Citizen
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I did my due diligence and performed another search. There's nothing public that supports RB being aware of an alleged IP dispute before RB went public.
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I have not seen any indication of this and nothing is appearing in google.
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Possibly. That depends on whether the contract gives ED the right to stop sales of the module at any time.
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My worry is that this isn't rock bottom yet. There's still the DCMA to worry about.
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If you'd like me to, sure. First off, I believe this came from EDs side. When someone at RB wants to say something, they just say it. When a whistleblower at ED wants to leak something, they use an intermediary. RB wanted to make a Tucano for both MCS and DCS. As you are likely aware, the hardest part of module development is access to documentation and SMEs. Ron had a plan to obtain those resources from the Ecuadorian Air Force in exchange for covering their costs to use the module once it went live. RB, ED, and EDMS would benefit by being able to sell the module to other professional entities that operate the type and consumers like us like any other module. Nick appears to have been made aware and was supportive of the project, but no contract was ever signed. Perhaps Ron felt it wouldn't be necessary since they were at a relatively early point in the process, but whatever the reason it was clearly a poor decision. Approximately half a year to a year after F-15E royalties would be due, RB was informed that ED considered the Tucano project a breach of IP. Now, perhaps Nick decided to reverse his previous support of the project and without a contract, that would be his right to do so. RB stopped work immediately and thus solved any potential harm. ED is maintaining that despite the alleged harm being solved, they are entitled to an amount that is a bit more than half of the F-15E royalties due to RB. I have my suspicions as to why ED hasn't paid the difference as a show of good faith but that's beyond the scope of the correspondence between counsels. The current status is RB demanding the full amount of royalties and ED asking RB to 'take a broader view'.
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I've seen the correspondence between the lawyers.
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Sure, I can do that. The comma would be after 'healthy' instead of 'currently' (or, preferably, be split into two sentences) if it meant what I think you're thinking. We have a broad idea what EDs income from the consumer side looks like thanks to https://vginsights.com/insights/article/how-to-estimate-steam-video-game-sales We have a pretty good idea of how much leaves ED for NGs other entities thanks to UK disclosures. Wags says a team consists of 20-30 individuals and that new projects don't slow down existing projects since they're different teams, so we have a broad idea of what EDs payroll looks like. The math just doesn't add up for ED to be able to soak paying RB regardless of if they make up or not. Well, that's the thing. Ron and the developers seem to think Nick has been aware of the project for years and wholeheartedly approved of it. Given that there was no money changing hands, I'd wager they didn't think a contract would be required. I have no doubt that you'd agree that's a lethal mistake to make in business. Given the fact that RB was pretty open about developing a Tucano for years, I don't think this situation is similar to your example. Occam's razor says this was a series of unforced errors without malice on both sides until relatively recently. Given the amount that leaves ED for TFC, something like this was going to happen eventually. All it would take is one module being a bit later than expected (F-4E) or one upcoming product to be too early for preorder (F-16).
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Well, let's take a look. Given the highly visible development of the Tucano, I don't think we're looking at anything sneaky or shady on RBs part. It's most likely a professional misunderstanding and a case study in why relying on verbal agreements is fraught. As far as why it hasn't been resolved yet, we may find the answer on page one: Very healthy *aside from this dispute currently* leads me to suspect that if RB solved the IP dispute (by stopping work on the Tucano immediately) ED would not be financially able to cover what it owes RB.
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Hold on a second, there's no indication money has changed hands where the Tucano is concerned.
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DCS - 2025 and Beyond / Christmas Newsletter Wishlist.
Citizen replied to Dangerzone's topic in DCS Core Wish List
Dynamic campaign was first mentioned in 2008. There are DCS users younger than the dynamic campaign development effort. Critically, AI is still extremely lackluster. The recent improvements to ground AI have essentially been tweaks to the RNG of spotting and accuracy. Aircraft AI will still happily fly into the ground with alarming regularity and there's a lack of creativity and good decision making with the AI. Enigma posited that dynamic campaigns won't matter much if the AI is lackluster compared to industry standard, and I agree. DCS isn't the platform to look for massive changes on; the development velocity isn't there. My advice is that if you're looking for an experience beyond a cockpit simulator, invest the time in multiplayer. -
That's excellent news. You're correct that there is another narrative out there, but an official statement to the contrary is welcome! Since 3rd parties are compensated for store credit purchases in the same way as normal purchases, I personally see no ethical problems with store credit as a refund.
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Very good questions. It's unclear. "Eagle Dynamics shall pay to the Developer any amount received from end-users in connection with the delivery of the Licensed Modules..." There's no language that I can see regarding promotional funds like miles or how store credit is handled. Given that miles aren't compensated and that store credit spent isn't technically an amount received from end users at the time of purchase, I would expect them to be handled similarly.
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The questionable part to me is that a significant number of folks will use store credit to purchase other 3rd party modules, and those third parties won't be compensated. Essentially, this moves a portion of the debt to other 3rd parties. Regardless of how people feel about ED or RB, I think we can all agree that an entity such as Polychop, OnReTech, IFE etc didn't do anything in this situation that would necessitate them not being paid for their work.
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I operate under the assumption that the spike in reviews after RBs announcement fall outside the expectations of that formula. Certainly that site doesn't seem to give any account for controversy reviews. You can breakdown reviews by date which allows you to cull the problem data. I won't assume ED takes 50% since that's nowhere near industry standard. Taking a 30% cut is in line with industry standard. 30k copies sold in 2023 is within the expected range. If we utilize steam reviews as a starting point, we see that the F-15E was likely *by far* RBs best selling product. I don't think they came anywhere near 5m for all previous products put together. This does not and cannot include income from professional contracts like MCS.
