Chaos Chronicles - CorePlay's Response

Yeah, there's nothing new in the news I was just curious why he said that since it doesn't go with anything I heard. Either for CC or Gothic 3.

Even after all the news I am still not too clear on things. I guess it's all kind of subjective.

ManWhoJaped said:

Because I missed his response to me and wanted more information.

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from what i know of G3, it was a matter of meeting deadlines. because the artistic considerations were the ones that delayed it. creating something new and as large a world as gothic 3, which have never been attempted before, comes with its issues.
i understood jowood for withdrawing support for pirahna bytes(developers of G3).
they couldn't finance the team forever, and they had bad times financially. with kickstarter they could have made a much better game. nothing anyone could do about it.

on the CC matter, no ones knows for sure. some say meeting deadlines. some say tax percentage was too heavy on bitcomposer.
but, according to interviews with the CC team, I believe bitcomposer wanted more artistic control over the material. one of coreplay team stated that the dispute was because of the new shareholders. which probably see this as 1)a bad investment according to their "Experts". meaning they wanted to make this a bad console game for pc. Or 2)they just didn't believe it would sell.
on my behalf, I can't understand why coreplay didn't want to turn to crowd funding with the buzz this game had.

you can read about it here

EDIT:
I guess i missed that important part-
"
The dispute between the publisher bitComposer Entertainment AG and the developer Coreplay GmbH started in Autumn 2012 with the controversy about an early release of the game 'Chaos Chronicles' in February/March 2013. As we (Coreplay) stated then, a release at this time would lead to terrible consequences for the game regarding its quality, content, and stability. Since bitComposer refused to invest more money in ‘Chaos Chronicles”, but wanted to publish this incomplete game by February/ March 2013, we offered to develop and complete the game by June 2013 at our own cost, which of course would necessarily lead to it receiving a corresponding share of the sales revenues. bitComposer refused this proposal without putting forward any alternatives. "

-and my question is who owns the copyright? I figure bitcomposer, since i am sure they would turn to to kickstarter. which makes bitcomposer even more annoying for withholding such a game that is near completion.
they just didn't care about the game. only about the money, which is why computer games are manufactured in the first place.

If Coreplay, with a new shareholder, really proposed to make the project bigger by risking their own money, I'm not sure you can blame BC for not agreeing. If the pie gets bigger and the way it's split is different, it's basically a different project. 30% or so more budget, a later release date (against different competition) and a modified revenue split change the risk evaluation.

On a sidenote, a shareholder change during a production hints at internal problems at CP.

But all that is history. CP is out of business - I'm not sure if a company shell still exists - and some of them are now developing SpellForce 3 in an internal Nordic studio.

Gorath said:

If Coreplay, with a new shareholder, really proposed to make the project bigger by risking their own money, I'm not sure you can blame BC for not agreeing. If the pie gets bigger and the way it's split is different, it's basically a different project. 30% or so more budget, a later release date (against different competition) and a modified revenue split change the risk evaluation.

On a sidenote, a shareholder change during a production hints at internal problems at CP.

But all that is history. CP is out of business - I'm not sure if a company shell still exists - and some of them are now developing SpellForce 3 in an internal Nordic studio.

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the shareholder change was in BC as I understood from the interview.
and after CP proposals i think BC just got greedy or lost interest. I still don't understand why they couldn't turn to crwod funding with this.

rikus said:

the shareholder change was in BC as I understood from the interview.
and after CP proposals i think BC just got greedy or lost interest. I still don't understand why they couldn't turn to crwod funding with this.

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As far as I understood it the shareholder change was at CP.
Crowd funding means giving up control and completely changing the way external communication works.

edit: The interview is clear: CP got new shareholders.

Couchpotato said:

Yes the site did cover this topic last year, and we posted both sides of the conflict.

Link to News Archive - http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/news?ref=0&id=507

This is old news now and all this does is reopen old wounds.

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No kidding! When I saw this thread was active again I had a tiny glimmer of hope that the game had somehow been resurrected.

Of course we'll never know if it would've been great (Coreplay didn't exactly have a stellar track record), but it looked so promising. I don't care whose fault the cancellation is, I just can never have enough of these "old school" CRPGs.

rikus said:

on the CC matter, no ones knows for sure. some say meeting deadlines. some say tax percentage was too heavy on bitcomposer.
but, according to interviews with the CC team, I believe bitcomposer wanted more artistic control over the material. one of coreplay team stated that the dispute was because of the new shareholders. which probably see this as 1)a bad investment according to their "Experts". meaning they wanted to make this a bad console game for pc. Or 2)they just didn't believe it would sell.
on my behalf, I can't understand why coreplay didn't want to turn to crowd funding with the buzz this game had.


