Nicky Boom for Mobile Phones

[CodyJarrett]

Amiga, ST and DOS platformer Nicky Boom (http://hol.abime.net/964) is being ported to mobile phones:

http://www.nickyboom.com/

[dlfrsilver]

Ok, let's say that microids or the creators will want us to remove nicky boom from emus sites.... the license is reworked....

[alexh]

Nope, if they did we could get DotEmu into a LOT of trouble as they themselves host software without correct licenses

They have at least one site showing off their Java Emulators using some ROM's & disk images they appear to have no permission to use.

[StingRay]

but you know Alex, they are all hypocrites. ;D Look at Ubisoft for a perfect example. :P

[blindfold]

You know what I think? I'm very afraid they have found this:
http://cyxdown.free.fr/nicky/
and thought about 'easy way' of doing money.

If really hope I'm wrong, though.

[alexh]

The demo is written in Java/Flash though as it is platform independent, maybe the mobile phone ports are in C/SDL?

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by alexh

The demo is written in Java/Flash though as it is platform independent, maybe the mobile phone ports are in C/SDL?

The source you can download from the site is standard C/SDL.

[alexh]

D'uh! I know..... I took a look at what was at the end of the link above (hence my last post).

But that doesn't explain why, if they steal their work, they wrote a competent demo in Flash/Java?

Please stop posting crap about DotEmu.

What do you mean by "several illegal sites" ?
The only website we run is EasyRetro, which is a technical showcase, and we own MOST of the rights of the game. Wanna see the licence agreements ?
I can send you electronic versions of them by fax/email.

If you think about some sites that might be using our technology illegally, please post links.

YES, we have licenced Nicky Boom, YES, we have used Cyx engine as a basis for mobile phone port, and NO we do not have stolen the code, since Cyx has been working, credited and paid on this project. YES, we are making the game unavailable from most abandonware websites, for business reasons.
And YES, we are competent people, and we wrote by ourselves the demo.

Period. Now you can flame us or whatever for wishing to earn my life respectfully, while most "emus/abandonware" sites from which I am making the game unavailable are illegal.

And stop calling us "software pirates", which just drives me crazy as we are trying to make LEGAL retrogaming.

Now if you have ANY idea about what could make retrogaming legal, rather than flaming people, constructive thoughts are welcome.

[TCD]

I see your point dotemu. I would suggest you offer the old version (for Amiga) free on your website while selling the new version for mobile phones or whatever platform. Companies like Cinemaware, Thalion or Factor 5 have made their old games legally available. So that would show the people that you try to keep retro-gaming alive and still you can earn money with it

[alexh]

Originally Posted by dotemu

we own MOST of the rights of the game. Wanna see the licence agreements ?

Most. But not all the evidence speaks for itself:

Turrican : Not a valid license
Cybernoid : Not a valid license
Cybernoid II : Not a valid licence
Exolon : Not a valid license
Head over Heels : Not a valid license

The licenses for the all the Gremlin games are dubious. But I am not knowledgeable enough.

While I applaud your technical skill, and I personally don't have issues with illegal retro gaming, you still cannot get around the fact these are not valid licenses.

Originally Posted by TheCyberDruid

I see your point dotemu. I would suggest you offer the old version (for Amiga) free on your website while selling the new version for mobile phones or whatever platform. Companies like Cinemaware, Thalion or Factor 5 have made their old games legally available. So that would show the people that you try to keep retro-gaming alive and still you can earn money with it

True, but what would "normal people" do with an ADF file ?

That's the whole point our company is behind. Accessiblity. What we plan to do is to package the revamped version as a Win32 game, and sell it at a very low price (between 3 and 5 €, not decided yet).

Originally Posted by alexh

Turrican : Not a valid license

True. We have tried numerous times to get in touch with Factor 5, without any success. We thought it would be acceptable since they offer the ADF download on their website. That's in the grey zone, definitely.

