Author Topic: Star Citizen Breaking News  (Read 498502 times)

nightfire

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Re: Star Citizen - Breaking News
« Reply #240 on: January 05, 2018, 03:49:46 PM »
Here we thought them taking backer money to manufacture cheap Chinese goods, then selling them back to backers at a mark up profite was bad.

How many Chinese NPC's are working on those Squadron 42 in-game T-shirts for Star Citizen?

CIG has become too cheap even for real Chinese sweatshops!

Spunky Munkee

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Re: Star Citizen - Breaking News
« Reply #241 on: January 05, 2018, 05:09:43 PM »
Are we due JPEG sales any time soon? I've got a feeling CIG need the cash right now.

"They're going to have to do something spectacular, selling tanks seems a bit dull. "

Right about now the Sex-bots and Hooker-bot auctions will begin. Perfect for those long lonely excursions through space. They even fit in the tight quarters of a Mustang. You can buy Sex-bots but the Hooker-bots work for voucher tickets at the refueling stations. They will begin selling the Hooker-bot vouchers in six packs for discounted prices next week.

 RSI will sell lap mounted interfaces to bring a new sense of reality to the game. It's coming, it's really coming boys! Thar she blows!
(unlike the Star Citizen controllers/ joysticks)

DemonInvestor

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Re: Star Citizen - Breaking News
« Reply #242 on: January 05, 2018, 06:21:49 PM »
Yeah, but at this stage I'm surprised that they're not charging more.

Like I said, clearly Battle mechs are the way forward.

Nah... Stealth tanks like in CnC ... you practically can get a jpeg of one with no work at all! Not even thinking about how easy such would be on the engine...   :dance:

StanTheMan

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Re: Star Citizen - Breaking News
« Reply #243 on: January 05, 2018, 09:31:29 PM »
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It isnt some obscure clause we are talking about here, or is it ?

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The Crytek lawsuit was very specific and I've done my best to lay it all out in layman terms. I can't do much more than that.

Sorry, I meant that (paraphrasing) you say that you don't think Roberts deliberately broke the agreement (laying the blame with Ortwin).   

I am saying that if that is what you believe, on what basis do you think that Roberts wouldn't be pretty well acquainted with the GLA

As the complaint is about what one imagines are core components of such a licencing agreement it seems reasonable to me, that anyone in Roberts position would know about it.

« Last Edit: January 05, 2018, 09:36:46 PM by StanTheMan »

N0mad

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Re: Star Citizen - Breaking News
« Reply #244 on: January 06, 2018, 03:31:04 PM »
OK, so, I'm no lawyer but here are my quick thoughts using the google drive documents someone from the SC sub reddit made available: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mPjfXrjAf9RUq3_5cJgd-hF-I5XoCQta

GLA (2.1.2) Crytek grants CIG a license to exclusively embed CryEngine in the game. Now, CIG claim that this means that Crytek will ONLY license CryEngine to CIG, which is an almost, no, IS a laughable defence.

Now, I'm not sure about the legal use of the term "exclusive", but in the defence CIG claim to have a right but not a restriction to use Cryengine. ie. They can choose a different Engine. Even if that were the case there is still:

GLA (2.4) During the Term of the License, or any renewals thereof, and for a period of 2 years thereafter, Licensee, its principals, and Affiliates shall not directly or indirectly engage in the business of designing, developing, creating, supporting, maintaining, promoting, selling or licensing (directly or indirectly) any game engine or middleware which compete with CryEngine.

This paragraph isn't even mentioned in the response from CIG's lawyers (at least not that I could find after a skim read and Ctrl-F search). It would be pretty clear cut that using Lumberyard would be in breach of this section. Although I'm pretty sure they've misinterpreted section 2.1.2 - oh but wait, don't CIG have someone who knows EXACTLY what is legally meant by these phrases as he negotiated this agreement on behalf of CIG AND Crytek?

All in all, I expect this to result in much hilarity. Especially since the zealots seem to have formed the opinion that publishing the GLA has now killed Crytek's motion stone cold dead. For example, Exhibit 1 from the SC reddit:

Quote
SullyQuindarius 17 points 9 hours ago
Alright, let's see what Derek Smart says about this new development after all his gloating...

I can't wait to see his reaction when the whole thing gets dropped haha.

I suppose the best that CIG can hope for is to kick this into the long grass and hope everyone forgets about it.

Anyone fancy a new concept sale (maybe some sort of walking battlemech :) )?

DemonInvestor

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Re: Star Citizen - Breaking News
« Reply #245 on: January 06, 2018, 05:59:09 PM »
The GLA is an interesting read.
Points to note so far for me:
- Lawyer argues RSI is no part of said contract and under no contractual obligation towards CryTek.
- RSI seems not to be part of 3rd parties allowed insight into the source code in said contract
Wonder why their lawyer seemingly didn't adress this.
- Termination of contract forces licensee to delete every last crytek code-snippet + usage of LY = Chaos.
- Also seemingly no written info on cooperation regarding Kickstarter, or a smaller fee for any reason.
(edit)
- and lastly; first release = reaching 500k alpha users
(/edit)

So still a mixed bag imho.

