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Steam Greenlight and EDuke32 Projects  "Who wants to reach a broader auidence? I do!"

User is offline   Reaper_Man 

  • Once and Future King

#1

So I was talking about this in the IRC channel but figured I'd post about it here too.

For those of you who don't keep up with Steam news, earlier this week they announced Greenlight, which is basically a way for developers to upload their games to Steam and allow the Steam community to play and rate your games. The goal being that if your game is popular/successful enough, Steam will include it in the Steam Store (either monetized or free-to-play). Here's the Greenlight site with more specifics:

http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight

One of my first thoughts of this was using the EDuke32 engine to make a game and release it there (or even possibly other mods/TCs). Long story short, monetizing anything with EDuke turns into a huge mess and I'm actually trying to figure out who all would need shares of the cash. But so far the general consensus is that there isn't licensing issues for releasing free stuff on there. There's some concerns that Steam won't allow it at all since GPL stuff is a pain in the ass for distributors, but assuming they allow it, I'm looking forward to finally making something new in Duke and releasing it to a much broader audience through Steam.
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User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#2

Very interesting. It has potential. But indeed, more research should be done before we jump to any conclusions about Eduke32 related mods being up there. I'm not sure what the rules are about that sorta thing. I'm pretty sure it's okay to release standalone games as long as Duke3D art is not included.
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User is offline   Sangman 

#3

I kindof doubt that you can just turn Eduke32 mods into commercial projects.
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User is offline   Jimmy 

  • Let's go Brandon!

#4

I believe you could sell your project if what you sold did not include EDuke32, nor any assets from Duke3D (or any other game for that matter) nor any assets from the HRP. You could sell the assets to your modification, and direct users to download EDuke32. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see how that would be illegal or break any sort of license. I do, however, think selling your Duke projects is uncool and you probably won't do incredibly well financially to boot.

This post has been edited by Captain Awesome: 14 July 2012 - 06:22 PM

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User is online   Mblackwell 

  • Evil Overlord

#5

The only legal way I know of to monetize an EDuke32 project is through donations. Because of the BUILD license your hands are tied on a commercial project of any kind.

edit:

Quote

[3] Distribution of any derivative works MUST be done completely FREE of
charge - no commercial exploitation whatsoever.

Quote

[5] The use of the Build Engine for commercial purposes will require an
appropriate license arrangement with me. Contact information is
on my web site.

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User is offline   Micky C 

  • Honored Donor

#6

So does that mean you can sell build related products, but you need to come to an agreement with Ken first? That's what point 5 there seems to say to me, however point 3 contradicts that so I'm left confused.
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User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#7

View PostMicky C, on 14 July 2012 - 07:49 PM, said:

So does that mean you can sell build related products, but you need to come to an agreement with Ken first? That's what point 5 there seems to say to me, however point 3 contradicts that so I'm left confused.


Derivative referring to Duke Nukem 3D stuff specifically.
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User is offline   Helixhorned 

  • EDuke32 Developer

#8

View PostMicky C, on 14 July 2012 - 07:49 PM, said:

So does that mean you can sell build related products, but you need to come to an agreement with Ken first? That's what point 5 there seems to say to me, however point 3 contradicts that so I'm left confused.

Those products would be covered by a different license, I think, so there's no contradiction. But why not ask Ken? If he refuses or demands substantial amounts of $$$, nothing is lost. If he agrees to getting x% of the actual revenue (as opposed to a pre-set sum), then it could be viable and everyone wins.

A minor legal-techy problem is (I think; I'm not a lawyer) that parts of the copyright are held by the people that contributed to the engine, like JonoF or qbix (well, and Plagman and yours truly...). I'm unsure what implications this has exactly though.
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User is offline   Fox 

  • Fraka kaka kaka kaka-kow!

#9

View PostMblackwell, on 14 July 2012 - 06:59 PM, said:

The only legal way I know of to monetize an EDuke32 project is through donations. Because of the BUILD license your hands are tied on a commercial project of any kind.

Such a thing don't exist, there are plenty of material in an "Eduke32 project" such as arts and sounds and Build license simply won't cover it all no matter what.

But it may prevent you from including a copy of Eduke32 executables.
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User is offline   Master Fibbles 

  • I have the power!

#10

I wonder if it is possible to "port" Duke Nukem 3D to Steam completely with multiplayer...You guys can talk about the legal nuances of making your own game with an engine, but is it even possible for 3DR or whoever owns Duke 3D to put it on Steam?
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User is offline   Fox 

  • Fraka kaka kaka kaka-kow!

#11

Would be interesting, but probably those who own an old copy of the game will need to buy a new one. It is not supposed to be very expensive, but knowing Steam they may find a way to screw you (or at least people from some countries).
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User is offline   Reaper_Man 

  • Once and Future King

#12

Based on the IRC conversation, if you wanted to monetize your project, you would need to at minimum discuss payment/royalties with Ken. By extension the EDuke developers would need the same.

View PostCaptain Awesome, on 14 July 2012 - 06:22 PM, said:

I do, however, think selling your Duke projects is uncool and you probably won't do incredibly well financially to boot.


