waiting for resolution RAZBAM Situation Post Archive (will be deleted)

[nessuno0505]

9 ore fa, oldcrusty ha scritto:

I blame the whole world (of coders) for letting ED to become the only option

Don't let me break the forum rules... 

[Atazar SPN]

hace 13 minutos, lead dispenser dijo:

nobody is going to do business with them after a stunt like that no matter whos to blame ...

What is the trick exactly? Stop product development by not receiving a salary for your work?

[Pipe]

3 hours ago, LordOrion said:

It does not make any sense to me: why ED should refuse to talk with RB?


Inviato dal mio iPad utilizzando Tapatalk Pro

ED is holding all the money=power, they can just squeeze RB till they cave..

It seems they obviously don’t give a flyin f*** about pissing off us peons in the process

No wonder they have no updates

[Shibbyland]

19 minutes ago, lead dispenser said:

If razbam want to close their doors an lets face it they make modules for a living if they pull completely  , (they won't)  , they would basically be closing up shop ,nobody is going to do business with them after a stunt like that no matter whos to blame ...But if they did i would fully except ED would do the right thing by their players .I understand that sometimes things can't be sorted out   . ( They will be have patience)   .  i would trade my razbam modules for others if offered 

Yea I think you're right but I honestly don't know how you restore a working relationship after publicly airing sensitive commercial information like that. Whatever issues they've been having got a whole lot more complex when RAZBAM threw ED under the bus (even if it turns out ED are in the "wrong"). I don't see this ending well.

If I were ED, I'd be thinking very carefully about what's the lesser of two evils here. If ED resolve this issue with RAZBAM, they'll keep these modules in service but then they're left with the distrust of what's occurred and potentially being held at ransom (for want of a better word) if things go south again. If they cut RAZBAM loose, they'll anger customers but if that's managed well (with fair compensation for example) then they won't have to worry about future issues with RAZBAM and it sends a pretty serious message to the remaining/future business partners about what the expected standard of conduct is.

As I say, ED needs its third party developers but there's definitely interdependence there. There really aren't that many other places 3rd party devs can sell their products.

[LordOrion]

https://stormbirds.blog/2024/06/05/concerns-rise-again-over-razbam-modules-in-dcs/

[NineLine]

4 hours ago, Wizard_03 said:

According to multiple razbam devs on discord today ED is refusing to communicate with them at all. So how exactly is this policy that ED has of complete radio silence both with us in the community and the devs at razbam working toward a solution? @NineLine

That is not what I have been hearing at all, but then we just get into he said/he said. It's best to wait for official announcements. It's not in our interest at all to go radio silent. 

[nessuno0505]

I do not own a lot of DCS modules, and those I own are all made by ED, being the only three 3rd party I have the Mig-21, the MB-339 and the Syria map. Of those three, the Mig-21 is aging badly even if its developer is still an active 3rd party (a different problem compared to a developer who leaves, but a problem as well). I never trusted RB and I hope they leave DCS environment, nevertheless I'm not confident in buying other modules until the RB issue is solved and I've seen ED answer to RB customers. Free modules or free miles would be an appropriate answer and I'll be ready to buy again if this will be the solution. I won't leave DCS, since I can enjoy all the core upgrades and the improvements of the modules I already own. I love all flight sims, both military and civilian, so my expensive hardware stuff can be "recycled" (and in fact is already used) to play other games in addition to DCS.

Edited June 5, 2024 by nessuno0505

[Oban]

25 minutes ago, Atazar SPN said:

What is the trick exactly? Stop product development by not receiving a salary for your work?

Seek legal advice, and check the terms and conditions of your contracts, see if you have a valid case, then let your lawyers do the talking and keep it professional like 99% of any other business partnership

[nessuno0505]

14 minuti fa, Shibbyland ha scritto:

If I were ED, I'd be thinking very carefully about what's the lesser of two evils here. If ED resolve this issue with RAZBAM, they'll keep these modules in service but then they're left with the distrust of what's occurred and potentially being held at ransom (for want of a better word) if things go south again. If they cut RAZBAM loose, they'll anger customers but if that's managed well (with fair compensation for example) then they won't have to worry about future issues with RAZBAM and it sends a pretty serious message to the remaining/future business partners about what the expected standard of conduct is.

If I were ED I'll send RB to hell at the cost of giving free modules in compensation to all of their customers. After a story like this, it's better to cut ties and clean up, best choice in the long term IMHO.

[Atazar SPN]

hace 8 minutos, Oban dijo:

Seek legal advice, and check the terms and conditions of your contracts, see if you have a valid case, then let your lawyers do the talking and keep it professional like 99% of any other business partnership

If you consider that your partner has breached any contractual point, call your partner for a conciliation act before suspending your payments without thinking about the consequences.

