Gunstar Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 (edited) So...a potential $1.2 mil. That's one of the crazier things I've seen here, and the Jag forum has a long, proud history of crazy things. I was right there with him, barely, with the $200 dollar price tag for a new minter game on the jag, It *might* even be possible to eventually sell 1000 copies just because it is a NEW MINTER GAME, there would be those that would drag Jag's out of their garages and attics for that, but over a long time period to reach those sales figures. I think if a 1000 copies of Battlesphere were produced they'd all sell easily at a $200 price point. I would hope it would sell for less than $100, but since BS has been selling for years on eBay as fast as they go on sale for many hundreds of dollars I think people would still buy them all up eventually for $200. After that he lost me...no way 2000-4000 in months or ever. Edited March 19, 2015 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregory DG Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 I hate this whole ordeal, but this could actually become something good for Jeff. Especially if high profile people like Markus Persson are supporting him. Hope things can be worked out amicably... I wanted to see TxK on a console... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoundGammon Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Just wondering...can I sue Atari for that Star Raiders game on the PS3 a couple of years ago because it was NO WHERE NEAR LIKE THE ORIGINAL 8-BIT that I was miss led into believing? WHERE'S MY LAWYERS???? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Just wondering...can I sue Atari for that Star Raiders game on the PS3 a couple of years ago because it was NO WHERE NEAR LIKE THE ORIGINAL 8-BIT that I was miss led into believing? WHERE'S MY LAWYERS???? Is that the same game as is in the XBOX LIVE ARCADE? I downloaded the demo version, played it once and promptly deleted it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Didn't they release a Yar's Revenge sequel that was basically just Panzer Dragoon with humanoid insects? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GT Turbo Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Boycott atari releases !! Firing on Jeff is a pity !! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoundGammon Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Is that the same game as is in the XBOX LIVE ARCADE? I downloaded the demo version, played it once and promptly deleted it. I believe it was! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ovalbugmann Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 (edited) Well this is a terrible turn of events, I was really looking forward to TxK(I read it as Tempest 10,000) on the PC, it would have been great with a Jaguar spinner controller on the PC via those new PC/Jag controller adaptors. Its really messed up this Atari got their lawyers to go after Jeff like this, he deserves more respect than this bullshit, as a matter of fact he deserves a copyright pass by Atari on this game franchise, I feel. Its quite unfortunate that in the end it all boils down to money, such is life today tho. :/ They don't want Jeff/Sony to make any money off of Tempest reiterations or new similar games like TxK, obviously. This is prolly very likely the end of Jeff's Tempest style programming, it culminated in TxK, i really liked it all too. So the only thing left to do is buy TxK from the PSN store while still available, and buy a PS Vita with the OLED screen while still available new(not the new slim Vita w/LED screen)- that will set me back about $200+ Edited March 19, 2015 by ovalbugmann 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 lol@star raiders into a fucking slot machine WHAT???!?!? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tickled_Pink Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Didn't they release a Yar's Revenge sequel that was basically just Panzer Dragoon with humanoid insects? Yes. Yes they did. And I bought it. It's a fairly good game. Not fantastic, but worthy of a play once in a while. But Yar's Revenge? Nope. Sorry. Don't see it. As sad as it is, Keatah got things pretty much spot on a few posts back. At the end of the day Tempest 2000 is Atari's IP and they are entitled to do what they want with it. The problem is with copyright law. In an ideal world, if an IP has been left to languish for 20-odd years and the IP holder has not pursued prior remakes then it should be allowed to lapse. Unfortunately substantially more than 20 years has to lapse. Last night I started to write a blog about it and questioned whether Necrotari even held the rights to Tempest. But then I came across a couple of posts on here (can't find them now) which suggested that they probably do. But I do find it a bit of a cheek that they claim to be the originators of Tempest when they own Atari Corp's IP and not Atari Games', who would have been the owners of the arcade IP. It would be interesting to see the paper trail relating to Atari's claims over the Atari Corp IP to see if any of it derived from the split of Atari Inc. was invalid. My initial doubts over their claims over Tempest arose from considering the effects of the split and the fact that home licenses for Tempest were made available to other companies. The last ones that I know of that were released on non-Atari hardware is the Spectrum and Amstrad versions released by Electric Dreams in '86. It would be interesting to see the inlay for those versions to see which Atari provided the licenses. It used to be common practice for licencing companies to provide licenses for a few platforms at a time. So