[DGD]Skotos and StoryBuilder

[Christopher Allen]

Matt Adkisson:
> Skotos will require its licensed "users" to send in to
> Skotos any modification that is made to the server --
> not areas, items, etc, but any systems, such as a new
> combat system, or a new room system, etc.  Skotos then
> "owns" your system and has the right to release that
> system as theirs (with no credit to you, as I
> understand it) in the next server version.  Skotos
> explained that, via this method, the StoryBuilder
> server would continually evolve with minimal effort on
> their part.
>
> You may have already known about this, but in any case
> it's a critical point to consider.  I was a bit put
> off by it, as it forces the active MUD admin to code
> for Skotos.  I don't mean to sound harsh, and Skotos
> may have altered their business practices since I
> talked with them.

You exaggerate, and the parts about the 'no credit' part and 'minimal effort on
their part' are flatly false.

The rights to DGD were very expensive for us to purchase, we have put man years
into a modern web-centric library on top of it, plan to put in many more man
years, and are building what we hope will be a multi-million dollar in revenue
online game service. However, I don't want DGD to be as difficult to purchase as
it was for us, so it is available, just not cheaply.

What is true -- if don't want to pay the full price for DGD, one way to get the
full price reduced is to agree to contribute back non-game specific
functionality back to Skotos so that we may incorporate it into future versions
of the product available to all licensees. Combat systems are on the edge
between 'game specific' and 'non-game specific' and I'd hope that anyone that
we'd partner with would deal with these edge issues in good faith.

You also do not have to 'buy' DGD or our library to build games -- if you create
a game on our service, we pay you up to a 20% royalty, and we do all the hard
work for that. Customer support, marketing, a reliable data center, billing,
etc. are not inexpensive. We have also licensed rights to be allow our games to
be able to use backgrounds from Lovecraft Country and Paranoia, and hope to
announce more licenses soon.

We hope to offer what we call 'StoryBuilder' functionality to all members of our
service next year, but meanwhile, we are accepting proposals from folks that
wish to get an early start on our service and create games now. We call this
group the Skotos Seven, and will be paying an advance on royalties for the work.
Information on the Skotos Seven is at our website at
http://www.skotos.net/storybuilders/.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
. Christopher Allen                                 Skotos Tech Inc. ..
.                           1512 Walnut St., Berkeley, CA 94709-1513 ..
. <http://www.Skotos.net>               o510/647-2760  f510/647-2761 ..


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