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[News] Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreementANN.lu
Posted on 16-Aug-2004 07:39 GMT by Thomas Steiding32 comments
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Spellbound Entertainment AG and e.p.i.c. interactive entertainment gmbh have reached a comprehensive license agreement, that will bring many of the popular Spellbound games to other systems like the Apple Macintosh and Linux a.o.. The first title to be ported will be Strategy game "Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood", which will initially be released for Apple Macintosh and Linux. Versions for other systems are planned. Further Spellbound titles are to follow soon. Kehl/ Tübingen 16.8.2004 Spellbound Entertainment and e.p.i.c. interactive to enter license agreement Spellbound Entertainment AG and e.p.i.c. interactive entertainment gmbh have reached a comprehensive license agreement, that will bring many of the popular Spellbound games to other systems like the Apple Macintosh and Linux a.o.. The first title to be ported will be Strategy game "Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood", which will initially be released for Apple Macintosh and Linux. Versions for other systems are planned. Further Spellbound titles are to follow soon. "We are very proud to have the chance to cooperate with one of Germanys longest standing developing companies. Finally great Spellbound titles, who all have gathered a large and loyal following, will become available to gamers on other computer systems." said Thomas Steiding, CEO of e.p.i.c. interactive, about the deal. Armin Gessert, CEO of Spellbound, added:"In e.p.i.c. we have found a competent partner and we are happy that the long neglected users of systems such as Macintosh and Linux will soon be able to play our games too." More information about "Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood" will be available on our website soon.
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 1 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Emeric SH on 16-Aug-2004 05:56 GMT
Judging from the screenshots I've found on the net, Robin Hood is a title I'd definitely buy for MorphOS.
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 2 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Lando on 16-Aug-2004 06:15 GMT
In reply to Comment 1 (Emeric SH):
I'd definitely buy a copy for MorphOS too. Looks like the type of game I enjoy playing.
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 3 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 16-Aug-2004 08:01 GMT
Looks ok'ish. Any plans for os4 or classic version?
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 4 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by thefab on 16-Aug-2004 08:08 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (Lando):
i suppose we should not grant too much credit to this according to what happen with Divine Divinity and Northland for Morphos.
Sure, new games for linux and macos are great but as new port for morphos and amigaos are uncertain, i would not delight myself too fast.
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 5 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Emeric SH on 16-Aug-2004 10:08 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (thefab):
"Sure, new games for linux and macos are great but as new port for morphos and amigaos are uncertain, i would not delight myself too fast."

One will only buy what is available :)And if and when it will be available for MorphOS, I'll be there to buy it.
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 6 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by thefab on 16-Aug-2004 10:49 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (Emeric SH):
off course, but one would be ready for a long wait ;-)
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 7 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by takemehomegrandma on 16-Aug-2004 12:15 GMT
Great news! Congratulations e.p.i.c! :-)
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 8 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by miksuh on 16-Aug-2004 13:22 GMT
Well.. That's not exectly the type of game I like most. But It might be good game. So if there will be OS4 version I could buy one too :)
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 9 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Kjetil on 16-Aug-2004 15:44 GMT
I be interested inn a version for AmigaOS40.
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 10 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 16-Aug-2004 16:06 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Kjetil):
We know ...
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 11 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Tryo on 16-Aug-2004 16:32 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Kjetil):
Has it been released yet?

Where can we download the SDK?
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 12 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by toaks on 16-Aug-2004 17:55 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (Tryo):
another fantasy project by epic....

there wont be any amiga or mos ports ...


anyway we can only hope that epic will inject some games into a starved market which dont buy games..... where is northland and divine divinity?
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 13 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by JKD on 16-Aug-2004 18:36 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (toaks):
Go hang out in #worms on arcnet...or one of the #amiga channels that
the developer frequents. One of the titles at least had problems due
to developers machine..I think they had to start from scratch but I
know for sure that the Mac versions of both were said to come first.
It must be 6 months or more since I talked to them though...

I doubt it's viable to launch a game with a userbase of 1,000 or
so...especially as all of them don't buy games.

Steve
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 14 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 17-Aug-2004 03:52 GMT
How is this is relevant to the Amiga??
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 15 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by hooligan/dcs on 17-Aug-2004 04:04 GMT
In reply to Comment 14 (Anonymous):
>How is this is relevant to the Amiga??

Why would it need to be Amiga-related??
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 16 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Emeric SH on 17-Aug-2004 05:20 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (toaks):
another fantasy project by epic....

Well, at least Knights and Merchants is more than a Fantasy Project, and I hope to buy more games like that.
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 17 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by takemehomegrandma on 17-Aug-2004 09:24 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (toaks):
If I remember things correctly, Epic are using their own "SDL-kind-of" engine, to which they port the games. This engine runs on both Mac and Linux and once the game is ported to "the engine", it is AFAIK fairly easy to get it running on all platforms that has the engine running.