I'm curious what, in your mind, the difference between selling something like Duke in DC or WWIIGI or any of the other BUILD based addons or games, and a project that is spawned from here? I don't think something like Duke Plus or whatever should be sold (ignoring the part about not selling the original game assets), but what I meant was a completely new game from scratch using EDuke as the engine.
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User is offline   Jimmy 

  • Let's go Brandon!

#13

The main difference, to me, is about 15 years time. If someone produced a high quality full game, especially in 32bit, I wouldn't mind. I dunno, I'm a bit of a commie, so I couldn't imagine ever selling any theoretical projects I work on.
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User is online   Jblade 

#14

I honestly think with the amount of effort required to get a project to commercial-quality levels would be better spent using a modern engine like UDK or Unity or whatever people use nowadays.
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User is offline   Reaper_Man 

  • Once and Future King

#15

Yeah, and I got bills to pay, lol.

James - I don't disagree, I've worked with Unity a lot and I've released a few things in it. I don't think it's a great engine to make an FPS in though.

This post has been edited by Reaper_Man: 15 July 2012 - 11:02 AM

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User is offline   Jimmy 

  • Let's go Brandon!

#16

Regardless of bills, I always feel tacky trying to sell crap I've made. I'm a sap, I just enjoy giving people shit for free. I know some people don't, but I'm just talking about me here. I mean hey, what if EDuke32 was a pay to play deal, that'd be a bummer indeed!
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User is offline   TerminX 

  • el fundador

  #17

I'm not sure how I feel about it. While we could of course never sell EDuke32, with the volume of work everyone has put into it I think it would be wrong to say such effort doesn't isn't deserving of monetary compensation at some level. 8 years is a long time to work on anything.
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User is offline   Micky C 

  • Honored Donor

#18

Well, some of us occasionally donate something:




<---------------

This post has been edited by Micky C: 15 July 2012 - 10:39 PM

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User is offline   Reaper_Man 

  • Once and Future King

#19

To be fair, I genuinely don't think we'll be allowed to monetize any of it on Steam. And that's assuming Steam will even let us distribute it in the first place. Not that I have any problem giving Ken or the EDuke devs percentages, him and the rest of you guys definitely deserve every penny. I am a little surprised that nobody knows certain answers about how to license EDuke for commercial projects, but I suspect it's never been considered before.

So, money aside, is anyone interested in the idea of distributing their TC through Steam? That was kind of my original point, haha.
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User is offline   Mark 

#20

Making money on a TC might bring a few really talented people over to Eduke to produce something spectacular which helps us all, but I will just keep doing this as a fun hobby thing. Even if any of my own TCs or the ones I'm working on with others get completed I would feel guilty taking money for it. Maybe I would get over that feeling quick after the first check arrives. :( But I'm not a perfectionist, so I'm not sure if I would enjoy the added pressure of making everything little detail perfect in the project. The fun hobby part would disappear. Not to mention the frustration and heartache if someone disses your project either rightly or wrongly. Instead of just your feelings hurt it would affect you monetarily too.

So I guess I have no strong feelings one way or the other about if it is good or bad for the community as a whole.

This post has been edited by Marked: 16 July 2012 - 12:05 PM

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User is offline   Master Fibbles 

  • I have the power!

#21

Selling is one thing, but making a free to play multiplayer game with EDuke32 is different. Of course, it would require that EDuke32 has working multiplayer...
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User is offline   Kathy 

#22

"Free to play" also means selling.
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User is offline   Skulldog 

#23

Are there any restrictions on what can be posted?

Your game must not contain offensive material or violate copyright or intellectual property rights.
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User is offline   Helixhorned 

  • EDuke32 Developer

#24

View PostTerminX, on 15 July 2012 - 09:09 PM, said:

I'm not sure how I feel about it. While we could of course never sell EDuke32, with the volume of work everyone has put into it I think it would be wrong to say such effort doesn't isn't deserving of monetary compensation at some level. 8 years is a long time to work on anything.

For me, putting an EDuke32-derived game on a commercial platform like Steam isn't so much about making money, since it's clear that when divided by everyone who's been involved will maybe get you a month's supply of pizza at most. Rather, I'm much more interested to see an independently created game based on the engine attract a different audience than "people stuck in 1996" and to show them that what is lacking in technical merits can be more than compensated by originality and the "fun factor". Ideally it would be a meta-project where a large portion of the community is involved, but I guess I'm dreaming here. A requirement should be that the game bears no relation to Duke and isn't a clone of another game for trademark reasons. So stuff like The 8th Visage and Tenebris would pass, DukePlus and Sonic 3D would not.
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User is offline   Plagman 

  • Former VP of Media Operations

#25

I've been waiting for this for a long while, also. The truth is that even though the platform has a lot of paradigms that give it huge potential as an standalone game development tool, there simply are too many quirks and arcane things to work through to be able to use it that way. Hardcore Duke fans are used to all these things by now, but outsiders get really turned off and (usually) run away screaming.

