Mods to Retail?

[-[SiN]-bswearer]

just because i've noticed some things recently, i thought i should look for some input in regards to this topic.

the new team that will be making In Country is called PopSmoke LLC. the DH team, from what i've seen over the past year or so, have gotten to the point where they think that DH is a seperate (and according to some, better) game compared to RO and appear as though they plan on making their own "independent" mods/games in the future. with Rising Storm, well that will be made alongside TW, so it's not so much an independent enterprise.

my question is this: say one of these independent teams decide they want to try and have their mod become a self-supporting retail game......is that even (legally) possible? i imagine it'd follow the same type of deal like how TW became it's own company. the team would have to purchase engine lisences etc.... but seeing as TW owns the rights to all the work in their games (RO/KF) i'm guessing there'd have to be some type of royalties or actual lisencing fees to use that work in a retail game?

again, i'm just kinda curious.

 

[Mormegil]

I don't think TWI can sell an engine license, since ROHOS is running under Unreal Engine, which isn't TWI's intellectual property. The Mod team would have to get a license from Epic Games too. At least that's my guess.

 

[dogbadger]

If i made a mod for RO or HoS and then decided I wanted to sell it - the license for unreal engine 2 or 3 respectivly would not be twi's to sell, i would have to purchase from epic.
However, if i had also used assets (for example weapons, sound fx or phaps coding routines) from RO or HoS, then I would have to seek their permission to use them in a sold product.

Presumably this means more outlay - so more likely you would replace with your team's own work.

I imagine even though TWi won the licese for unreal 2 so they could release RO retail for 'free', they still would have had to pay Epic when they published Killing floor as retail.

 

[Fedorov]

I imagine even though TWi won the licese for unreal 2 so they could release RO retail for 'free', they still would have had to pay Epic when they published Killing floor as retail.

I do not think so

 

[dogbadger]

I do not think so

well unless there was more to the prize than i remember, they won a free use of unreal 2 specifically to release the mod as retail RO, and a single free license for unreal 3 engine to release a game of their choosing.

thats a seriously good prize as it it, i'm can't believe it would include the right to publish successive games, be they in-house or on behalf of another developer, on unreal 2 without engine fees.

I wonder what the Ue3 deal is though regards DLC or expansions....

 

[slavek]

Idk, This question is really something to think about. Time for a Tripwire Interactive Dev to come in! . . . . . Right . . . [Now]

 

[Extension7]

Idk, This question is really something to think about. Time for a Tripwire Interactive Dev to come in! . . . . . Right . . . [Now]

*crickets*

 

[dogbadger]

yeah well you can't expect them to come on and discuss their business, and to be honest thou i said 'i wonder what.....' that's a lie - i dont

however like i say i very much doubt they have been given carte blanche to release multiple unreal engine titles without license costs, and that includes KF and 'the ball'

and answering the threadstarter, if i understand he is right - take MN team - they would have to purchase the unreal license and then either work some thing out with twi regarding the assets from RO they used, or more likely replace with their own work.
I'm pretty sure you couldn't use so much as a texture without permission.

 

[O'Shannon]

i would guess if a mod team, like the DHmod team, would decide to go retail they would need to:

-buy the engine from Epic
-take textures, models, static meshes, all the code, which was originally made by TWI and replace it with there own. or somehow "Buy" it.

 

[echonian]

Well, the Unreal Engine 3 isn't exactly expensive in terms of licensing commercially. The main expense is the 25% royalty on all profits made after the first 5k dollars, as far as I know.

Though yeah, they would have to either get permission to use assets they've put into the mod, or replace them with their own - otherwise a modding team could run into legal troubles selling a game commercially.

 

[[TW]schneidzekk]

I think you are mixing up the UDK and UE3.

 

[echonian]

The UDK uses unreal engine 3, as far as I remember. Actually, it uses a constantly-updated version of it.

Now, they say you can publish games using the UDK. The licensing page states the cost of doing so, and even gives some examples.

I highly doubt that licensing the unreal engine from epic would cost more on top of the cost of licensing the UDK for commercial use when the UDK uses that same engine.

Edit: But then, I might be wrong. I am still a newb to this sort of thing.

 

[Yoshiro]

You would be wrong, as licensing UE 3 gives you source code.

 

[echonian]

Ah.

Well, I suppose that means that the engine can't be modified at all without the proper license. But still, it seems like you could use it via the UDK with just that one license. Meh.

 

[-[SiN]-bswearer]

well, i already figured the license stuff would have to be sorted out through Epic....UDK and engines and all that etc...

what i was really getting at is all the stuff that's in RO that was created by TWI. like O'Shannon said, i guess they'd have to create their own new stuff to replace TWI's work, or get permission from TWI to use their work through a "purchase" either through a license of some sort or possibly royalties? or perhaps, just give them permission for free?

the reason why i ask is because over the years i've been getting the feeling that most mod teams create mods for the primary reason of "creating a great mod" i.e. recognition as an independent entity alongside the "mother game". not to say that mod teams don't care at all about using their mod to build up the overall community, but sometimes it doesn't always come off as their top priority, which is understandable. when/if it a mod got to that point, i wonder if it would be better off for everyone (the mod team, the mod community and the "whole community") if the mod really moved on to become a "seperate" game apart from the community of the "mother game"? in the long run it might help reduce any conflicts or tensions between communities of the "mother game" and its 3rd party modifications while still helping both grow and prosper.

i'd imagine the difficulty would lie in how practical it would be for the mod to actually go retail on its own without the go ahead to use TW's work since the majority of the work in the mod would most likely not be original content. if TW was able to grant permission to use their work (or royalties etc...) then mod teams would have a good chunk of the difficulties for going retail taken care of. so currently speaking, this could be something like DH, MN or CC for ROOST, or potentially down the road for HOS with In Country, Iron Europe or any other undisclosed projects......not really something like Rising Storm that (from what i understand) will be "official" TW content released as either a free DLC or an expansion pack available for purchase.

anways, just some speculating to generate some discussion regarding mods and ROHOS.