even if Infotari owned the rights to Tempest, it could be the case that they only owned the rights to the game on their own hardware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Well, it's their right to make total asses of themselves and attack the man who gave people a reason to care about Tempest after a decade. But by the same token, it's our right to use social media and all other means at our disposal to turn this into a public relations nightmare for Infogrames until they relent and give Minter a break. I do realize that TxK is very similar to Tempest 2000, and that Atari owns the rights to that franchise. But it was also Atari that cheated Minter out of royalties with a faintly changed Playstation version of Tempest 2000, and Atari who's just letting that franchise rot on the vine over twenty years after its Jaguar debut. They could have settled this dispute amicably, but they didn't, and now they're going to suffer for it. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Responses to this elsewhere have been interesting to read....people saying Jeff has been twisting the truth via his Tweets, that there's only so much outrage as person being hit is Jeff Minter, it's 'Atari's' right to defend it's I.P etc etc... Well of course like any company they do have the right to take any action they see fit regarding I.P infringement and Jeff might have been wiser to make a few changes along the way to TxK to avoid sh*tstorms like this and the whole legal nightmare, but..... It's the way 'Atari' have handled things that gets peoples backs up and thus they've created a rod for their own back here.Whilst they say there's no such thing as bad publicity, here i think that might not ring so true... If your legal team is going to start cracking down on games that infringe, you really have to target all, not just one and given the clones i'm told are avaiable on iOS, it's a nigh on impossible task, where as Jeff, by comparison, easy target to deal with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 I think we're soon to see more back-pedalling... Wouldn't that be neat if true? Notch is the main person I think of when I think about rich people who like games. If he could somehow parlay this into a settlement, or an outright payoff to give Atari to everyone, he would be an A-list philanthropist in my book. Its weird if he has no interest in the Jag as his best game is on the system and it has a lively homebrew scene, right up his alley. So hmm.It's way more weird that you keep bringing this fantasy up as if it were a sane idea. The Jaguar hasn't been a commercially viable system for 20 years, if ever. Jeff spent two years making great games for iOS, which has literally millions of potential buyers. Even when he sold them for between one and three dollars each, he couldn't sell enough to make them worth the modest time investment of developing them. A guy has to eat. Jeff appears to be a terrible businessman but he Atari lawyers have zero aptitude for games. Maybe the $hitshow of bad publicity surrounding this affair will force a favorable settlement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rubio80 Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Really sad to read this, I was eager to play TXK on PC... Atari is now a joke, a bad one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarian63 Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Was looking forward to a PS3 version 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S1500 Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Atari's Facebook page chimed in. Interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shamus Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Can you post of summary of what it says, for those of us who don't have (and don't want) access to Facebook? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Can you post of summary of what it says, for those of us who don't have (and don't want) access to Facebook? You don't need an account with Facebook to view what they posted: https://www.facebook.com/atari?fref=nf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Ditto. I'm curious as to how they're going to spin this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 (edited) Responses to this elsewhere have been interesting to read....people saying Jeff has been twisting the truth via his Tweets, that there's only so much outrage as person being hit is Jeff Minter, it's 'Atari's' right to defend it's I.P etc etc... I assume you're talking about some of my Facebook posts, which really have been more that there's two sides to this and people have only been going by Jeff's writings (some of which are contradictory). And really there's been similar posts regarding Atari's rights over the last few pages here as well. Honestly, there's more to the matter than is being let on. They were in negotiations FOR ALMOST A YEAR. You're not in negotiations for that long if it's one side was unwilling to do something and just wanted you shut down as is being claimed. It's the way 'Atari' have handled things that gets peoples backs up and thus they've created a rod for their own back here.Whilst they say there's no such thing as bad publicity, here i think that might not ring so true... And how have they handled things? They were in negotiations for almost a year, and my understanding is Jeff made his lines in the sand as well as far as what he felt he was entitled to do, and asking it to be pulled was part of the normal recourse. If two parties try and work things out and both fail to meet in the middle, it's a failure of the two parties and both own it. Likewise, Jeff is the one that turned it into the very one sided public spectacle it's