If I could work full-time on EDuke32, I would focus 100% on making it a good tool for anyone to quickly prototype and develop games; that's always been my vision.
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User is offline   Tea Monster 

  • Polymancer

#26

EDuke32 is a great example of what you can accomplish with a 16 year old game engine if you have some talented people on board. The sad fact is, that at heart, it's still a 1996 engine. MP is broken. We still use an ancient model format that most people have never heard of before. Trying to make map geometry that dosen't look like Duplo bricks is a major pain in the arse compared to how Unity/UDK and such do it. The list goes on.

The other problem is that most of the forum don't want to leave 1996. Look at what's happened in the HRP thread over the past few weeks with sprities and other game-tech luddites. People are still releasing mods with sector-based automobiles for pities sake! I think if you put some of that stuff in front of modern gamers, or present that as an example of what your 'gaming system' can do, you will have a laugh riot on your hands. There was a push to get some Polycounters over to help with the HRP and the flat response was "No matter how good the models look, they are going to look like crap amidst all of those ancient sector based maps. Thanks but no thanks." The sad truth is that an awful lot of Dukers like it like that and don't want to change it at all.

I think to really progress, we need to jump ship and use something else. I know that 3DR/Gearbox are probably not going to allow that, but it is going to take YEARS to advance EDuke to even half the ability that even Doom 3 has. As an example, since the release of the source code, people have been developing SSS and other funky shaders. One guy is even developing a complete mod studio including a mega-texture creator complete with painting tools!
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User is online   Jblade 

#27

That attitude stinks, I don't want to be too rude but it does. It's not a problem if most of us are happy with our old game looking like an old game. We stopped giving a fuck that Duke doesn't look like even a 2004-era shooter along time ago. Most people here play it for the game itself and not slap lots of HRP stuff on to it to try and make it compete badly with newer games.

I don't want to insult the hard work you've put into the HRP, but when you make a post suggesting that us 'classic' Dukers are a problem that really irritates me.
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User is offline   Tea Monster 

  • Polymancer

#28

The OP and Helixhorned are talking about presenting EDuke32 as a modern gaming tool. It just isn't. That is due both to the technology of the engine and the attitude of a lot of Dukers.

If you want Duke to look just like it did in 1996, then that's great, be happy. If you want to present it as a modern game engine, then it IS a problem.

Completely apart from the point of this thread, 'classic' Dukers can be a problem for those trying to modernise it. Just look at what's happened to the HRP thread in the last month.

This post has been edited by Tea Monster: 27 July 2012 - 02:29 PM

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User is online   Jblade 

#29

Quote

The OP and Helixhorned are talking about presenting EDuke32 as a modern gaming tool. It just isn't. That is due both to the technology of the engine and the attitude of a lot of Dukers.

It's nothing to do with attitude, at all. At the end of the day people are trying to squeeze modern technology into an engine released in 1996. The team's efforts on the Polymer engine are admirable, make no mistake. However it will never be able to complete with UDK or Unity, or whatever. This isn't an insult, but the modernisation is a losing battle since it's not just lighting effects that make something look 'modern' The sheer amount of work required would mean you might as well just make your own indie game and potentially be able to earn money through it.

And I don't have time to check the thread, but I can't see how they can be a 'problem' to you. If someone's being a pain in the ass about changes and you've exhausted all diplomatic options, either just ignore them or report them (I don't even know why someone who prefers classic mode would check out the HRP section in the first place)
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User is offline   Fox 

  • Fraka kaka kaka kaka-kow!

#30

View PostTea Monster, on 27 July 2012 - 01:46 PM, said:

People are still releasing mods with sector-based automobiles for pities sake!

People will make 2.5d structures in a Build engine based game. Especially if you take in account that just a few know how to use Build editor and 3D softwares.

View PostTea Monster, on 27 July 2012 - 01:46 PM, said:

I think if you put some of that stuff in front of modern gamers, or present that as an example of what your 'gaming system' can do, you will have a laugh riot on your hands. There was a push to get some Polycounters over to help with the HRP and the flat response was "No matter how good the models look, they are going to look like crap amidst all of those ancient sector based maps. Thanks but no thanks." The sad truth is that an awful lot of Dukers like it like that and don't want to change it at all.

I understand that a lot of people put effort behind HRP. But Duke 3D was very successfull when it was released, and part of it is because of the art. It's no surprise that a lot of players still prefer the classic one, no matter how modern HRP got.

View PostTea Monster, on 27 July 2012 - 01:46 PM, said:

I think to really progress, we need to jump ship and use something else. I know that 3DR/Gearbox are probably not going to allow that, but it is going to take YEARS to advance EDuke to even half the ability that even Doom 3 has. As an example, since the release of the source code, people have been developing SSS and other funky shaders. One guy is even developing a complete mod studio including a mega-texture creator complete with painting tools!

I am not sure if I understand what you meant here. But I don't think "reinventing" Duke 3D is worth any monetary investment.

This post has been edited by Fox: 27 July 2012 - 09:30 PM

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