waiting for resolution ED/RAZBAM Situation Info & Discussion

[NineLine]

I just hid a couple of messages. Please do not post things we cannot confirm the source to. Stick with official announcements. Thanks. 

[Smashy]

48 minutes ago, aaronwhite said:

They obviously can't say what they agreed to. Have people not seen legal agreements like this before? They generally severely restrict what anyone is legally able to say without blowing up the entire agreement, which would be a very stupid thing for ED to do.

The level of naivete displayed in some of these comments is sad but not surprising.  Gamers arguing on the Internet aren't always the smartest collective bunch.

[Horns]

6 minutes ago, alejandr0 said:

Why not stand up for what’s fair? Steam Support already told me they can issue a refund as an exception but only if ED agrees.
So yes, I’ll keep asking, because I believe customers deserve better, especially in a situation like this where the module was pulled from sale and abandoned.
Doing nothing solves nothing.

NL has answered your question over and over. You're wasting your time and theirs, he is not going to give you a different answer just because you repeat yourself.

But hey, you do you. Futility is funny AF to me.

[Blazkovitch]

29 minutes ago, NEW is my Callsign. said:

lol. Just lol. What are you even saying?

If this screen is true then someone from RB broke the NDA (potentially). And „publicly known practices” are publicly known because RB made them public.

27 minutes ago, Smashy said:

The level of naivete displayed in some of these comments is sad but not surprising.  Gamers arguing on the Internet aren't always the smartest collective bunch.

„Anyone arguing over the internet” - I fixed it for you  But outrage sells so …

[Citizen]

If there's no escrow, there's no good faith behind the agreement.

[NineLine]

9 minutes ago, Citizen said:

If there's no escrow, there's no good faith behind the agreement.

Be careful of the spin. 

[Hyperion35]

I saw the notice in the email today, and I have one minor bit of feedback: the email mentioned that this applies to Razbam's modules, but aside from the F-15E it did not list Razbam's modules.  I had to come here to see which other modules would be affected.

Not every customer follows this drama or the forums, and many of us don't remember who makes each module.  This is especially true for older modules that have been around for a while, I couldn't have told you who made the Harrier if you'd asked, even though I bought that module and I enjoy flying it.

I fully understand the rest, especially not being able to discuss most aspects.  I don't know enough to know who's right or wrong or if it's even a right/wrong situation, but I can at least judge by professionalism.

[Esac_mirmidon]

Harrier, M-2000C, Mig-19, F-15E, and the assests.

KC-135 MPRS, Tarawa, KC-130K, all will be lost. 

[Hyperion35]

17 minutes ago, Citizen said:

If there's no escrow, there's no good faith behind the agreement.

Not every legal agreement requires escrow.  This is especially true where both parties have existing business arrangements and contracts.  It is unlikely that the sort of financial institutions that these companies use would refuse a court order in a hypothetical situation where a court decided that one party was 100% liable and owed a substantial amount.

That being said, my expertise is regulatory law, not civil law, and I have no knowledge of any of this case except what I read on the forums a while back before deciding not to buy the F-15E and what went out today.

[mondo]

I've been playing ED Sims since Lomac and I've always enjoyed them and the work ED puts in. Reading that all Razbam modules will be depreciated soon is incredibly disappointing. I supported the WW2 add-on and saw that debacle. I bought the Hawk which is still a massive disappointment and now I'll potentially lose 4 modules. I hope this situation can be worked out and that various parties can put egos aside because this situation is getting ridiculous and could be solved so simply. 

[Kang]

1 hour ago, Lasko said:

How many times are you going to ask this expecting a different answer?  And "Steam Support" has no idea about how the contracts and agreements between ED and RB play into any decision like that.  Quoting "Steam Support" is useless in this discussion.

It's true that this is reasonably independent of any complex issues that ED and Razbam might have between them. Perhaps it warrants its own thread, then. I find the question is very worth asking and the answer so far has been, at best, dodging the question.

As much as a lot of people are rightfully interested in how ED is going to go ahead with the enormous legacy that Razbam has within DCS I am somewhat surprised that very few people seem to take interest in how ED is proceeding in their relationship to the Steam store about it.
As @alejandr0 has repeatedly pointed out, all that is needed for their refund is ED's approval. To me at least the reply so far reads as a press-friendly "we got your money and that's that. Screw Steam users!"

But then, I see how the majority of the community, myself included, stick to ED's own store about DCS.

[Horns]

22 minutes ago, Kang said:

It's true that this is reasonably independent of any complex issues that ED and Razbam might have between them. Perhaps it warrants its own thread, then. I find the question is very worth asking and the answer so far has been, at best, dodging the question.

