Deckmaster license is public in 2014?

www.vekn.net/index.php/forum/5-generic-vtes-discussion/32543-stronghold-games#32548

In this thread, David Tatu says that CCP/WW is willing to license the rights at a reasonable cost. Then he says that they were not willing to talk about giving a publishing company the rights. Now you say that they talked to a certain number of companies who turned them down.

I'm really curious what the real story is. My belief has been that CCP/WW wants VTES not to be published so that it doesn't take market share or interest from their VtR RPG or from their Vampire MMORPG (which is still not finished - hmm, it makes you wonder why CCP bothered to get the rights to WoD in the first place).

My belief, true or not, is that CCP has been the true barrier to publishing the game. David's post in the thread I linked to above made me reconsider that.

Once the Deckmaster patent expires, we'll see what is going on. One wonders how much money it would take for CCP to grant a license to produce and reprint VTES. The answer might be that no amount of money will be enough because they just don't want VTES to be published. Normally one would think that a company would be happy to take a fee for someone else to take the risk of producing something from their IP that they themselves are not willing to produce.

AaronC wrote:

www.vekn.net/index.php/forum/5-generic-vtes-discussion/32543-stronghold-games#32548

In this thread, David Tatu says that CCP/WW is willing to license the rights at a reasonable cost. Then he says that they were not willing to talk about giving a publishing company the rights. Now you say that they talked to a certain number of companies who turned them down.

I'm really curious what the real story is. My belief has been that CCP/WW wants VTES not to be published so that it doesn't take market share or interest from their VtR RPG or from their Vampire MMORPG (which is still not finished - hmm, it makes you wonder why CCP bothered to get the rights to WoD in the first place).

My belief, true or not, is that CCP has been the true barrier to publishing the game. David's post in the thread I linked to above made me reconsider that.

Once the Deckmaster patent expires, we'll see what is going on. One wonders how much money it would take for CCP to grant a license to produce and reprint VTES. The answer might be that no amount of money will be enough because they just don't want VTES to be published. Normally one would think that a company would be happy to take a fee for someone else to take the risk of producing something from their IP that they themselves are not willing to produce.

I invite you to take a look at this thread.

vekn.net/index.php/forum/5-generic-vtes-discussion/32787-kickstarter-for-vtes?limit=10&start=10

This isn't the first time this has cropped up and it certainly was a hot topic when it was announced support was being dropped.

Essentially it goes like this. David is right. They were willing to license the rights at a reasonable cost to a third party publisher. However, of the list of trusted publishers they were willing to let handle VTES, none of them wanted to sign on. CCP/WW won't simply let their product go to a random or unknown publisher and for good reason. Imagine your world and reputation being tarnished by a bad investment. There are other potential repercussions, etc. That isn't the point though. The point is costs were known and CCP had a reasonable number in mind to lease their license. Hasbro/WotC certainly complicated the matters though as that is yet another company to have to deal with due to mechanics/trademark, etc.

Plus, as Adonai points out in that thread you would have to convince CCP that republishing VTES would yield good profit. Given he has inside information he cannot disclose as it would be a breach I trust what he is saying. Some former employees as well as current could back that up, but you will see no public disclosure on the topic so you will have to be satisfied with that information.

I suspect that CCP would be willing to licence a suitable party the IP for VTES, potentially with a stipulation that you need to spruik their oWoD MMORPG on the side.

Hasbro/WotC are the ones with the track record of having crappy licensing agreements. The 3E-OGL to 4E-OGL was its own interesting kettle of fish (i.e. you could keep your 3.5E OGL or you could forgo the ability to sell any 3.5E material and get a 4E OGL instead and expect to get your ass sued off if you break the OGL).

So, I would lay my bets that when the WotC Deckmaster Patent runs out, we will be able to have a publisher (e.g. Walch & Nusser or Lasombra or Rose Tatu Productions) for VTES since there will only need to be one IP negotiation (with CCP who have an interest in the broad success of oWoD due to their MMORPG). All we have to do is make it worth enough of CCPs time and if at worst we take all the risk and promise to pay them a % revenue its basically cash for no effort... and that's usually a reasonably tempting deal for most people/companies.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

I suspect that CCP would be willing to licence a suitable party the IP for VTES, potentially with a stipulation that you need to spruik their oWoD MMORPG on the side.

Hasbro/WotC are the ones with the track record of having crappy licensing agreements. The 3E-OGL to 4E-OGL was its own interesting kettle of fish (i.e. you could keep your 3.5E OGL or you could forgo the ability to sell any 3.5E material and get a 4E OGL instead and expect to get your ass sued off if you break the OGL).

So, I would lay my bets that when the WotC Deckmaster Patent runs out, we will be able to have a publisher (e.g. Walch & Nusser or Lasombra or Rose Tatu Productions) for VTES since there will only need to be one IP negotiation (with CCP who have an interest in the broad success of oWoD due to their MMORPG). All we have to do is make it worth enough of CCPs time and if at worst we take all the risk and promise to pay them a % revenue its basically cash for no effort... and that's usually a reasonably tempting deal for most people/companies.

Well... from what I have read and understand it is far more than just a few thousand to do so and I don't know if any of those guys have a 250,000 lying around to put into the game. Maybe a collective might be able to accomplish this. Anyway... all one can do is keep playing and cross your fingers.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

So, I would lay my bets that when the WotC Deckmaster Patent runs out, we will be able to have a publisher (e.g. Walch & Nusser or Lasombra or Rose Tatu Productions)

I might be missing somethimg. I don't think these three are examples of publishers.

@TorranceCircle: AFAIK Lasombra at least was approached to potentially publish VTES before it went to torpor.