Once again, you are comparing apples to oranges. Yes, Epic does release tools to the mod comunity, but for their software. They do not encourage and embrace mods of Epic games on non Epic platforms. That is fine that Epic and Nvidia hold competitions for the mods, but once again that is FOR Epic games BASED on Epic platforms. Now I could see how this whole argument may have worked if the mod was based on the Age of Empires. Even then, however, MS would have a legit reason to not want this mod to see the light of day.
First of, MS spent A LOT of money to develop the HALO francise, it is XBOX flagship, hell many people I know (myself included) purchased XBOX and not PS2 because we all saw pre MS Halo demo and were salivating in anticipation. MS may allow mods of Halo RTS after it releases the Halo RTS. As far as the argument that some posts use that the majority of the content was created by the mod team on their own, you don't need to go much further then the mod home page. The mod name is "Halo"Gen, the font used is even the official Halo (or at least a close look alike of the official Halo) font. Any of the vehicles or units/races that carry the same names/designations then they are already using Halo content/trademark/copyright. Also, most of the posts that mention "original content" do say that it was "based on" or "insipred by" the Halo universe and Halo novels. Well, the problem with that particular argument is that all of that content is copyrighted, and any "based on" can, and should, be read as "modification" therefor it is not "original".
So, yes, MS is M$ and greedy and evil. However, in this particular case, they are acting the way that any company should and will act to protect their investment. It may seem, on the surface, that MS is a huge company and they could stand to loose a few dollars. Remember though that a lot of people depend on MS and Bungie for a salary, and everytime MS as a company takes a hit those people's livelyhood comes into geopardy. More then that, the corporations, as entities, are supposed to generate profits for their shareholders, so anytime they loose a portion of income in one place they have to make it up from somewhere else, and this includes the prices for the next Xsomething console and its games.
One problem in "buying out the development team and product" is that the only thing MS will be able to use is the artwork and maybe the concept for the game. Since the development team is not an actual team but a few hobbyists MS can't really buy them out. Moreover, since the mod is based on a non MS software they won't be able to use any of the code and/or the skill set of the dev team. So there is really no point for MS to pay money for something that they can not use. More to the point if someone in Microsoft has experemented with mind altering substances and authorised a purchase of HaloGen then what would stop every fanboy of any given game from trying to develop mods for a Microsoft property on non Microsoft platform?
Yeah, ok, so I'm dyslexic. I saw and typed dihydrogen monoxide but read dihydrogen peroxide. DHMO.org is a funny site, although I'm not sure how someone can have enough free time on their hands to put something like that together.
Slashdot Mirror
Once again, you are comparing apples to oranges. Yes, Epic does release tools to the mod comunity, but for their software. They do not encourage and embrace mods of Epic games on non Epic platforms. That is fine that Epic and Nvidia hold competitions for the mods, but once again that is FOR Epic games BASED on Epic platforms. Now I could see how this whole argument may have worked if the mod was based on the Age of Empires. Even then, however, MS would have a legit reason to not want this mod to see the light of day. First of, MS spent A LOT of money to develop the HALO francise, it is XBOX flagship, hell many people I know (myself included) purchased XBOX and not PS2 because we all saw pre MS Halo demo and were salivating in anticipation. MS may allow mods of Halo RTS after it releases the Halo RTS. As far as the argument that some posts use that the majority of the content was created by the mod team on their own, you don't need to go much further then the mod home page. The mod name is "Halo"Gen, the font used is even the official Halo (or at least a close look alike of the official Halo) font. Any of the vehicles or units/races that carry the same names/designations then they are already using Halo content/trademark/copyright. Also, most of the posts that mention "original content" do say that it was "based on" or "insipred by" the Halo universe and Halo novels. Well, the problem with that particular argument is that all of that content is copyrighted, and any "based on" can, and should, be read as "modification" therefor it is not "original". So, yes, MS is M$ and greedy and evil. However, in this particular case, they are acting the way that any company should and will act to protect their investment. It may seem, on the surface, that MS is a huge company and they could stand to loose a few dollars. Remember though that a lot of people depend on MS and Bungie for a salary, and everytime MS as a company takes a hit those people's livelyhood comes into geopardy. More then that, the corporations, as entities, are supposed to generate profits for their shareholders, so anytime they loose a portion of income in one place they have to make it up from somewhere else, and this includes the prices for the next Xsomething console and its games.
One problem in "buying out the development team and product" is that the only thing MS will be able to use is the artwork and maybe the concept for the game. Since the development team is not an actual team but a few hobbyists MS can't really buy them out. Moreover, since the mod is based on a non MS software they won't be able to use any of the code and/or the skill set of the dev team. So there is really no point for MS to pay money for something that they can not use. More to the point if someone in Microsoft has experemented with mind altering substances and authorised a purchase of HaloGen then what would stop every fanboy of any given game from trying to develop mods for a Microsoft property on non Microsoft platform?
Yeah, ok, so I'm dyslexic. I saw and typed dihydrogen monoxide but read dihydrogen peroxide. DHMO.org is a funny site, although I'm not sure how someone can have enough free time on their hands to put something like that together.
Funny, but dihydrogen Monoxide is not H2O.