As much as a lot of people are rightfully interested in how ED is going to go ahead with the enormous legacy that Razbam has within DCS I am somewhat surprised that very few people seem to take interest in how ED is proceeding in their relationship to the Steam store about it.
As @alejandr0 has repeatedly pointed out, all that is needed for their refund is ED's approval. To me at least the reply so far reads as a press-friendly "we got your money and that's that. Screw Steam users!"

But then, I see how the majority of the community, myself included, stick to ED's own store about DCS.

 

4 hours ago, NineLine said:

As I mentioned to you before, we are still committed to making this all work out, and the modules continue to work for now. Until that changes, we won't be doing anything more than we have done. Thanks. 

 

2 hours ago, NineLine said:

We are only offering store credit on the F-15E in our E-shop for E-shop purchases. I have not heard of any plan to offer any sort of refund on the others, nor would I expect it. I would rather things just get sorted, that remains my hope. 

The bold is my formatting. The question was worth asking, there was no point asking it repeatedly. Far from being dodged, it's been directly answered, as you can see.

[Mad Dog 762]

This is very disturbing.  An agreement was reached last year and this is the first time it has been mentioned?  But there are no details of the agreement, and clearly work has not resumed on any of the Razbam modules and ED still does not have the source code so they cannot promise how long they will be able to support them.  So this "agreement" clearly did the end users no good whatsoever.  ED is just continuing to string us along?  We get the crappy end of the stick because ED is taking care of ED, Razbam is taking care of RazBam, and no one is representing the consumer.  This is the Hawk situation all over, after ED promised us it would never happen again.  I guess they are counting on us all having only short term memory.  

This started in Spring of 2024.  Normally I buy almost every module that comes out, especially helicopters.  Because of this cluster, I have not purchased the Kiowa, the Chinook, or the Corsair.  The only thing I have bought is the Germany Map.  And its probably going to stay that way.  This is not good business.  There is a saying in business that if you take care of your customers they will take care of you.  And if you don't......I have supported ED for many years, since the LOMAC days, and I have bought many modules and packs that I wasn't really interested in just to support the continued development of DCS.  I'm not feeling that generous anymore if this is the way we will be treated.  

[aaronwhite]

23 minutes ago, Mad Dog 762 said:

This is very disturbing.  An agreement was reached last year and this is the first time it has been mentioned?  But there are no details of the agreement, and clearly work has not resumed on any of the Razbam modules and ED still does not have the source code so they cannot promise how long they will be able to support them.  So this "agreement" clearly did the end users no good whatsoever.  ED is just continuing to string us along?  We get the crappy end of the stick because ED is taking care of ED, Razbam is taking care of RazBam, and no one is representing the consumer.  This is the Hawk situation all over, after ED promised us it would never happen again.  I guess they are counting on us all having only short term memory.  

This started in Spring of 2024.  Normally I buy almost every module that comes out, especially helicopters.  Because of this cluster, I have not purchased the Kiowa, the Chinook, or the Corsair.  The only thing I have bought is the Germany Map.  And its probably going to stay that way.  This is not good business.  There is a saying in business that if you take care of your customers they will take care of you.  And if you don't......I have supported ED for many years, since the LOMAC days, and I have bought many modules and packs that I wasn't really interested in just to support the continued development of DCS.  I'm not feeling that generous anymore if this is the way we will be treated.  

Do you think that ED is only telling you what they want to about a thing that's clearly been a massive pain in their collective ass for the past while now? 

They have entered into a legally binding agreement with Razbam. That means the amount they are able to say to you, me and everyone else is severely restricted to what was agreed upon in the legal process they went through. The same can almost certainly be said for Razbam. 

And I honestly don't know what people want ED to do here. It seems they went to the very extreme ends of things, even perusing legal resolution, to try and fix the problem that exists around Razbam's development. But the biggest issue seems to be, going off of what I believe has been confirmed on the forums previously, Razbam never provided the source code that developers are meant to provide (I'm assuming that applies to all 3rd party devs, I could very well be wrong) which means that ED is going to be pretty severely handcuffed in what they can do to fix the mess they have in their lap now. ED tried to make sure the Hawk situation wouldn't happen again, but it doesn't seem to be explicitly ED's fault that it did. The part that's confused me throughout this entire mess is how Razbam seems to rarely have anyone mad, but ED constantly has people acting like there's some grand conspiracy to screw a handful of people out of their money in a game that's reliant on their player base. 

Maybe I'm off in my own fantasy world here, but from everything I've seen publicly confirmed, it seems that Razbam created this whole mess, escalated things online instead of working behind the scenes with ED, and has been the biggest factor in where fans of their modules are now, which is stuck and hoping that ED can figure out a way to continue supporting them with their hands tied behind their backs. 