The good thing here is that this engine is also running on MorphOS! :-)

I can understand if Epic would choose to step aside for a while (even if I see no real sign of it?), taking a spectators role, to see what happens to the Pegasos/MorphOS platform after Genesi's changed financial situation that followed from the Pretory thing. I would say that they are not alone, if that is the case. But seeing that they are still posting news to sites like this, saying "that will bring many of the popular Spellbound games to [b]other systems[/b] like the Apple Macintosh and Linux [b]a.o.[/b].", is a good sign IMHO. They are still here, and once (if) the MorphOS platform takes off seriously enough to offer a market for third party software producers (like Epic), I am quite confident that we will see these games on MorphOS in no-time.

:-)
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 18 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by toaks on 17-Aug-2004 09:39 GMT
In reply to Comment 13 (JKD):
i hang in all the developers channels more or less and im a developer myself.

and i see this as a fantasy project...sorry but thats how i feel it.

it will come for mac and linux ofcourse but for amiga or mos? ...doubt it..

cheers
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 19 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by toaks on 17-Aug-2004 09:41 GMT
In reply to Comment 16 (Emeric SH):
yes its a cool game indeed and its not fantasy but i have seen the numbers of copies sold and heh well as i said..i doubt anyone would buy a liscsense atm for amiga or mos for any of the new games mentioned in this thread..

I HOPE IT WILL TURN AROUND OFCOURSE! , i hope to see mega cool games (NEW) on both plattforms, but making a war out of everything doesnt help.

cheers
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 20 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by takemehomegrandma on 17-Aug-2004 10:07 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (toaks):
> it will come for mac and linux ofcourse but for amiga or mos? ...doubt it..

Porting games to MorphOS (and any other OS that has their "game engine" running) will probably be quite easy, relatively fast and not very expensive, once the games has been adapted to their "engine" (and that work will be financed by Mac/Linux sales anyway). It will not be like making a MorphOS port from scratch, from the ground up. Much of the work should already have been done when the game was adapted to use their "game engine".
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 21 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Christoph Gutjahr on 17-Aug-2004 11:43 GMT
In reply to Comment 20 (takemehomegrandma):
>> Porting games to MorphOS (and any other OS that has their "game engine" running)
>> will probably be quite easy, relatively fast and not very expensive, once the
>> games has been adapted to their "engine

So what? You still have to pay licensing fees and handle production and distribution of the product. Even if the licensing fees are based on the amount of copies sold - why should they bother if they sell just a handful of copies?

The ressources spent on an Amiga/MorphOS port could be used elsewhere, and they would generate more revenue that way.
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 22 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by takemehomegrandma on 17-Aug-2004 12:51 GMT
In reply to Comment 21 (Christoph Gutjahr):
> You still have to pay licensing fees

"Spellbound Entertainment AG and e.p.i.c. interactive entertainment gmbh have reached a comprehensive license agreement, that will bring many of the popular Spellbound games to other systems like the Apple Macintosh and Linux a.o.."

Do you know the exact terms of this comprehensive license agreement? I don't, but I read the press release as they have a general license that gives e.p.i.c the right to port these games to pretty much any other computer system than Windows, for example Mac and Linux (the biggest), among others. BTW, they posted the PR on this site, didn't they?


> and handle production and distribution of the product.

The fixed costs will undoubtful be carried by the Mac and Linux ports anyway, and I see no real reason to why the cost-per-unit would be any greater for MorphOS than for any other platform?


> Even if the licensing fees are based on the amount of copies sold - why
> should they bother if they sell just a handful of copies?

Well, as I wrote in a post above: "They [e.p.i.c.] are [obviously] still here, and once (if) the MorphOS platform takes off seriously enough to offer a market for third party software producers (like Epic), I am quite confident that we will see these games on MorphOS in no-time".

I was obviously not talking about a handful of copies, and I was not talking about today (even if that *might* happen, who knows? ;-)).


> The ressources spent on an Amiga/MorphOS port could be used elsewhere, and
> they would generate more revenue that way.

E.p.i.c obviously have a model that makes it really easy for them to port games to a large amount of platforms. First they put down some one-time efforts and resources to adapt the game to their "game engine". That is the hard and expensive part. When that part is done, there will probably be quite easy and cheap to get it running on any of the platforms (probably even small ones) on which their "engine" runs, of which MorphOS is one.

In order for this model to pay off in its fullest, it would make sense to use it on as many platforms as possible. If only the platform specific costs (which could be quite low, for what I know) can brake even on its own merits (the sales from that platform), it will mean that any surplus from there on will help covering the "one-time adapting effort".