Bubba

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Re: Star Citizen - Breaking News
« Reply #246 on: January 07, 2018, 05:14:13 AM »
It's a dance. As some speculated before, the initial filing was probably trying to give CIG/RSI the possibility of settling things. This is their response.
Again, I am not a lawyer, and this ain't advice.

At the end, the Ortwin-baiting worked pretty well, especially since, as has pointed out (and as I understand it), Ortwin's failure to recuse himself is not itself an actionable cause. The defendants insist that the statements of fact (called "allegations" in the response) regarding Ortwin and Jones' history with the plaintiff and defendants and which are left in the FAC should be removed as being damaging and having no bearing on the lawsuit.
That now gives the plaintiffs perfectly good grounds to explain why those statements of fact are relevant to the complaint, especially as regards intentionality: "this has nothing to do with the belligerent lack of collegiality on the part of defendants' counsel, your honor..." Now let's talk about what that waiver does and doesn't cover, and how it might apply to the GLA.
So too with the comments on the plaintiff's alleged attempt to hide the GLA from the court. If the plaintiff really wanted to try the case in the court of public opinion, they would have published immediately the document in question. The GLA substantiates pretty well the complaint.

The claim that the recital included reference to two games "Space Citizen" and "Squadron 42", "together hereafter the 'Game'" means that the license covers two separately-marketed games is highly problematic.
First, because nowhere in the body do I see an explicit incorporation of the recital. Second, to the contrary, the first section of the body concerns definitions, and "Game" is pretty clearly defined as included "Star Citizen" and "Squadron 42" as "Features". There's also the killer clause:
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For the avoidance of doubt, the Game does not include any content being sold and marketed separately, and not being accessed through the Star Citizen Game client, e.g., a fleet battle RTS sold and marketed as a separate, standalone PC game that does not interact with the main Star Citizen game (as opposed to an add-on / DLC to the Game).;
Third, in practice, CIG/RSI treated SQ42 + SC as a single game until a certain point, when they decided to market them (and sell them) separately.
Again, from my non-lawyer perspective (although some might call me an expert in diplomatics), I don't see how the recital can trump the body, especially since it would be hard to the defendants to claim that they were always planning on marketing two separate games.

The best part about this is that, the good ol' counterargument from the start "well, either they agreed to license CryEngine for two games, or Squadron 42, as a separate game with a separate engine" doesn't work: they agreed to license CryEngine for one game, including in that game both SC and S42.


The same thing for their "exclusivity" defense. The defense seems to be claiming that, when CryTek granted CIG the license "to exclusively embed CryEngine in the Game and develop the Game", this means that CryTek gave CIG the right to be the only ones who implement CryEngine for Star Citizen. The right to work on Star Citizen code is not a right that CryTek can concede. CIG and CIG alone gets to decide that. So "exclusively" has to refer to embedding CryEngine at the exclusion of other things. What other things? That's a little vague, and Exhibit 1 would have to be called upon. Unfortunately, for CIG/RSI, it would be trivial to show that Lumberyard meets their criteria of "exclusively".

Finally, if RSI is not involved, what's its role in this? If by actions and deeds it is involved and is controlled by the same persons, maybe it's time to see how well all these separate entities hold up to scrutiny?

N0mad

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Re: Star Citizen - Breaking News
« Reply #247 on: January 07, 2018, 08:13:03 AM »
Having given this some more thought (and less tired and more sober). Never mind the specifics of the GLA and meaning of exclusivity to use CryEngine - even if they were free to switch to another engine, the question will be asked: have they? I can see the central allegation being that they haven't switched engine at all, they just took all their CryEngine work and added a few Amazon libraries and claimed to have switched Engine. They were still using the same CryEngine core as before, therefore the GLA should still apply. Thus they intentionally broke it.

Maybe when CIG were talking about refractoring all the code, what they really meant was changing all the variables and method names to make it look less like CryEngine just in case it ever got to court. Although I don't see that stopping Skadden from arguing that it's still the same code.

I can't wait to see Skadden's response to CIG - does anyone know when we might expect to see this?

Furthermore, it would be interesting to know how much of the core libraries (ie. CryEngine) remain the same when they switched to Lumberyard? I'd wager, all of it.

CIG are screwed.

« Last Edit: January 07, 2018, 08:23:27 AM by N0mad »

jwh1701

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Re: Star Citizen - Breaking News
« Reply #248 on: January 07, 2018, 08:24:53 AM »

I can't wait to see Skadden's response to CIG - does anyone know when we might expect to see this?

Furthermore, it would be interesting to know how much of the core libraries (ie. CryEngine) remain the same when they switched to Lumberyard? I'd wager, all of it.

CIG are screwed.



Having given this some more thought (and less tired and more sober). Never mind the specifics of the GLA and meaning of exclusivity to use CryEngine - even if they were free to switch to another engine, the question will be asked: have they? I can see the central allegation being that they haven't switched engine at all, they just took all their CryEngine work and added a few Amazon libraries and claimed to have switched Engine. They were still using the same CryEngine core as before, therefore the GLA should still apply. Thus they intentionally broke it.

I can't wait to see Skadden's response to CIG - does anyone know when we might expect to see this?

Furthermore, it would be interesting to know how much of the core libraries (ie. CryEngine) remain the same when they switched to Lumberyard? I'd wager, all of it.


I suspect the same but Chris Roberts clearly stated they removed everything from crytek in two days with two engineers. So far he has been a shinning example of how to run a successful crowd funded game and would not tell us any untruths. (sarcasm)

« Last Edit: January 07, 2018, 09:52:23 AM by jwh1701 »

StanTheMan

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Re: Star Citizen - Breaking News
« Reply #249 on: January 07, 2018, 10:43:08 AM »
This is ...excellent..

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/949626014367469568.html

It is sometimes difficult for decent, pretty moral, reasonably intelligent fair minded people to get their head round how scummy, down right negligent and perverse some people actually are.

Sure we can recognise the scumbag that looks like a scumbag but we give far too much benefit of the doubt to others less obviously so and it often takes a lot of evidence to change our minds.

Derek's absolutely right to call these people "scum".

I have been involved in self representing myself in court for many years and I recognise the games being played here as well as having a pretty good idea of what the outcome is going to be.

Croberts and Ortwin are going to be dragged kicking and screaming to a settlement, court and/or bankruptcy.   

Shitizens will cheer them on the way because they are still giving them the benefit of the doubt.
« Last Edit: January 07, 2018, 10:53:10 AM by StanTheMan »

Andrew

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Re: Star Citizen - Breaking News
« Reply #250 on: January 07, 2018, 02:58:02 PM »
The exclusive bit actually makes sense to me as it is argued by CIG. It is a right granted to them exclusively (as in "only to them and nobody else") and not a duty to use CryEngine and only CryEngine. To handcuff themselves to CryEngine at that point would've been completely idiotic anyway since they obviously had no team in place, no development of their own to speak of and thereby no way of knowing if they'd run into problems with CryEngine that are insurmountable.

So my common-sense, non-lawyer guess is: They are NOT forced to use CryEngine exclusively. Therefore the switch to Lumberyard is legit. However I'd also guess that it will be incredibly hard to prove they really switched in this case with Lumberyard and CryEngine being identical to a degree. So if Crytek argues they didn't actually switch ... that may work for or against them.

Since SC and SQ42 are summarily called "the game" it stands to reason that splitting them into two games is NOT legit. So there may be another 1.85 mio € bill incoming if they have to pay a second license. That should be painful for them but over all a non-issue given what we know about their financialy. If what Derek suspects about their finances is true however... not so easy.

Last guess: Crytek knows or strongly suspects they do not want to go into discovery. There has never been a trial where that didn't cause a stirr in the press for some of the materials that become public (Activision vs. West/Zampella for example). So I guess that Crytek can force them into settlement if they survive the motion to dismiss and given some of the complexities it seems likely that they will.

Spunky Munkee

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Re: Star Citizen - Breaking News
« Reply #251 on: January 07, 2018, 04:11:51 PM »
CIG got a deeply discounted license to use Crytek and agreed to prominently display Crytek's logo in all SC splash screens and advertising. They  were tied to Crytek and to bolster that point CIG was forbidden to work on any game using a competing engine  for a period of 2 years. Sounds like a serious exclusive deal tying CIG to Crytek.

N0mad

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Re: Star Citizen - Breaking News
« Reply #252 on: January 07, 2018, 04:25:10 PM »
It really doesn't matter if CIG were tied into using only CryEngine by the GLA or not. The fact of the matter is that they ARE using CryEngine but are refusing to honour the GLA, which still applies, it has not been terminated. Calling their build Lumberyard is not going to help them in court against Skadden.

Spunky Munkee

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Re: Star Citizen - Breaking News
« Reply #253 on: January 07, 2018, 05:08:13 PM »
They try and argue both sides against the middle the claim they are not using Crytek but are using Lumberyard, There appears to be Crytek code all throughout Star Citizen so I don't think that holds water. Then they fail to use the Crytek logos as they promised, The failed to deliver any relevant improvements back to crytek.

CIG is screwed in so many ways.

I can see that in the end Chris Robbers will cry that his BDSSE was taken down by Crytek and the hater goons but we coulda been a contenda.

Next year he will start another crowdfunding drive. Lets see, outer space, ships, mocap, 1000 universes, alien slave women...

Aya Reiko

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Re: Star Citizen - Breaking News
« Reply #254 on: January 07, 2018, 10:40:55 PM »
The "handcuffing themselves" doesn't seem so "idiotic" if CiG managed to stay on the original timetable of releasing in 2014.  It's their own damn fault they're legally stuck to an engine that's been long since obsolete by 2018.

 

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