[av8orDave]

14 minutes ago, aaronwhite said:

Do you think that ED is only telling you what they want to about a thing that's clearly been a massive pain in their collective ass for the past while now? 

They have entered into a legally binding agreement with Razbam. That means the amount they are able to say to you, me and everyone else is severely restricted to what was agreed upon in the legal process they went through. The same can almost certainly be said for Razbam. 

And I honestly don't know what people want ED to do here. It seems they went to the very extreme ends of things, even perusing legal resolution, to try and fix the problem that exists around Razbam's development. But the biggest issue seems to be, going off of what I believe has been confirmed on the forums previously, Razbam never provided the source code that developers are meant to provide (I'm assuming that applies to all 3rd party devs, I could very well be wrong) which means that ED is going to be pretty severely handcuffed in what they can do to fix the mess they have in their lap now. ED tried to make sure the Hawk situation wouldn't happen again, but it doesn't seem to be explicitly ED's fault that it did. The part that's confused me throughout this entire mess is how Razbam seems to rarely have anyone mad, but ED constantly has people acting like there's some grand conspiracy to screw a handful of people out of their money in a game that's reliant on their player base. 

Maybe I'm off in my own fantasy world here, but from everything I've seen publicly confirmed, it seems that Razbam created this whole mess, escalated things online instead of working behind the scenes with ED, and has been the biggest factor in where fans of their modules are now, which is stuck and hoping that ED can figure out a way to continue supporting them with their hands tied behind their backs. 

Sure, all is well with what you wrote, but you're excusing ED for not already having a solution in place that ensures the continuity of modules sold on their website, that exist in their ecosystem, in the context of this having happened with another 3rd party before. Not acceptable. Razbam may very well be the party in the wrong here, but shame on ED for leaving their customers hanging because they have no continuity plan if a 3rd party exits or goes sideways.

[alejandr0]

2 hours ago, Horns said:

NL has answered your question over and over. You're wasting your time and theirs, he is not going to give you a different answer just because you repeat yourself.

But hey, you do you. Futility is funny AF to me.

I get that you find it pointless — fair enough. But for me (and others in the same situation), this isn’t just noise, it’s principle. People who bought the F-15E in the E-shop got store credit and could spend it on something else — those of us on Steam got nothing. So why shouldn’t we push for fair treatment too?
I’m not expecting miracles, but silence and resignation have never changed anything. If nothing else, it documents the issue. If that bothers you, just scroll past. Simple as that.

[Mike Force Team]

I read the information that some kind of settlement was reached last year.  At the same time, I know that Razbam told ED to stop selling their full-fidelty modules.  I read the ED will support the Razbam modules as best as they can.  Will we know, at a time in the future, if the agreement between the companies means that Razbam resumes selling their modules and providing regular monthly updates?

 

Edited Friday at 08:52 PM by Mike Force Team

[Bruce_D]

6 minutes ago, av8orDave said:

Sure, all is well with what you wrote, but you're excusing ED for not already having a solution in place that ensures the continuity of modules sold on their website, that exist in their ecosystem, in the context of this having happened with another 3rd party before. Not acceptable. Razbam may very well be the party in the wrong here, but shame on ED for leaving their customers hanging because they have no continuity plan if a 3rd party exits or goes sideways.

Perfect comment. That's why I'm not buying a single module any more. 

This is unacceptable!

[Horns]

2 minutes ago, alejandr0 said:

I get that you find it pointless — fair enough. But for me (and others in the same situation), this isn’t just noise, it’s principle. People who bought the F-15E in the E-shop got store credit and could spend it on something else — those of us on Steam got nothing. So why shouldn’t we push for fair treatment too?
I’m not expecting miracles, but silence and resignation have never changed anything. If nothing else, it documents the issue. If that bothers you, just scroll past. Simple as that.

Maybe you don't expect miracles, but you're expecting a different answer to the same question, it's like watching someone turn the handle of a locked door over and over. Where I come from repeatedly asking the same question is trolling, so I guess this thread continues to get leeway, but IMO that's a good thing - as I say, I get a chuckle out of it

[Aapje]

4 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

[...]

Eagle Dynamics confirms that it signed a settlement agreement with Razbam at the end of 2024 to put an end to the existing disputes and that such agreement also provides for a strict confidentiality requirement that prevents Eagle Dynamics from disclosing further information.

[...]

We are still hoping to be able to implement the settlement agreement and to find a satisfactory outcome to the current situation, in the best interests of our valued community.