Originally Posted by alexh

Originally Posted by alexh

Cybernoid : Not a valid license
Cybernoid II : Not a valid licence
Exolon : Not a valid license

True. Raffaelle Cecco games (one of my all time favourites magician ). He sent to World Of Spectrum list he was okay with distribution of its games, however I think the rights are at Kingley's Brothers. We are also struggling to get some feedback on them for the rights on these games, since we are willing to license them.

Originally Posted by alexh

Originally Posted by alexh

The licenses for the all the Gremlin games are dubious. But I am not knowledgeable enough.

According to Gremlin World they are freely distributable. We are also quite unsure about that, but we are in discussion with a person claiming the rights on these games.

All these licenses matters are quited complicated, take time, and require to be very careful. I won't give name(s), but we have already been in touch with some people claiming rights they have not.

Once again, EasyRetro is not meant to make money (have you seen any ad banner on it ?), and is right now a technical showcase for our customers / prospects.

Originally Posted by alexh

Originally Posted by alexh

While I applaud your technical skill, and I personally don't have issues with illegal retro gaming, you still cannot get around the fact these are not valid licenses.

True again. Thanks BTW . But you can't honestly tell we are not doing our best to work on the legal issues.

Hope this settles the discussion in friendly terms. And we are always welcoming constructive ideas, so feel free to get in touch with us.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by dotemu

True, but what would "normal people" do with an ADF file ?

That's the whole point our company is behind. Accessiblity. What we plan to do is to package the revamped version as a Win32 game, and sell it at a very low price (between 3 and 5 €, not decided yet).

I was just talking about making the ADF legal I think there is no problem with selling the game for a very good price and still make the ADF available (or at least make to usage legal). But that was just my thoughts about it and if you choose not to do it that's completly okay for me

Originally Posted by TheCyberDruid

I was just talking about making the ADF legal I think there is no problem with selling the game for a very good price and still make the ADF available (or at least make to usage legal). But that was just my thoughts about it and if you choose not to do it that's completly okay for me

Well, this is an interesting idea.

We are in very good relationship with Microids, I will discuss it with them. I don't see them making it "legal" for commercial purposes (for example for Amiga Forever distributions), but I can't see why they would not endorse it for "non commercial usage". Worth a try.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by dotemu

Well, this is an interesting idea.

We are in very good relationship with Microids, I will discuss it with them. I don't see them making it "legal" for commercial purposes (for example for Amiga Forever distributions), but I can't see why they would not endorse it for "non commercial usage". Worth a try.

That are good news
Thank you for considering the idea.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by dotemu

True. Raffaelle Cecco games (one of my all time favourites magician ). He sent to World Of Spectrum list he was okay with distribution of its games, however I think the rights are at Kingley's Brothers. We are also struggling to get some feedback on them for the rights on these games, since we are willing to license them.

He doesn't own the rights to the Spectrum versions (which he wrote) and he DEFINITELY doesn't own the rights to the Atari ST and Amiga version which he had nothing to do with creatively. I've spoken several times to Nick Jones trying to find out the owners of Cybernoid so that I can license the Atari music for my site (written by Jochen Hippel)

As I look out of the window here at work I can see building 56B, you can even see on the wall where the Hewson logo once was. (Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire).

Andrew Hewson was a friend of our companies owner; Nick Cross.

I worked for several years with the author of Head over Heels, Jon Ritman, when his company was bought by Argonaut, I know he never owned the rights to his games and so WoS could not license them from him. Again, he certainly never owned the rights to the Atari ST version written years later. That said we used the base code for Monster Max GB (amazing hoh style game) for the unreleased GBC 3D Iso game Croc (Ditched in favour of a Robocod style game)

[haynor666]

I think that selling old games for phones or consoles like GBA is quite a good business, not too big but sufficient. This year I show WinUAE to my friend at my school. They didn't know about existence of such thing or even existence of computer, consoles emulators !!. One of them actually has some old games on his phone (probably illegally installed but I might be mistaken). For such people dotemu is. 5 EUR is quite small sum of money so probably many people without emulators knowledge this is the best way to play old favourite games.