Author: Sune Fischer
Date: 18:10:44 01/07/04
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On January 07, 2004 at 20:02:53, Ed Trice wrote: >Hello Dr. Hyatt, > >> >>However, none of this matters. IMHO the game is "dead" since no one is going >>to even bother with the hassle... >> > >"Hassle" could be a double entendre if obtaining the license was a hassle, but >it is not. Writing a Gothic Chess program is a "hassle", but it also is fun. The >patent licensing is not a hassle, just send me $1. > >:) Ed, I have a few questions. 1) What would happen if someone decided to make an engine that could play certain chess variants, one of which would be configurable to play Gothic? For instance if one made a Capablanca chess engine which via a setboard command could turn into a Gothic chess game? Keith and Uri already asked this question, but at the time of writing this you haven't answered them. 2) First off I want to say I have nothing against people trying to make money, I'm just a little curious of how you have pictured the future of this game should unfold, hence the following daring question (don't take it the wrong way, really I'm just curious and I would need to have these issues clearly resolved before commencing on _anything_): Currently you hold all the rights to the game, and right now you are only asking for $1 for 1 years license. However if someone decided to make a really competitive engine that would take a few years. How could that someone be sure you wouldn't suddenly jam the price up a few hundred times and ask an obscene amount of money? It seems to me you have an aweful power to close down entire projects just by snapping your fingers. Either people pay up or they can throw years of work in the trash. Imagine if someone is successful in writing a Gothic engine that out-sells and out-performs your Gothic engine, how will this affect the license agreement with that author? What legal rights would protect the other author? Can he force a renewal of the license for the same price, or what? 3) Regarding marketing strategy wouldn't it be better if possible (I'm no laywer), to let people use Gothic for free and only demand a percentage if someone starts making money off it? I'm thinking of something similar to the legal principle protecting the Nalimov endgame tables where the amateurs may ask for a free license. It strikes me, that it would be in your best interest to make the game as wide spread as possible, and that you would need some happy amateurs to get started. -S. P.S. I can see that you are very serious about this, so I wish you Good Luck :)
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