[nessuno0505]

We do not have a clue about payments, the only thing we know is that some ex razbam developer has complained about not being paid. Someone also mentioned a presumed unauthorized use of the DCS license for a military client by RB. Both those things are just speculation. RB decided to stop development, blaming "extarnal factors" (namely ED); ED answered that it's not true. End of the official statements.

Edited June 6, 2024 by nessuno0505

[NineLine]

6 minutes ago, Atazar SPN said:

If you consider that your partner has breached any contractual point, call your partner for a conciliation act before suspending your payments without thinking about the consequences.

But you are just guessing, outside the two management groups, no one knows what was done or how it was done. The guessing and theorizing won't help.

[Hammer1-1]

2 hours ago, LorenLuke said:

This has long been my thoughts about the whole thing. I can understand the RB developers being upset about not being paid, but many seem to have forgotten that paying the RazBam devs is Ron Zambrano's responsibility, not ED's.

I doubt Ron is the guy not paying his employees; he has to have the money before he CAN pay. The money has to be "earned" first and they're certainly  NOT earning money by not doing their custodial jobs either. The longer this takes, the longer nobody is getting paid.

Edited June 6, 2024 by Hammer1-1

[Slippa]

Personally I hope some adults representing both parties can calm down and get to what’s best for everybody. Yeah there’s damage been done and some bad decisions made. We all make mistakes and misunderstandings happen, it’s about getting past the hissy fits and coming to somewhere that makes sense for all concerned. Devs want to dev and everybody wants to earn and all we’re after is to pay our money for some decent modules and see it all improve.

I was reluctant to buy any modules with all of this. I’ve bought two though since as there’s a lot more to DCS than one developer or one group of devs. I own the Harrier, the F-15 and the SA map and I’d like to see them maintained. I’m pretty sure the people that spent so long working on em want to maintain em too? I’d have thought so? - There’s more to this than any of us know or likely will know for sure so we’ll have to wait and see. It’s a shame it all went tits up, let’s hope for better.

[Rainmaker]

37 minutes ago, nessuno0505 said:

We do not have a clue about payments, the only thing we know is that some ex razbam developer has complained about not being paid. Someone also mentioned a presumed unauthorized use of the DCS license for a military client by RB. Both those things are just speculation. RB decided to stop development, blaming "extarnal factors" (namely ED); ED answered that it's not true. End of the official statements.

 

Are you not keeping up with things?  Speculation?

 

 

[Cafe]

As a long time DCS user I went through the loss of the Hawk - I know, that happened for different reasons...but the sense of deja vu is strong. For a long time I eschewed DCS, as the idea of purchased components being lost struck me as a problem in the whole approach.

 

Well time heals most things and I came back after quite a hiatus. Now I am faced with losing access to multiple modules I invested in...and on a wider level invested in DCS as well. I am not a happy camper. Not only this, but my investment in peripherals and PC also are in question.

 

I don't know anything about the dispute and I avoid speculation, but my message for ED is this - my confidence in your product is breaking. And with no confidence, no sales. Your model isn't working. If 3rd party devs can drop off and leave modules hanging, then you haven't structured your content crreator contracts very well. Yes I have experience in the industry.

 

I know, the contingencis are probably all covered in the fine print where the end-user takes the risk, but the bigger risk is the lack of confidence this brings in you and your business.

 

I'd love to buy the F-4, but I won't. Nothing against Heatblur - everything against ED and the ED-creator-user triad that is not working.

 

If it is the money and not personal, then take a look at your business model and contracts - they are flawed. Change it so this is not going to happen in future.

 

We are a relatively small community, with few outlets for our passion. If you want to keep servicing it with true passion and dedication (as your promo vids suggest) then you need to keep OUR dream alive - not just your own.

 

Cafe

[Slippa]

9 minutes ago, Cafe said:

the idea of purchased components being lost struck me as a problem in the whole approach.

Now I am faced with losing access to multiple modules I invested in...and on a wider level invested in DCS as well. I am not a happy camper. Not only this, but my investment in peripherals and PC also are in question.

 my confidence in your product is breaking. And with no confidence, no sales. Your model isn't working. If 3rd party devs can drop off and leave modules hanging, then you haven't structured your content crreator contracts very well. 

I know, the contingencis are probably all covered in the fine print where the end-user takes the risk, but the bigger risk is the lack of confidence this brings in you and your business.

the ED-creator-user triad that is not working.

take a look at your business model and contracts - they are flawed. Change it so this is not going to happen in future.

We are a relatively small community, with few outlets for our passion. If you want to keep servicing it with true passion and dedication (as your promo vids suggest) then you need to keep OUR dream alive - not just your own.

Cafe

All of that too.

[PD919]

2 hours ago, NineLine said:

That is not what I have been hearing at all, but then we just get into he said/he said. It's best to wait for official announcements. It's not in our interest at all to go radio silent. 