 

[VariousNames]

The Killing Floor ToU says quite plainly you are not allowed to sell your mods or any assets as I recall.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[UncleDrax]

[Keep in mind kids, I'm speaking for myself personally here.. I'm not a majordomo for anyone!.. frankly.. if I was.. they should have fired me long ago..]

Don't mistake 'LLC' for meaning 'for profit organization that plans on releasing a product'. LLC is more to protect liability so if something goes horribly wrong, no one looses their house. It also helps to legitimize the mod since there is a legal entity behind it, and it helps with various legal stuffs that might arise.

If we wanted to try and release a mod as a stand-alone product based on Roost/Rohos/KF, we'd not only likely have to license the engine from Epic (which isn't cheap), but as was pointed out, license the title we based our stuff on (so from TWI). This means it would probably be pretty expensive of a mod. Frankly I know Alan and Ramm could use additional cars or something, so they might be open to the idea though :]

In my experience, modders mod for two main reasons:
1- They love modding (that is, it's a hobby that they enjoy.. be it creating sound fx, designing a level, or a passion for programming.. in general.. 'creating'). People that don't love it show up for a while then call it quits when the work starts getting hard (the reason most mods never get released, and why any mod that -does- get released is praise worthy!)
2- Lines on their resume (that is, people use it to gain practice and experience in game development as they want to do it professionally)

True, occasionally a #1 will end up getting a little scratch as a reward (Tripwire Interactive bringing several mod projects to retail (RO, KF, The Ball) as good examples, and places like Trauma Studios getting bought out (and later dumped) by EA as a negative example, etc..) but lemme tell you, the hours are long, and you'd be luckily to end up with the equivalent of a minimum wage job by the time it's done and said... unless you do what Tripwire did, make smart decisions, and morph into a successful Indie studio/publisher.

 

[-[SiN]-bswearer]

nice to hear input from somebody who's been involved with a success mod like you have Drax.

like you said, most modders do what they do cause they love it. like TW, they realized that their love for making games could in turn let them do it as their profession and make a living off of it. that said, i would venture to say that many modders, once they realize just how good their work is and how popular it has become, may begin thinking to themselves the same thing....."maybe i could do this for a living?"

i could see a company such as TW reaching out to modders and giving them that opportunity to break into the industry. i like the direction that Rising Storm is taking in that sense, i also love seeing stories like Dr.Guppy's, what TW did with Killing Floor, and now with TW publishing two independent mods in Zeno Clash and The Ball.

if TW could publish mods of other games into retail games, that opens the possiblity for them to also publish mods of their own games right? i.e. take a mod like Darkest Hour and publish it as a retail game?

 

[UncleDrax]

if TW could publish mods of other games into retail games, that opens the possiblity for them to also publish mods of their own games right? i.e. take a mod like Darkest Hour and publish it as a retail game?

Ahh.. ya the difference in what I said and this is really 'who is trying to publish it'. It'd be far more likely for TWI to do that.. although, since it's a mod for their own game, why publish it as a standalone? It'd be easier to publish it as a DLC (which seems to be what Rising Storm is about). If nothing else, it makes it easier on the patching (bugs, new features in the base game, etc pretty much will automatically apply to any DLCs) and you don't have to give the mod team low-level access to the engine. It'd make it easier on the original developer and the mod team.

 

[-[SiN]-bswearer]

well, yeah that's kinda what i'm getting at. if a mod was good enough to get a steam release then most likely it'd be good enough to become content officially published by TW. my thoughts are that instead of being DLC, mods should be more like expansion packs so that it's stand alone and not require you to purchase the "mother game" if you don't want to. kinda like say you could buy "Darkest Hour" instead of buying "RO:OST" in order to install and run DH (just a pet peeve of mine when i hear people say, "i bought RO just to play DH"......they should just buy DH then if they never wanted RO lol). that way there's more of an emphasis placed on allowing "mod communities" to establish their own identity without running the risk of offending people from the "main" community or creating any conflict.

the problem with DLC and certain mods is that the mods end up being too different from the "vanilla" game that it's not really the same game anymore. i think of DLC more as adding something that just a little bit extra to the vanilla game. example: the CC mod and even the MN mod for the most part, were both imo more like DLCs for ROOST. DH on the other hand got to the point where it's really more of it's own game as opposed to just adding "front, more skins, weapons, maps, vehicles" etc.... to RO. once a mod gets to that point, it's not so much DLC as it is a seperate game in itself, i mean it also couldn't really be considered an expansion pack either. so in that case the mod would more or less be a stand alone "game" that TW could publish and grant permission to use their original content in the game.....again, the engine lisencing would still be an issue


either way, TW would continue to make money off the "mod/game/expansion etc..." but it would also allow the developers of that mod get some compensation as well, which again sounds exactly like what will happen with RS. would be nice to maybe see this happen with other mods as well.