-and my question is who owns the copyright? I figure bitcomposer, since i am sure they would turn to to kickstarter. which makes bitcomposer even more annoying for withholding such a game that is near completion.
they just didn't care about the game. only about the money, which is why computer games are manufactured in the first place.

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IIRC, someone from Coreplay basically said that the development costs for this game would've been too high to make a Kickstarter feasible. (A relatively unknown team couldn't hope to raise the amount of money needed to fund a project that never really received much media attention outside of RPG Codex and RPGWatch.) To make matters worse, as a publisher who had been funding the project, BitComposer did have at least partial ownership of the IP (and probably ownership of existing art assets as well) so Coreplay would've had to offer a lot of money to "buy them out" even if they wanted to do crowd-funding… And even if bitComposer was OK with the potentially bad publicity of Kickstarter to save a game they were "abandoning", I imagine that a lot of potential backers wouldn't be crazy about the idea that a large portion of their contributions would be going towards buying the rights from bitComposer rather than actually finishing the game.

daveyd said:

No kidding! When I saw this thread was active again I had a tiny glimmer of hope that the game had somehow been resurrected.

Of course we'll never know if it would've been great (Coreplay didn't exactly have a stellar track record), but it looked so promising. I don't care whose fault the cancellation is, I just can never have enough of these "old school" CRPGs.



IIRC, someone from Coreplay basically said that the development costs for this game would've been too high to make a Kickstarter feasible. (A relatively unknown team couldn't hope to raise the amount of money needed to fund a project that never really received much media attention outside of RPG Codex and RPGWatch.) To make matters worse, as a publisher who had been funding the project, BitComposer did have at least partial ownership of the IP (and probably ownership of existing art assets as well) so Coreplay would've had to offer a lot of money to "buy them out" even if they wanted to do crowd-funding… And even if bitComposer was OK with the potentially bad publicity of Kickstarter to save a game they were "abandoning", I imagine that a lot of potential backers wouldn't be crazy about the idea that a large portion of their contributions would be going towards buying the rights from bitComposer rather than actually finishing the game.

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if that is the case then its a gone issue. not that full ownership by BC would be any better.
I was once involved in an rpg project(darksun) which after some development, fell with the same issues. we didn't even have a chance to remotely negotiate the rights, since it was, and is, owned by HASBRO. the most gigantic world caliber toys company. it probably owns half the world by now.

rikus said:

if that is the case then its a gone issue. not that full ownership by BC would be any better.
I was once involved in an rpg project(darksun) which after some development, fell with the same issues. we didn't even have a chance to remotely negotiate the rights, since it was, and is, owned by HASBRO. the most gigantic world caliber toys company. it probably owns half the world by now.

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I had no idea we had a darksun dev on the site. Cool.

Sounds like by 'bigger' they simply meant 'finished'. So I will blame it on the publisher again, especially since the devs even tried to put in their own money. They could have at least tried to make something happen but it's obvious they had no interest. Just like they never seem to have interest in the kind of games we want made, only the quickest cash grabs possible with no real investment.

rikus said:

if that is the case then its a gone issue. not that full ownership by BC would be any better.
I was once involved in an rpg project(darksun) which after some development, fell with the same issues. we didn't even have a chance to remotely negotiate the rights, since it was, and is, owned by HASBRO. the most gigantic world caliber toys company. it probably owns half the world by now.

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Aw, man, that makes me sad. Dark Sun: Shattered Lands remains one my favorite CRPGs ever, and the Dark Sun setting deserved another CRPG (after the disappointing sequel and an MMO game). With HASBRO owning the IP, it seems we'll never see another one.. And if we even see another single-player D&D game, it will probably be some console-oriented action RPG and not the kind of CRPG most of us here would prefer.

exactly. we should go to congress with this, hehe.
why should they be able to hoard IP like that? it isn't even theirs. the author of the IP, which we even talked with (troy denning) and he was cool about we using it.


and I wasn't a legit darksun developer, those were SSI's as i recall? we just made a fan game, which seen release(darksunnline, or age of heroes).

something that always bugs me about IP is the easiness your creative soul can be owned bu contract. even credits aren't always given. if there ever should be a proper law about IP, its the one when the creator should always retain the rights and have the authority to give it to whomever. some wants a piece of it? fine. get a proper precentage, even all of it. but the authority should remain to the creator. I can't for the life of me understand how it isn't like this. at all. not even close to that.

Just look at the creators of Spider Man. That is why business for yourself is always better even if it necessarily means being more modest. If you do make a hit it benefits you little otherwise, and probably still won't be something you are artistically happy with.

