Razbam’s Strike Eagle is a really nice aircraft. I’m an old veteran of Strike Eagle games from Microprose and Jane’s F-15 (and Jane’s USAF which also had Mudhen) and I love it in DCS. You can do A/A as well as move some mud in it. Here’s a shameless plug of my first air-to-air sortie (after acquanting with the bird of course):
And here’s an awesome mission from Sedlo in 2 parts because it’s that long:
Part 1 has action up to AAR:
Part 2 from AAR to target area and back:
Probably my favorite bird in DCS (or at least on par with the Tomcat). Maybe because I have a soft spot for that airframe.
Whatever your biases may be towards Razbam and ED, this is the only logical conclusion, over all. The most we can do are educated inferences, but those are still just guesses from us nerds who are just playing their video game. We’re absolutely not privy to anything. All we know?
There’s a disagreement between Razbam and ED. We could include both parties past behaviors, sure, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s relevant to this.
And it is pretty sad. I’ve been a long time critic of Razbam because of the state of their modules, but the F-15E? Honestly, their best release. They did a good job.
Unfortunatelym I can see Razbam electing to burn it all to the ground and damn the consequences even if ordered to do so by a judge in civil litigation. Hopefully it doesn’t get that far.
Not being a developer I’m curious if anyone here knows: contracts aside, is it normal for a dev. company to relinquish their IP (code) like this? My first thought is No, but again not familiar.
So, my experience in programming was limited, so if one of the actual code-heads here comes along and says I’m talking out my ass? They’re probably right, go with them. Their more pertinent experience will outweigh my limited one as I didn’t last long and said “Screw this, I’mma go fly airplanes” pretty quickly.
So, again, in my experience (See how limited above) code is property of the company you work for if you are employed. As a contractor, I’d see the IP rights of code written over to the company contracting the work done. Of course, there are stipulations galore. It’s why we have lawyers specializing in contract law.
I can speak from the console game world circa 2000. Most games were/are developed by independent development studios that are on the publishers payroll for a given product. For example EA might be paying studio A for the art assets for a wrestling game and studio B for the game design and general coding. Alot of times studios were responsible for the whole product (art, design, code). These are contract jobs. Sometimes the studios got bought out by the publisher, and now the publisher has authority to hire and fire.
With all that said, regardless of which of the 3 scenarios listed above were in play, ALL the work product produced on paid time was the publishers. Design docs and art style guides are critical when you’re making sequels to keep the feel and look consistent. As studio A you developed this awesome new IP completely in house, shopped it around and Sony decided to pay you a couple mil to make a game. Congrats, Sony now owns it lock, stock and barrel unless you negotiated a very unusual deal. Unless you were a dev studio with an extremely good prior track record (say Rockstar or Bungie), that wasn’t going to happen. Sony could now take that IP and use it for their own inhouse studios, cutting studio A completely out of the picture. A lot of times this is why sequels tended to fall flat, as owning the IP doesn’t equate to owning the passion or the vision.
I worked for Acclaim Entertainment, and specifically one of the satellite dev studios. We were extremely big for a studio (even compared to studio teams Sony, Ubi, EA, etc have), and with Acclaim being a publisher in their own right it wasn’t an issue really. When you work for the man, you know what to expect. It was normally new teams that didn’t understand that the second that check got cut, they no longer owned anything they had put together.
I’m hoping so as well. My default whenever I hear claims from Razbam is “they’re probably full of it and trying to manipulate the community into pressuring ED to do something they couldn’t get ED to do themselves.”
Supposedly, handing over the code for a module is so that ED can continue supporting the module if another VEAO happens. But if Razbam didn’t hand over the code, then I doubt ED would have released it for sale. And if they did, witholding payment from sales until the code is delivered seems plausible.
What’s still sus about this “module source code” angle is that CptSmiley nuked his entire reddit profile, so all his comments–including the one about ED not having the Mudhen’s code–are gone.
As much as I do have a bias, too, I’d prefer to keep it neutral just because we are talking about hard work being appropriately compensated. Regardless of how I feel about the team, Razbam had put in work that the community does appreciate and do deserve remuneration. So, while I share you suspicions, I’m dampening them simply because we don’t know much and I’d rather offer the benefit of the doubt.
Although, I do agree with you on the second point. I hope, for Razbam’s sake, they have been forward with the source code. Withholding it would certainly be the breach of contract. However, that raises questions for me:
Has the F-15E been on sale for nearly a year now with this vulnerability present? If yes, then I have to lay more blame on ED as they would have provided Razbam favoritism by allowing that. Cordial relations are nice, but we put our noses to the grindstone for work. This is why you don’t start businesses with friends; those little lapses in judgement because you assume the best can add up real fast.
Why is Smiley claiming they have the source code, despite ED’s contracts stipulating what they do? This seems absolutely counter-intuitive to the goal of getting himself paid, which he very much should be. This almost reads as admission that they did, in fact, breach contract. Surely, if ED didn’t have a lapse as I described in point 1, they’d already have the source code, or an iteration of it. So, if this is a bluff? It’s one that’s easy called. It’s like trying to bluff when you know the guy on the other side of the table has a royal flush.