This is disturbing in a bunch of ways. To start with, why was the existence of this agreement and the parts of the agreement that impact customers, even put under a strict confidentiality requirement? Customers have been asking for clarity about the situation and you could have given them this information, but apparently there was a conscious decision to keep customers in the dark for over half a year. Why? I have trouble coming up with any other reason than a lack of confidence in one owns ability to keep the agreement, because any company that was confident that they are doing everything in their power to do the customer right would surely want to tell the customers about the settlement, right? But perhaps there is a legitimate reason that I cannot come up with.

Note that I'm not talking about the parts of the agreement that cover payments or other stuff that is between Razbam and ED, but merely about the very existence of an agreement and the plans for the modules.

The second disturbing part is that you still seem to hide information from us. You never explicitly state that the agreement is in jeopardy. I'm not allowed to post the alleged statement by Razbam's legal council, yet at every opportunity you seem to minimize the information you share, rather than inform customers to the best of your ability. In this case you imply that the settlement is in jeopardy, but why can't you just state it clearly, so we can discuss it, rather than risk getting our posts removed due to 'speculation'?

Thirdly, if the agreement is indeed not being upheld at the moment, this speaks to a level of incompetence that is very worrying. I can see people making mistakes in the daily grind of things where people may not think things through fully, but this agreement was surely made with a full understanding of the gravity of the situation, so one would expect every i to be dotted and every t to be crossed. Clear and unambiguous statements in the settlement agreement who has to do what and when. And any fuss over the settlement should then result in the legal teams of both sides being able to quickly determine who is not holding up their end of the deal and how it is to be rectified. And both companies would then get told by their legal team what they need to do to avoid legal repercussions for not following the settlement contract.

 

 

[alejandr0]

4 minutes ago, Horns said:

Maybe you don't expect miracles, but you're expecting a different answer to the same question, it's like watching someone turn the handle of a locked door over and over. Where I come from repeatedly asking the same question is trolling, so I guess this thread continues to get leeway, but IMO that's a good thing - as I say, I get a chuckle out of it

If you find this funny, that’s your call. I’m not here for laughs.
I’m here because I (and others) were left in a mess, and doing nothing just accepts that as normal. I’m not okay with that.

[NineLine]

9 minutes ago, Aapje said:

alleged

That is all you need to remember. There is a confidentiality order in place on this. We have said what we can right now. Thanks

[rob10]

1 minute ago, alejandr0 said:

I’m here because I (and others) were left in a mess, and doing nothing just accepts that as normal. I’m not okay with that.

So you want a refund from ED through Steam.  OK, lets say Steam takes a 30% cut (no idea if that's the actual amount, but that seems to be what general consensus is) on every sale.  So ED is already out 30% on what you paid.  Now you want (presumably) 100% back.  I'd pretty much guarantee Steam isn't going to cover the 30%.  So now ED got 30% less for your original purchase in the first place AND has to pay you back a 30% premium (since Steam isn't going to cover that).  So for easy math let's say you paid $100.  ED got $70.  So it's flat out costing them at least $30 more for every refund the authorize through Steam, and the whole $100 is coming out of their pocket.  Like it or not, with the store credit they are offering ED store customers they still have the $100, it's just being moved around.  So trying to claim a "fairness" argument since they are giving ED store customers credit doesn't work.  Even if ED was giving full cash refunds, they'd still be paying an extra $30 to Steam users so where's the fairness even there?

[Aapje]

4 hours ago, NineLine said:

Quote

Not sure why you can't just say "Yes, ofcourse we are actively following through with our end of the agreement in a timely manner". Has nothing about what is in the agreement. Like it sounds dumb that I'm even have to ask you if ED is actually following through with an agreement, you would assume you are if you are posting about it. But that fact you guys can't wont even confirm that makes that outside noise start to make more sense.

We are acting in good faith on the agreement, yes. Sorry, in my head, we shouldn't have to say that, but I understand why you all need to hear it. 

This is not actually a direct answer to the question. 'Acting in good faith' can still mean that ED diverged from their obligations under the settlement agreement, but did so in a way that you consider to be for a good reason and thus still acting in good faith.

For example, let's say that I'm obligated to show up at work at 9 o'clock every day, but one day I get into a car accident and am not able to make it in time. Then I can argue that I got to work as soon as reasonably possible and I thus acted in good faith, but my employer would also have a point that the contract wasn't followed. So then you can get into the murky area of whether the situation truly was a 'force majeure' and the question how this has to be handled.

So did ED follow the settlement contract to the letter, or not?

[av8orDave]

I am over it. ED says “alleged”, Razbam says “alleged.” It’s a he said / she said, and it is moronic. At this point it is ED’s problem. If the modules stop working (some already have, AV-8B JTAC ATHS for example hasn’t worked for months), what will ED do? Refunds? What is the plan?

Edited Friday at 09:20 PM by av8orDave