This is very believable.  The devs shouldn't know any details on a serious legal matter.  The lawyers of both companies only want people who should know to know.

[SignorMagnifico]

If RAZBAM bows out and goes bankrupt, I expect to be refunded what I paid. I’ll take store credit if that’s the only way. Not about to ask for a refund, yet, though, because ultimately what I want is to play those modules. Store credit doesn’t give me a full fidelity Strike Eagle I waited years to play. Store credit doesn’t give me back the Harrier, MiG-19, or Mirage I bought in good faith that my purchases would be supported as long as DCS World exists.
 

Please, ED, if you’re reading this, find some compromise to let RAZBAM continue development while you negotiate or find some way to fix the bugs yourselves. It’s unfair for either side to let customers sit with a broken product while there is a dispute. Show us we can still trust this company with our investments. As for me, this situation has broken my trust in both parties.

Edited June 6, 2024 by SignorMagnifico

[OldFlyer]

I’ve pulled the ejection handle on this module, ED gave me store credit.

As much as I loved the F-15E, I grew tired of this RB/ED drama and was getting increasingly annoyed at the bugs.

Good luck to those still hanging on.

[SignorMagnifico]

6 minutes ago, OldFlyer said:

I’ve pulled the ejection handle on this module, ED gave me store credit.

As much as I loved the F-15E, I grew tired of this RB/ED drama and was getting increasingly annoyed at the bugs.

Good luck to those still hanging on.

Fare thee well. Safe journey.

[EbonySeraphim]

I think people should understand that when there's an ongoing dispute between a company you work for and a business partner company and group, things can get to a point where you're not allowed to talk to them directly. Or at least you're told not to. It doesn't necessarily mean the entirely relationship is over, but it does represent a gravity of the legal issue that needs to be worked out.

Anyone can assume ED wants RAZBAAM modules to continue to work and get updated/fixed in DCS. ED themselves are probably able to take on such work (scaling up with devs being the key concern), but the problem is that RAZBAAM has to turn over / sell their code. How much is that code worth when RAZBAAM is literally sitting there willing to just let it die? Of course ED should pay something for it, but understand that such code has no value outside of integrating with DCS, and might even be illegal to open source as the SDKs/APIs into the DCS engine are probably under NDA or other closed source licensing. If RAZBAAM cares about the community, but is basically at a point of "we go no further" they shouldn't have a problem with someone else carrying the ball from then on, but it would clearly look bad if 

If ED is a super evil platform creator and overlord, the substantial proof would require serious transparency into what agreement module makers have to sign up for and the financial realities of it are. Good luck finding a neutral expert on the subject matter because such a relationship has never existed anywhere else, ever. It's harder to believe the agreement is that bad when other modules of high quality are able to be made and maintained. Ultimately, I can understand why a lot of missions and campaign's don't keep up with the core engine updates and are often found broken over time. I can accept that and it pretty much means the reality for purchasing missions is to ensure it's up to date with current DCS before purchasing and downloading if it's old, or recently created so you know it's new. People also don't consider something else: software engineering costs can be wildly different depending on the quality, skills, and processes of different teams/groups/organization and available tools. What developer A can take on and complete within a year and a budget of $2 million, another developer might need two years and $6 million to create. 10x developer is largely a myth, but development efficiency for what seems to be the same work can vary wildly. I say this to mean that I don't necessarily need to believe that RAZBAAM is lying, but maybe their costs are high because of their own fault. Maybe ED's financial modeling and contracts for how much it costs module makers to keep up with updates and integrate changes doesn't work for them while it works for others. This is where things can get highly speculative -- I used to be in government contracting -- and it wasn't always in a contractor's interest to accomplish dev tasks as effectively and cheaply as possible and show that off as it meant a cut budget. This is a constant state of labor, if the employer knows you can do work for X dollars, and still do a bit more than just KTLO (keep the lights on) and you're mildly happy, why would that pay you 2x? RAZBAAM could be doing derpy things inflating dev costs and ED might be thinking "no...we don't want to increase your share. How did it take an engineer 80 hours to integrate the engine update to atmospheric effects when it took an engineer over at ____ 10 hours?" Separately I generally dislike larger entities in a capitalist economy because they often are the bullies, so that inclines me to validate the idea that ED does set up agreements that make it near impossible for a module to be profitable on their platform, but I have no knowledge of that in this case. Anyways, I'm not here to push anything either way in terms of who's evil or in the wrong, but the point is all of the information that is leaking or being hear, from devs is either complete trash or highly speculative, or even both. The conclusions being reached from inconclusive, often irrelevant evidence; it is super annoying and fuels trash communities like /r/hoggit over on reddit which constantly seeks to say "BMS > DCS, ED sux." Very silly from a forum that is supposed to be fans of flight sim in general.

