Chaos Chronicles - Coreplay Issues New Statement

Couchpotato

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In response of the RPG Codex interview with bitComposer Coreplay has issued a counter statement on The Games Inquirer.

In bitComposer’s recent statements they mentioned a meeting on July 24 2013. Before this meeting took place, bitComposer had already declined to sign any agreement in this meeting. But what is the point of negotiations if one party has no intention of reaching an agreement? As we did not want to experience a repetition of the lengthy and fruitless negotiations of May 31 2013 without any outcome, we did not attend the meeting.

After all the trouble, we have experienced during the last eight months, we firmly believe that this publisher is entirely unwilling to settle the conflict. Although bitComposer has repeatedly claimed that it is interested in a solution, it has never followed this up with deeds. In particular, as opposed to Coreplay, bitComposer has not presented any single contractual proposal since its withdrawal of the injunction.

Their strategy is quite clear to us: bitComposer assumes that we will finish developing the game with large sums of borrowed money, whereas bitComposer incurs no further expense. BitComposer would then prevent the marketing of the completed game by Coreplay or a third party on the grounds that this would violate bitComposer’s alleged rights to the game. In this way bitComposer would be able to force us to sell them the game cheaply and under heavy losses. This is why we were not able to borrow further money in order to continue developing ‘Chaos Chronicles’.

As developers and avid RPG fans, we are deeply disappointed that bitComposer has simply destroyed our possibility of finishing such a promising and ambitious RPG and thereby ruined our financial efforts and our creative work, which was carried out with such great enthusiasm and passion.

But of course, everyone can form their own opinion about how strong bitComposer’s aim is to publish quality games and how fair and cooperative they are.

Coreplay GmbH, 11th August 2013
Credit and thanks for the newsbit goes to GamesInquirer.
smiley-wink.gif


More information.
 
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This reminds me of entry 1 or 2 or 3 of the blog of Larian's Boss.
There was a hint that things like this can or could happen.
 
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Such a damn shame. Hoping to see CC resurrected in some shape or form in the future.
 
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Thanks CP, this is an interesting statement. I kinda think they this looks likely to degenerate into an bitter tennis rally though. I don't know who is at fault, I don't care really, I just wish they'd sort it out, as clearly a lot of people would love to see chaos chronicles make the light of day. If bitcomposer do another statement and it gets any more "he said she said" then my sympathy for both parties is going to dive.
 
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it's like a bad marriage, they won't talk to each other but will bitch to anyone else that will listen.
 
This is not news at all but a summary of CorePlay’s viewpoint. Also, most of us have seen the pattern quite many times already.

Rather, the question is which way will remain as valid for CRPG fans. Indie developers supported by larger companies aiming at a smaller marketing segment for diversification of risk (Might & Magic X: Legacy) or indie developers, maybe, with crowd-funding option?
 
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Unless a publisher owns the ip I think developers of niche games will stick to crowd funding since with the crap they need to go through with using a publisher it is too risky and like what has happened many times before they could get canceled half way through the development of the game.
 
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That's basically what I got out of it. They want something for nothing.

Honestly I don't even see the point of making a game if you don't own the IP. The publisher gets free money and you inevitably go out of business.
 
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That's basically what I got out of it. They want something for nothing.

Dunno about that. Coreplay's most recent statement didn't really tell us anything new, whereas bitComposer's interview was quite revealing.

Naturally, one or both parties could be lying/omitting information, so we might never know the truth, but so far bitComposer doesn't really sound as evil as some would like to make them out to be.
 
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wow what a great read, thanks Alrik whatever.

There's also the sad tale of gothic 3 where jowood pulled the funds because they missed the release date, releasing an unfinished game-bad for everyone.

I tend to favour the developers, calling them stupid isn't fair also, because they are inexperienced in contracts, especially those that have to worry about so money things in development, producing etc. a publisher deal is a crooked game.

but to further this drama-if the rights of the game applies to coreplay still(which i'm not sure at all)-why not go public funding and get it over with??
 
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Dunno about that. Coreplay's most recent statement didn't really tell us anything new, whereas bitComposer's interview was quite revealing.

Naturally, one or both parties could be lying/omitting information, so we might never know the truth, but so far bitComposer doesn't really sound as evil as some would like to make them out to be.

well coreplay offered a new contract, which is hardly standard in an ongoing development since there is already a contract. so you could say that, but why didn't they try to solve it? I think its because of copyrights issues. bitcomposer would lose too much if they agree to a new contract, so they refused-and so does coreplay.

impass.
 