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I believe standard is 30% but it's impossible to know what RBs is without the contract. There's also the steam share to consider. We do know how many people have reviewed the F-15E module on Steam. There's a pretty good formula for extrapolating steam reviews to total number of sales: https://vginsights.com/insights/article/further-analysis-into-steam-reviews-to-sales-ratio-how-to-estimate-video-game-sales From there, given that steam makes up approx. 1/3rd of module sales, you can get a very ballpark figure of total number of copies sold. 30k copies sold is within the margins of error.
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? I'm not credited in any ED publication. At least, I shouldn't be. You are. If Razbam credited me for work on their product, folks would be right to say that I have an interest in the topic that colors my opinion on the matter. The words of people engaged with RB or ED aren't of much value in my estimation because they have an interest in the topic that colors their opinion.
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Mizzy, you're a named and credited contributor to ED.
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If I said that ED had 1.4 million reasons to make up an IP dispute, it'd be called speculation and commentary not inline with guardrails of the thread. The purpose of this thread is to give influencers and named contributors such as yourself a platform to sensemake, speculate and spin while denying the same to folks that don't buy the company line. I believe this because I work in marketing and PR and would be tempted to do the same. There's little reason to do that if you honestly believe an equitable outcome is possible.
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If ED and RB somehow find common ground and move forward, the talent migration is a critical loss and RB will never be the same. How long could you operate without pay before you weren't able to trust your employer? If ED and RB don't find common ground, there is no room for trust between ED, 3rd parties, and customers. How can we be expected to buy modules when ED has illustrated that it's not able to secure the talent necessary to seamlessly maintain them?
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There is not. RB has lost irreplaceable talent and the trust is broken. There is no reasonable future for a caretaker of the DCS platform that allows so much talent to walk out the door and find their way to a competitor.
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Yeah, that's been a challenge for sure. There's a fundamental difference between something breaking due to development process and something breaking due to an entire 3rd party dev stating that development is stopped due to a disagreement. One is expected (at least by those that stick around) and the other is interpreted as something that was preventable. From what I'm seeing, the Venn diagram of people willing to give DCS a pass for development instability and people willing to give ED a pass for hosting a disruptive dispute is definitely not a circle. I cannot stress this strongly enough: this disruption is unlike any DCS has seen yet in terms of public perception. There is a version of this where the dispute concludes in a messy way and ED/DCS continues on, but the impact to growth (or the limiting of contraction as the case may be) will be felt. Worse if a competitor rears their head while RB modules aren't demonstrably supported.
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You're correct! Mostly. The average user by default doesn't give a damn if RB or ED is in the right. What they want is for the product they paid for to work for the short period of times they have available to play, and they want to be sure that development will continue. Their investment in the slap fight changes radically when Mx. Average User logs on and finds radars not working, flight models depreciating, and hears of public announcements that their products won't be supported moving forward. Sure, ED can try to communicate that things will be fixed, but the negative perception of their extremely limited free time being destroyed by a dysfunction that could have been avoided will be extremely difficult to shake, especially since it's very difficult to communicate directly to those users. I understand that point of view, but please understand that the ED discord and this forum are effectively tools to influence the cheerleaders. The average user does not interact with these channels. From that point of view, ED has been influencing cheerleaders for quite some time.
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There are at least two battles: -A legal dispute between ED and RB, -ED maintaining the trust of the community. The court of public opinion will not solve the former, but it's key to the latter. I don't have access to all the metrics but based on what I have seen, ED has been unsuccessful in maintaining public trust. The tipping point was the conflict hitting the mindshare of DCS users that don't spend time on the forums or discord. Most DCS users are part of small groups where one or two members are the highly-connected 'cheerleaders.' Those in the orbit of these cheerleaders tend to adopt the beliefs, preferences, and purchasing habits of the cheerleaders. Historically, to move the perception of the larger audience, ED could influence the cheerleaders and the majority of the userbase would follow. This conflict is different. Whereas previously these groups could be influenced by influencing the cheerleaders, now the interests are different enough that differences are emerging in the subgroups. I suspect that this has had a deleterious effect on play time (particularly SP play time) and that will likely manifest as lower overall product excitement. If that influences production velocity downwards, you potentially have a dangerous spiral. For my part, I can't get around ED not getting ahead of this before the DCS community lost some incredible talent to a competitor. If RB hasn't been paid for some time, and ED says that is due to an IP dispute, then the IP dispute has been known for some time and preparations to prevent loss of talent should have been made long ago.
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In this hypothetical case, ED would need to balance the harm from limiting further damages versus the public opinion reality that walking those statements back will be perceived as being an admission that there was no IP violation. Compounded with the difficulty that pursing formal legal action against a P.O. box in Switzerland represents, I suspect we're seeing a decision made from a lesser of two evils standpoint. Problem: Without evidence, the wider audience will eventually reject the claim. I believe this is where we are at now.
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The IP infringement claim. At this point, they appear unwilling to back it up which lowers trust with the audience. If I was in their shoes, I would be wishing I hadn't been explicit about IP violations since that sort of claim will be expected to be backed up. RBs statement was fairly imprecise as to the root of the issue and rather focused on managing expectations moving forward. If they weren't able to continue development for any reason, I would expect them to make a statement like that. The major issue is that ED should have gotten in front of the situation long before RB could no longer sustain development. We've lost phenomenal talent to a competitor and that is a failure of stewardship that is difficult to overlook.