2 hours ago, Mouse_99 said:

I gotta say; I'm not happy, I bought these Razbam modules in good faith that they would be updated and maintained and now this, with ED continuing sales of these modules, this constitutes fraud. I am not going to boycott DCS, I will be looking at Falcon BMS as they are making strides in improving their sim and it's starting to look pretty good. So I may leave DCS entirely because I have lost faith in them. Besides that snail pace of their "improvements", just look at how long it took them just to put a pilot in the cockpit of the F-16, and they still haven't finished the F-18 after how many years?

Nothing in this world is that guaranteed. If you think that way, you allowed yourself to be spoiled by the fact that DCS is a free sim platform and some modules you purchased (from ED) have been nicely updated even since DCS 1.5: BlackShark, Warthog. Just like any app you purchase on the iPhone that suddenly stops working isn't guaranteed, the same is true for DCS. I've purchased an iPhone app or two that I can't even redownload anymore, is it refundable? No. Nor should it be. I paid for something, I got something for it that wasn't about the future of it. Those are the only safe purchase in capitalism. There's only a mildly better argument for EA F-15E because the "EA" label does come with a reasonable promise of non-EA occurring which it clearly didn't get to.

That part about BMS makes me think you come from, or belong to /r/hoggit. Go play BMS exclusively. I'm sure there's nothing about DCS you'll miss. Bad AI, terrible ATC, "incomplete modules" blah blah blah. This sim is soooo bad. Delete DCS now, install BMS if you don't already have it installed, and only scratch your sim itch with BMS for a year or two. Come back and then tell us how much better it is. Even in the (unlikely) event that this goes worst-case scenario to the very end and all RAZBAAM modules stop being updated and fail to work with DCS engine beyond a certain version, how does that affect you today? Why would you stop playing DCS however you're already playing it today?

[Dangerzone]

I'll continue to buy DCS products. Why? Because I want to see DCS succeed and continue on for a long time to come. There is nothing like DCS that I've found. Where else can I lase a target in a helicopter and have an A10 come in and drop bombs in a hostile environment? Going back to a 'flight only' simulator without combat isn't an option for me. Every now and then I boot up MSFS for maybe 20 minutes and then I get bored too quickly. Give me DCS! I don't play any other games. I've got a beast of a gaming rig for one purpose - DCS. I know others have gone far beyond and have their simpits, etc. 

So, I'm certainly not going to abandon ship when there's no life raft. 

I understand all this is upsetting, it's a bad situation. I understand people wanting to send a message, so choosing to hold off on future purchases. I also understand the concerns of risk for the future, another reason to hold back on purchases. The sad part is, both of those could actually contribute to a self-fulfilled prophecy. If enough people are concerned about the future and hold back, that could cause damage where if otherwise people continued to contribute - the company could remain healthy.

I guess I'm fortunate. I can buy modules and it's part of my disposable income, not the majority of it. If I lost access to the modules it'd be "drats", but wouldn't be a huge suffering. Strewth - some people will go and gamble and lose far more than a module's worth every weekend at the races or casino. At least buying another module I'm interested in contributes to supporting a product that I want to see continue and gives me a chance to enjoy it now, even if I don't get that in the future. 

Yes - I would be devastated to see the AV8-B go. But if it did - I wouldn't be devastated because I didn't get my money's worth. Maybe it's me just looking at it from a different perspective? I just see that I've enjoyed every bit and it was worth the money spent. Yes, I'd be disappointed that I couldn't keep flying it - but I'd still be content and happy I bought it initially to enjoy the experience while it lasted. There would be no regret's of my own decision. Although I get that's a bit different with the F-15. 

So, I'm aware that there are different priorities for different people. YMMV and all. Different financial situations, etc. I just hope with all this "I'm going to send ED a message" attitude, people don't end up cutting their noses off to spite their own faces. Strong messages have already been sent. I don't think ED is 'holding back' on solutions just 'because'. The mess has been made, the cleaners are here, and we just need to let them do their job instead of kicking companies while their down, and hope that enough people stick around to make it attractive enough for both ED's shareholders, and 3rd party dev's to continue working in this space. 

[lee1hy]

I won't be buying any more DCS unless the RB case is resolved.

[Avimimus]

7 hours ago, Shibbyland said:

When it comes to digital products, I think we all know it can fall apart and the stuff you've spent money on won't be available anymore. The thing with DCS is, it's just so expensive, it's not like you lose access to some random game you haven't played in a while, it's a major product for a lot of people.

I disagree with this. I own the disks to a lot of older games and I have dosbox I don't see why we should accept not being able to purchase and maintain our own software.

With DRM and expecting constant updates we've come to accept software as a service, rather than as something we can control, manage, and sustain ourselves.

Maybe unsupported modules should be opensourced for offline use?