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From everything that has been said by both companies one of them is lying since Coreplay says that Bitcomposer won't agree to a deal and Bitcomposer is saying that Coreplay won't cooperate with Bitcomposer on making a deal. Coreplay has said that Bitcomposer refused to sign an agreed upon deal at one meeting and that Bitcomposer refused to sign any deal for another meeting before it even happened. Bitcomposer says that Coreplay refuses to talk to them in order to come into an agreement and also blames the other company Coreplay got funding from.

I don't know who is lying but one of them is definitely lying about it.

rikus: In almost all cases the publisher requires the ownership of the IP before they will publish a game. It is likely the same in this case and I have always thought it was total BS. The only reason why publishers require the ownership of the IP is because of greed and you can't trust any company that makes decisions only out of greed.
 
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[..] As developers and avid RPG fans, we are deeply disappointed that bitComposer has simply destroyed our possibility of finishing such a promising and ambitious RPG and thereby ruined our financial efforts and our creative work, which was carried out with such great enthusiasm and passion.

I am "deeply disappointed" that the inexperienced developer wasn't able to envision what it takes to successfully finish a game, write a safe & sound contract and now whines about being stupid and a beginner that they have dreamed up an unrealistic "promising and ambitious RPG " = crap and thereby ruined their chances to make said game, a fate fully deserved, the financial efforts unnecessary, a questionable "creative work", which was obviously NOT "carried out with such great enthusiasm and passion" at all, since if they knew what they were doing, by now they would be already finishing a smaller Chaos Chronicles with less features, but at least a hope for a sequel or DLC.

The lack of skill, ignorance and vanity and lack of integrity of Coreplay developers are appalling, they fully deserve what they got. This happens if you have a handful of talented people in a developer group where a majority are useless eaters and they do not have a Project Manager who has balls and experience.
 
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I am "deeply disappointed" that the inexperienced developer wasn't able to envision what it takes to successfully finish a game, write a safe & sound contract and now whines about being stupid and a beginner that they have dreamed up an unrealistic "promising and ambitious RPG " = crap and thereby ruined their chances to make said game, a fate fully deserved, the financial efforts unnecessary, a questionable "creative work", which was obviously NOT "carried out with such great enthusiasm and passion." at all since if they knew what they were doing, they were already finishing a smaller RPG with less features, but at least a hope for a sequel or DLC.

The ignorance and vanity and lack of integrity of Coreplay developers are appalling, they fully deserve what they got.

Are you Mercy or NoMercy?
 
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Such a promising looking game, mired in business politics. A shame.
 
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Therefore the contractual relationship between Coreplay and bitComposer ended in February 2013.
[…]
A contract was written clarifying all the terms and conditions, by which bitComposer would transfer all their alleged rights to the game to Coreplay and would in return be paid immediate compensation.

So Coreplay want to get rid of bitComposer but …

The current contract even included a section – also as a requirement from the publicly funded FFF Bayern — whereby Coreplay could bring in more money and get a higher royalty share in exchange. However, as we said before, their new shareholders did not want to stick to this contract anymore, and have rejected everything we have suggested so far.

bitComposer don't want to divorce and leave the custody of their child.

This is somehow naive from Coreplay and absolutely unsurprising from bitComposer.
 
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So Coreplay want to get rid of bitComposer but …



bitComposer don't want to divorce and leave the custody of their child.

This is somehow naive from Coreplay and absolutely unsurprising from bitComposer.

exactly my hunch too, coreplay realized they had much more in their hands so it was stupid to abandon the IP(which is what every indie in his excitement of the deal does that), so they offered a new contract-which bitcomposer obviously rejected since they think they got a gold mine with the IP.

what to do next? how about some decent percentage for each one?
how about IP goes to the developer if they do hit a gold mine?
but bitcomposer have no incentive to do just that, since they already have a contract with them owing the IP.

dead end situation. bitcomposer will hire a new team which will ruin the game.
 
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Coreplay did not do themselves any favors with this statement. It comes across as amateur, defensive, and petty.

Reading between the lines, the disconnect between the two parties appears to be the state of the game.

It looks to me like the publisher was expecting a game sometime in early-mid 2013, but the developer knows they aren't anywhere remotely close to that. Based on their previous explanation of the timelines where they said they were working on JA-based content until mid-2012, I wouldn't be surprised if they were barely into production when January rolled around and bitComposer said, "Hey, is the game ready?".

I think the fundamental problem here is that bitComposer wants to talk about how to finish a game, while Coreplay wants to talk about how to start one. And if I were the developer, I would not relish that conversation at all.

I think it's interesting that when this whole thing blew up, the party who appeared most willing to just drop the project and start over was the developer. That should tell you something.

I don't think I am lamenting the loss of this game anymore, because I have a sneaking suspicion that there really wasn't ever much of a game to begin with…

All my own speculation, of course…
 
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