On the topic of the developers, how much do Razbam’s meat and potato developers know about their own company’s revenue sharing? Could it be possible that someone really fumbled the bag and don’t want to admit it? It could explain this silly theatre production we’re watching.
No matter how you cut it, despite Razbam raising question and souring their image further, it shouldn’t matter whether Grey or Zambrano end with the egg on their face; the reality is that CPT_Smiley, Galinette, and all developers need to get their rightful compensation.
The interesting thing about the third party devs for dcs is that even when the plane is finished, they have to continuously upkeep the aircraft with the ever evolving state of dcs world, which makes it very different to normal software.
And forgive my ignorance here but whenever a build of a plane goes into dcs isn’t the code there, would it be easy just to extract the code from there
I absolutely agree that the people doing the work need to be compensated. I think the bigger issue, is that RZ is saying ED owes those people money, where ED is saying it’s RZ’s problem. Unfortunately claims by the employee’s of RZ are going to rest solely against RZ unless some very unusual labor law issues arise, regardless of who is “in the wrong.”
RZ is no longer Zambrano and a few guys slaving away in their spare time, they are legitimate business entity with everything that entails. Yes there are a few pass-through options for paying your employees (profit sharing, stock shares in lieu of payment, etc), but barring those kind of contractually stipulated oddities, it generally falls to the employing entity to ensure their employee’s are paid. There are a lot of stories of business owners going broke (or at least unpaid) to make payroll.
If your employee’s really like you, they can choose to hold off on being compensated in the hopes the lights stay on long enough to get back to regular business. However ultimately the business owner (or shareholders), accept the financial risks of needing to pay the employee’s (and any other outstanding debts) correctly regardless of what else is going on, in exchange for being able to reap any profits the business generates. You bear the risk in hopes of achieving the reward.
Even if ED turns out to have unlawfully withheld 100% of RZ’s earnings, it is still on RZ to compensate their employees. In labor law, failing to pay your employees is not excused by not being paid by your clients. Yes, it sucks, but that is why you have lawyers review your contracts, update your contracts, and file suit about your contracts well before it gets to the points you can’t keep the lights on. If on the flip side ED is 100% right, it is absolutely not their problem that RZ left its employee’s high and dry. If I hire someone to repaint my house, pay the contractor and two weeks later the paint crew comes by saying they weren’t paid, it’s not on me. Yes, is massively sucks for them, but someone being a victim of wage theft shouldn’t be the financial problem of the customer.
I’m wondering this too. I’ve been following DCS for about 10 years now (probably spending an unhealthy amount of time on forums) and have seen a disturbing pattern of staff–regardless of what company they’re from or what their role is–refusing to admit mistakes until much later down the road, if at all.
Considering ED granted access to their F-15E Source art (External Model Source files) just to cut years off their development timeline., which didn’t really.
Never mind, I’m not gonna say anything.
I fight for the users *(in my tron voice).
In the end run, the situation has not been handled ideally by one party and their sub contractors.
Most studios I’ve worked for, would pursue legal action against their subcontractors or former subcontractors for having detrimental tantrums on social media that risk the studios future contracts status. Especially when that subcontractor was already at the end of his/her contract.
That being said.
The main victims outside of the the Studios employees that didn’t get paid, are the users / customers. w/ Cpt Smiley leaving, it’s also a huge loss, as users with both programming and aeronautical degrees and experience are few and far between.
And I’ll leave the rest alone and hope for a peaceful resolution between both parties.
I Will add. In the end run RB is responsible for paying their employees and sub contractors, Not ED.
Unleashing them on ED is the equivelent of:
If Walmart doesnt pay Pepsi, Pepsi tells employees and subcontractors to seek payment from Walmart.
In my previous experience (mostly as a PLC software engineer) the code I wrote was owned by my employeer. As a freelancer I usually sign a contract that states that I give the rights away along with the source code, but I guess this will depend on the contract.
If that’s the case (which is hard to believe) I guess we will soon see Strike Eagle taken away from DCS store, since with no fixes for bugs introduced by the core updates it will soon be broken.
Well according to RZ the analogy should be that you didn’t payed the contractor. But yeah, it’s RZ responsibility to compensate for the work of its employees.
Theres been times I sub contract parts of projects out to another artist that simply does better work in certain stages.
Well movie studio took their time acknowledging my contract was fulfilled, then went to bankruptcy proceedings, I had to wait for said studio to be purchased out of bankruptcy before ever seeing payment, over a year after. I took out a SBL and paid the artist for his work, then ammended my contract to cover the LPF and Interest %, which new company gladly paid, seeing assets from that contract will be used for the considerable future by new parent company.
I honestly couldve paid out of pocket, but not knowing when Id see a payment the SBL was the better option.
