full time project will be enough.
    
  • Pay monthly salaries to all major FAF developers so that they can leave their main job and devote themselves to developing FAF.

     I think the developers of faf would like faf to be their main job.
    

Koch Media is part of THQ Nordic. Kosh Media is the publisher of Iron Harvest. This suggests that THQ Nordic is not opposed to supporting projects with a small budget. Therefore, I believe that THQ Nordic support can be counted on.
Why is SCFA worse than Iron Harvest?
SCFA clearly has a larger player base.

The main question remains: what can we offer Nordic Games in return for their patronage?ā‰

Let me get this right, you want Nordic games to first make the game free, and then pay for its development?