become. Atari SA is no saint, especially with some of the legal things that have happened in the past. But I prefer to hear all the details before definitively stating it's all just one or the other. As far as the claims on missed royalties, I'd need to see where that claim is coming from paperwork wise. We have a copy of his original agreement with Atari Corp. for Tempest 2000 for the Jag (which includes the Atari Interactive PC one), and it's a work for hire contract. If it was in a different contract, it would be great if he made that available. Either way it's irrelevant to this, as that was Atari Corp., a completely different company. Likewise, it also does not grant any rights to use the elements of the Tempest brand (which includes all the Tempest games) that are clearly appropriated in this latest version (and which he alluded to in his older blog posts). Everyone keeps harping on "Well he said he didn't use any source code or music," and I don't recall seeing that was what this was specifically about. There are so many other ways he could have done a "tube shooter" (in appearance and play) that didn't directly latch on to the Tempest legacy (which he went out of his way to attach it to). We were sitting in the Atari Museum group back in February 2014 stating this was going to happen because of all that, and it did. I can't imagine he couldn't have predicted it either and made the appropriate adjustments to avoid it, which leads one to wonder if he simply just didn't want to. As I've stated, I hope both are able to reach an agreement and that Jeff is able to release the game on other platforms. But I don't think it'll be purely just because he doesn't have money to pay legal fees. Edited March 19, 2015 by Retro Rogue Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 (edited) You don't need an account with Facebook to view what they posted: https://www.facebook.com/atari?fref=nf It's just a repeat of what they already stated to the press when the first started coming to light publicly earlier this week: Atari values and protects its intellectual property and expects others to respect its copyrights and trademarks. When Llamasoft launched TxK in early 2014, Atari was surprised and dismayed by the very close similarities between TxK and the Tempest franchise. Atari was not alone in noticing the incredible likeness between the titles. Several major gaming outlets also remarked at the similarity of features and overall appearance of TxK to Tempest; one stated of TxK, “This is essentially Tempest.” There is no lawsuit. Atari has been in continuous contact with the developer since the game launched in hopes that the matter would be resolved. http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/02/19/txk-review “This is essentially Tempest, a classic Atari arcade game (technically the spiritual successor of Tempest 2000) and even an updated look can’t obscure its retro roots.” – Scott Butterworth - IGN http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/txk-review/1900-6415666/ Though it is technically only a sequel to Atari's Tempest in spirit, this Vita shooter sports the same vector-style visuals, the same tube-based gameplay, and even the same yellow player ship as the 1981 original, all refined into a stunning modern interpretation. – Britton Peele - Gamespot http://www.gamingnexus.com/Article/TxK/Item4332.aspx Although it doesn't use the name, TxK may as well be the proper sequel to Tempest 2000 (or Tempest 3000, if you are more of a Nuon fan). It doesn't just look and control like Tempest, but it actually uses many of the same power-ups, a few of the level designs and a similar bonus stage. And that's not even taking into account that it uses the same vector-style graphics we've seen employed in all previous Tempest games. TxK is the Tempest sequel I never thought would come out.” – Cyril Lachel- Gaming Nexus Edited March 19, 2015 by Retro Rogue Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 :-) Sorry Marty, i don't DO Facebook, for anyone, not even your godself, so you'd be wrong in that assumption.Not read yours or anyone elses Facebook comments on.... Anything....ever. My earlier posts are just that it's interesting to note how people seem firmly split into 2 camps on this one, internet wise, either:Atari are right to defend what's theirs, Jeff really should of realised it was only a matter of time...or Boo Hiss, Atari are evil, where did i leave the pitchfork and is that torch still burning?. I'd imagine Facebook and Twitter (again the latter not an area i use or visit) are traffic heavy at present. I'm a consumer whgo, as i've stated on here few times before, has had fingers and toes crossed for PS3 TxK for so long, plus saved PSN points back for it, so of course i'm going to come down more on the side of it looking like i'll never see it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 I'm not talking 1 side or the other, Jeff has cried foul a good few times before over the year, he got upset over Zzap64's review of Mama Llama and described the magazine as what was it? written by 12 year olds for 12 year olds..or something? then came the Space Giraffe review score and sales outburst... http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www.joystiq.com/2007/11/22/poor-sales-of-space-giraffe-make-jeff-minter-sad/&sa=U&ei=8R0LVfOCIYL1OMv3gNgF&ved=0CBYQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNGmhmnKqch8r5uDx4ZjH3NTl9oN2w But then a few pages back there was the suggestion at least, that Atari's (CEO is it?) was only interested in the money side of things, rather than re-generating the I.P for a new market.Some strong wording used...he was refered to as Scum Of The Earth, so from a P.R point of view, