Buying the rights for Zap!

[Quartz]

why cant we just buy all rights for ZAP?

^^^^^^^^

We need to do this.

[watusimoto]

What rights do you want?

[Little_Apple]

ALL THE RIGHTS!!!

[Quartz]

ALL THE RIGHTS!!!

But seriously, it'd just be nice if we could throw Bitfighter onto Steam. Yes yes I know some people take issue with Steam and quite frankly I don't give a shit. It's our best bet at getting noticed and obtaining a sizable player base.

I am pretty sure we already own the rights to put the game on Steam, though?.

[Santiago ZAP]

Can we actually do that? That will boost the players for around a 4000%

[bobdaduck]

http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight/faq/

You must submit your game through the steam greenlight system. The steam community will decide if the game is actually worth putting on steam. Taken straight from the link:

What do I need in order to submit my game?
You'll need a valid and non-limited Steam account (yes, that means you'll need to own a game on Steam). Then you'll need to fill out the submission form, including some information about you and your game. There's also a one-time $100 submission fee per Steam account. The submission will require:

A square branding image (similar to a box cover) to represent your game in lists and search
At least 1 video showing off your game or presenting your concept
At least 4 screenshots or images
A written description of the game along with the tentative system requirements.

[watusimoto]

The money is not an issue (I would be willing to pay it).

The questions I have are 1) Does steam accept free software? and 2) Are there any technical requirements we need to consider?

To make this somewhat on-topic, I do not think there are any legal or intellectual property obstacles stemming from the game's Zap heritage. So there are no (relevant) rights to buy.

[Quartz]

The money is not an issue (I would be willing to pay it).

The questions I have are 1) Does steam accept free software? and 2) Are there any technical requirements we need to consider?

To make this somewhat on-topic, I do not think there are any legal or intellectual property obstacles stemming from the game's Zap heritage. So there are no (relevant) rights to buy.

This is good to hear. I too would be willing to pay that pretty low price.

1) Does steam accept free software?
Uhh perhaps, not sure of all the details but ... this is relevant
http://store.steampowered.com/genre/Free%20to%20Play/

And if that doesn't work ... I know people might shoot me for this but ...

Who says Bitfighter has to be free? It could be like $5. $2.50. Could it not? Or is that where we run into copyright issues?

[watusimoto]

We can charge for it, and I have considered doing so in the past (with the idea that it makes it seem more worth playing if it is worth paying for). The source code has to be made available to anyone who pays for it, and they could then redistribute that code to anyone who wanted it. But legally speaking, anyone can create a paid version of Bitfighter as long as they made the source available. Now whether they could call it Bitfighter is a murkier area...

But the real catch is that handling money is kind of a hassle. Not that it doesn't have its rewards... but... who would get it? is it taxable? who would pay taxes on it? luxembourgish taxes or american taxes? if it went to pay for the bitfighter servers, would it still be taxable? if we donated it to a charity, would it still be taxable? would we need to create a legal entity to handle the money? etc. These are issues that are just not worth getting into for less than $XX (different people will have different values of XX). But for me, all this would be a distraction that I don't want, unless XX were big enough. Which it will never be.

Free makes all of the above just... go away.

Maybe I'm completely missing a joke (whoosh me if I am), but assuming it was possible to buy Zap! rights, what content would we get? Anything beside the privilege to protect and sell the game?

I too would love to see Bitfighter on Steam, but as others have undoubtedly pointed out, Bitfighter needs to sell something - even if it's free-to-play - to enjoy Steam market space. I wouldn't be opposed to charging for the game (although one of Bitfighter's primary appeals that drew me in originally was its free price point). If Bitfighter were to cost something, I too think it'd be wiser to charge a little more for the impression of quality. That would also allow for attractive sales during holiday seasons.

There are of course drawbacks - as Wat pointed out, taxes are quite the bear. I would also wonder about responsibility and liability - what happens if the game breaks? I would imagine the devs would be under more pressure to provide a patch faster when $$ is involved. Not to mention potential legal requirements of supplying a complete game to the consumer.

More importantly, I am inclined to discourage people from thinking Steam is a "be-all end-all" solution to our participation problem. Steam acceptance would probably boost activity, but it's not a magic genie. All our problems wouldn't be solved overnight. There simply is no one and done solution for growing Bitfighter. It's a constant, gradual process that might occasionally be helped along by media attention / exposure.

To stray from being a total debbie downer, I would instead encourage people to look at game archiving sites - like GameJolt! - as well as Let's Play video authors and game review blogs. The easiest thing you can do is play the damn game to encourage newcomers to stay!

[Skybax]

Maybe Bitfighter could be F2P on Steam but have the option of paying money to have a dedicated server hosted by someone? This could potentially run into problems though if there were an overwhelming amount of server requests..

I'd also like to point out that if I see a game on Steam for $1, and it's reasonably not-crap, I almost always buy it on the spot.. And tell all my friends to buy it..

[Quartz]

More importantly, I am inclined to discourage people from thinking Steam is a "be-all end-all" solution to our participation problem. Steam acceptance would probably boost activity, but it's not a magic genie. All our problems wouldn't be solved overnight. There simply is no one and done solution for growing Bitfighter. It's a constant, gradual process that might occasionally be helped along by media attention / exposure.

Whiiiiich we've had none of. Excellent. Well, when you come up with a better idea than these other ideas you mention that maybe 100 people look at, 97 of which quickly turn around and go the other way, let me know.

To stray from being a total debbie downer, I would instead encourage people to look at game archiving sites - like GameJolt! - as well as Let's Play video authors and game review blogs. The easiest thing you can do is play the damn game to encourage newcomers to stay!

Oh really now? That explains how I've been playing the game ~8 years and it has affected ... just about nothing. For God's sake you're the only active person who's been playing longer than me, you should know this.

See I keep hearing claims that these videos and these archiving sites will boost our activity. I have never noticed a boost in activity for Bitfighter.

We've been on these game archiving sites and done videos. They do catch a few peoples' attention but let's be realistic: Not many.

----------

To me, you all just sound too damn scared to try and do anything with this game. You point out potential issues with trying to expand. Cool, it's good to anticipate issues. But you guys are getting to the point where you are absolutely nit-picking. Stuff about taxes being a hassle ... are you serious right now? No shit taxes are a hassle, but are you really gonna let that discourage you from doing what may or may not be necessary to reach an audience? Why not take a leap of faith and see where it takes us? You lose every race you don't run.

You have now entered territory where you are nitpicking hard enough that it's obvious you're scared of trying to expand and failing, so you'd rather be complacent.

[Quartz]

bobdaduck: I see only two reasons we do not get players:
bobdaduck: first, none of us are inviting friends to play with us/hosting lan parties or anything
bobdaduck: Word-of-mouth has always been the most effective.
bobdaduck: But further, our game doesn't force consistency.
bobdaduck: We stay because we've invested a lot of time into the game already
bobdaduck: But new players haven't invested anything and have no incentive to stay.
bobdaduck: We are a LAN party game.
bobdaduck: Bitfighter isn't competitive enough to attract that type of player, its too competitive to encourage relaxed players, which leaves... What?
Quartz: Ehh that's not an issue, there is plenty of grey area there.
Quartz: I've seen enough First Person Shooters that are somewhere in-between and sell like hotcakes, so.
bobdaduck: And yeah "play the game", but that's not realistic with our amount of players. If we play more and happen to be playing when a new person joins, it will be an enjoyable thing for them and they might stay.
bobdaduck: And then they quickly realize that nobody is ever on when they try to play again so they gradually forget and stop checking.
Quartz: Yep.
bobdaduck: So we would need to somehow take a leap from "we only play wednesday nights and then its a ghost town" to "there is always one or two people playing" which is a massive step.
Quartz: Yep.
Quartz: sooooo post this
Quartz: It's more useful than all the fear that's being spread
bobdaduck: Its not fear dude its apathy.

Maybe Bitfighter could be F2P on Steam but have the option of paying money to have a dedicated server hosted by someone?

YES! "Someone" being a hosting company

[watusimoto]

All I'm saying is that charging for the game would be a huge hassle that is just not worth it to me.

It is not at all clear that there would be a problem with making the game free on Steam. If that were ok, that would be the way to go.

[raptor]

I would have to insist that moneys go to raptor's ice cream fund.

I would have to insist that moneys go to raptor's ice cream fund.

Lol raptor.

We just need to keep spreading the word even famous games like transformice were small to start.

Also keep it free if people have to pay that means less kids online.

Also more then 1 source will help get the word out better. So I think we should indeed go to steam and [not sure if its possible ] kongergate or other sources.

[Little_Apple]

Also keep it free if people have to pay that means less kids online.

Sounds like a good thing to me!

[Quartz]

Also keep it free if people have to pay that means less kids online.

Sounds like a good thing to me!

Says the 14-year-old.

Hahaha but I get you

[Skybax]

I played Transformice before it was famous xD

Regarding the steam not excepting free software.
Super Crate Box is not even F2P. It's 100% free and it's on steam. So bitfighter would have no problem getting in.

[Quartz]

Regarding the steam not excepting free software.
Super Crate Box is not even F2P. It's 100% free and it's on steam. So bitfighter would have no problem getting in.

Good to hear. Thanks for the info, Opti.

So where else can we publish BF......

[Santiago ZAP]

If you think of it too, while bitfighter is in greenlight, the steam community would google and search for bitfighter, so we MAY get some people aready just for the greenlight

true so steam could be a addition how about kongergate ?

[Santiago ZAP]

For kong we would have to recode it completly

not sure if it accepts downalod games or not would have to have raptor or wattisimo or kaen try.....

[Lone Wolf]

not sure if it accepts downalod games or not would have to have raptor or wattisimo or kaen try.....

I think they've tried before...

well You cant say that only they can say if they have or not before

[Skybax]

He can say it if they've told him about it.. It's not like they did it secretly or something..

[watusimoto]

Kongregate is only for flash games or similar. It won't work for Bitfighter.

aw hmm where else can we post BF.

I still think Bf should be converted to online no more downalods......

raptor tried to compile to Javascript, but it failed somewhere, but he went pretty far

What if we could put bitfighter in the humble bundle?

[Skybax]

What if we could put bitfighter in the humble bundle?

http://bitfighter.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2012&p=20458&sid=be19f448418879108cd05dc7d117161f#p20458

[Quartz]

Gotta say I'm not terribly encouraged to do stuff for this game when the devs apparently have zero ambition. Zero.

Hell it's pretty obvious to me that my maps have been a waste of time.

[Skybax]

I don't think it's a lack of ambition. I think it's that they have lives outside of this one game. And also a whole lot of stuff on their plate already.

Bitfighter is open source. I'm pretty sure if you got Wat's consent, you could do just about anything you wanted with the game. Advertise. Promote. Look into whatever you want (Humble Bundle, Steam, ect.).

The Devs don't have to spearhead every single thing concerning this game, you can do stuff yourself as well as represent.

[raptor]

Despite my lack of ambition with advertising the game, I still love Quartz' maps.

[Quartz]

Despite my lack of ambition with advertising the game, I still love Quartz' maps.

At least someone is honest.

Getting on Steam should be a last ditch effort, (I COULD BE WRONG) as there are license agreement(s) you'd have to sign in order to actually get your game on Steam itself. Such as an NDA that grants you code access to Steam's API.

From the servers I've seen there's a lack of beginner's servers. As I said in a previous post there's TOO MANY game modes! I've talked to a few people online and they said that the game itself is really really good, they just couldn't wrap their head around the amount of game modes, levels, etc here!

With that said, I'm gonna be hosting a 24/7 Bitmatch/CTF server.. all I gotta do is wait for the tar.gz source to not screw up on me. :D

[watusimoto]

Given how much effort we dedicate to this game, I think it would be hard to make a case for "lack of ambition."

[kaen]

Yeah, if you think there's a lack of ambition, you really have no idea what's going on.

Most of the development is actually done by the two most time-constrained members of the team (wat and raptor both have real jobs and families). There's just not enough hours in a day to put out all of the fires that get started, add new features, keep your real job, spend time with the wife/kids, and try to market a (free) game.

Despite this, bitfighter has been added to three different distribution channels in the last year or so. We added a completely new level database. We act as mentors for the Google Code-In. Wat even printed out little bitfighter business cards to hand out to people at FOSSDEM (or some other OSS conference, I forget).

For a team with an average of 2-4 active members at any time, that's astounding. I doubt you could point out any other project that accomplished so much with so few resources.

I understand why you'd get the impression that we lack ambition, but realize that there's a much deeper reality than what you perceive. Really the best we can do is make a game that people like enough to tell other people about.

[kaen]

All of that being said, I'm 100% behind greenlighting bitfighter.

[watusimoto]

I have looked at the greenlighting process, and am now the owner of a couple of Steam games (which wasn't true a few weeks ago), and I am still uncertain if Bitfighter would actually "go" on Steam. Can anyone convince me?

That said, I'm willing to pay the $100. If someone really wants to make this happen, we can make it happen.

[bobdaduck]

I'm not convinced it could "go" either.

But its a much, much better shot than some website nobody has ever heard of like desura or gamejolt.

[Skybax]

I think Bitfighter would go great on Steam!
I'm with kaen on this one

[Little_Apple]

Bitfighter on steam could even support steam workshop with community maps!

Given how much effort we dedicate to this game, I think it would be hard to make a case for "lack of ambition."

Agreed. On IRC, Bitfighter development is pretty much always going on. Always. They don't really have time to go in Gimp to make a Bitfighter ad I guess

I'm a bit mixed on Bitfighter being a part of Steam, I think that would render the notifications useless since Steam might become a dependency. I'm not 100% sure though, ask in #steamlug on freenode, they're unofficial but can help out quite a bit.