While undoubtfully some resources needs to be spent to make a MorphOS specific port of a game (as well as developing/maintaining the MorphOS "engine"), I doubt that we are talking about *huge* amounts of manpower and financial resources here. AFAIK, e.p.i.c already have a few games ported to MorphOS, and this way they have a small product portfilio ready the day (if the day will come) MorphOS takes off seriously, on whatever product. When/if that day comes, e.p.i.c. will find themselves in a monopoly situation on that market, thanks to their unique porting model. And I doubt that the cost and risc e.p.i.c has put down in MorphOS so far has been extreme in any way, much thanks to the model they are using.
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 23 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Christoph Gutjahr on 17-Aug-2004 13:54 GMT
In reply to Comment 22 (takemehomegrandma):
>> The fixed costs will undoubtful be carried by the Mac and Linux ports anyway,
>> and I see no real reason to why the cost-per-unit would be any greater for
>> MorphOS than for any other platform? [snip]

You missed my point completely ;-)

If attributing ressources to an Amiga/MorphOS port generates *less* money than attributing the very same ressources to something else, said port doesn't make sense - even if it costs next to nothing to create and generates some (small) profits.

>> I was obviously not talking about a handful of copies, and I was not talking
>> about today (even if that *might* happen, who knows? ;-)).

Well, if we presume that MorphOS "seriously takes off one day", most of us would agree with the assumption that Epic would keep supporting the plattform.
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 24 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by toaks on 17-Aug-2004 20:03 GMT
In reply to Comment 22 (takemehomegrandma):
porting a game might be easy and fast, but the result might be left like software tycoon was/*is.

secondly porting is porting and liscence is liscense , if you want to port a game to linux then u have to pay for that liscense , if you want to port for macos , then u have to pay for that too (liscense) .

finally , you want to port to pegasos/mos , LISCENSE (+packaging (or is it ok with a box saying LINUX or MAC on it? , and then you have manuals , is it OK if you get a 1 paged manual for a strategy/sim game like SOFTWARE TYCOON? )

imagine a 4th version (which i belive wont happen myself...but i will continue to hope atleast) , AmigaOs4 .. again we have a DIFFRENT liscense and diffrent box /*packaging/manual etc.....

a global liscense is probably wise but also a dumb idea as if you decide to NOT port it to a specific plattform (lets say Aos4) then it will be locked within this liscense.... and then no one else can buy the rights and do a port.


cheers
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 25 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Frederik on 18-Aug-2004 05:41 GMT
I am always happy to read linux and mac news on amiga sites.. Or how was that right ??

Personally, if I want to read mac and linux news, I would seek out other newssites.
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 26 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Emeric SH on 18-Aug-2004 05:50 GMT
In reply to Comment 25 (Frederik):
"Personally, if I want to read mac and linux news, I would seek out other newssites."

Aw, c'mon after the long years of Linux only AmigaONEs, it's quite a refreshment :)))
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 27 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Johan "Hagge" Krüger-Haglert on 18-Aug-2004 06:34 GMT
How fast is SDL? Would it be possible to make modern games with it? Why don't everyone learn and use that or Java and we would all be happy. Does ocaml have sdl support?
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 28 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Emeric SH on 18-Aug-2004 06:36 GMT
In reply to Comment 27 (Johan "Hagge" Krüger-Haglert):
Neverwinter Nights uses SDL. I leave the rest to others :)
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 29 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by takemehomegrandma on 18-Aug-2004 08:43 GMT
In reply to Comment 24 (toaks):
> secondly porting is porting and liscence is liscense , if you want to port a
> game to linux then u have to pay for that liscense , if you want to port for
> macos , then u have to pay for that too (liscense) .

Not if you have reached one license agreement that covers them all.

> and then you have manuals , is it OK if you get a 1 paged manual for a
> strategy/sim game like SOFTWARE TYCOON? )

Of course not, it's much better to have *one* manual for all platforms, covering the game itself, and then one loose page with platform specific things, like installation instructions and such. This has in fact been quite common on Amiga (and other platforms) since a long way back. This way, the additional cost is close to nada!
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 30 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by itix on 18-Aug-2004 10:14 GMT
In reply to Comment 27 (Johan "Hagge" Krüger-Haglert):
"How fast is SDL? Would it be possible to make modern games with it?"

Of course it is possible. Just look into OpenTTD. It works like a charm and is _fast_. See www.libsdl.org website... 451 games listed now.
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 31 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Olegil on 19-Aug-2004 10:37 GMT
In reply to Comment 27 (Johan "Hagge" Krüger-Haglert):
I play DVDs and DivX through SDL, does that count?
Spellbound and e.p.i.c. reach comprehensive license agreement : Comment 32 of 32ANN.lu
Posted by Martin Wollert on 19-Aug-2004 21:32 GMT
now this Epic Linux Mac news make more sense.
just look here
and enjoy :D
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