ManWhoJaped said:

Just look at the creators of Spider Man. That is why business for yourself is always better even if it necessarily means being more modest. If you do make a hit it benefits you little otherwise, and probably still won't be something you are artistically happy with.

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sorry. i didnt get what you said at all. or i didn't understand it.
marvel comics are in a position of making money-not art. and they're getting it extremely well with the movies that comes out.
it is the opposite of being modest.

rikus said:

sorry. i didnt get what you said at all. or i didn't understand it.
marvel comics are in a position of making money-not art. and they're getting it extremely well with the movies that comes out.
it is the opposite of being modest.

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Most of the guys who came up with the idea got 200 bucks from it, or something like that. You might poopoo on comic books but to the ones making the art it's serious enough.

ManWhoJaped said:

Most of the guys who came up with the idea got 200 bucks from it, or something like that. You might poopoo on comic books but to the ones making the art it's serious enough.

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still got no clue what are you talking about hehe. marvel comics are the ones with idea, who came up with spiderman and hulk etc and made tons of money from comic books-back when it was popular consumption. and i love comics if thats what you meant by poopooing)(??)

unless you mean that the painter is the one who came up with the idea.

rikus said:

still got no clue what are you talking about hehe. marvel comics are the ones with idea, who came up with spiderman and hulk etc and made tons of money from comic books-back when it was popular consumption. and i love comics if thats what you meant by poopooing)(??)

unless you mean that the painter is the one who came up with the idea.

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Some corporation made all the money. The individuals who actually came up with the idea got nothing.

ManWhoJaped said:

Some corporation made all the money. The individuals who actually came up with the idea got nothing.

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that's not a fact, it might be supported by statistics, but i doubt it alot. for example rock bands, gets tons of money as the creators. it all depends on how you made your contract.
the black blues artists which pioneered the genre barely got any, as opposed to their managers who made money over them, behind their banks and with "promising contracts". but zepplin and rolling stones did get fat checks(cause they were white). so did sting. so does start up companies. there alot of good examples where the creator of the IP is the one getting the bigger pie of the royalties.

rikus said:

that's not a fact, it might be supported by statistics, but i doubt it alot. for example rock bands, gets tons of money as the creators. it all depends on how you made your contract.
the black blues artists which pioneered the genre barely got any, as opposed to their managers who made money over them, behind their banks and with "promising contracts". but zepplin and rolling stones did get fat checks(cause they were white). so did sting. so does start up companies. there alot of good examples where the creator of the IP is the one getting the bigger pie of the royalties.

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If you didn't know what I was talking about, how could you know that? I am talking about the specific case. None of the creators got any royalties, it was all work for hire. That is the case in virtually all game development as well.

Stan Lee is the only one who gets any more off it at all, but he is just getting money for being a spokesman. He does not get any royalties and has no rights to anything, and he is not really the creator as such. He's just one of several people who was on the project.

ManWhoJaped said:

If you didn't know what I was talking about, how could you know that? I am talking about the specific case. None of the creators got any royalties, it was all work for hire. That is the case in virtually all game development as well.

Stan Lee is the only one who gets any more off it at all, but he is just getting money for being a spokesman. He does not get any royalties and has no rights to anything, and he is not really the creator as such. He's just one of several people who was on the project.

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perhaps, but the game has changed, with crowd funding. now developers can get royalties. although, they do also have to come up with their own campaign and marketing which takes away lots of energy-and also requires skill which not everyone has. nothing comes for free i guess.
but basically the one who "gets the money" takes much more risk than the work for hire guys. he is investing in their talent. so that's a huge risk for anyone to take, especially in large sums of money like millions or hundreds of thousands. which can bankrupt most companies.

despite all this, and despite the risk being involved that makes the "dream come true" the creators are the ones with the idea itself. they couldn't have done it themselves(or they would turn to crowd funding) but I'm pretty sure the fair thing to do is at least give them some share of the royalties. not *everything* to the investors.

crowd funding is just a way to bypass the problem. there are still work for hire guys who make magic and barely get by with what they get.

seems on steam it changed the name, so maybe a release is near by different dev or whatever?

first sign after 9 months of pause on the db

about 3 hours ago Changed changenumber – 708397 › 708410
about 3 hours ago Changed changenumber – 377436 › 708397
about 3 hours ago Changed name Chaos Chronicles › Century of Chaos
9 months ago zzzzzzzzzz

I left it on my steam wish list and sure enough the name did change. When I click to go to its store page though it just takes me to the steam homepage.

Not sure what to think. Would love to see it released some how.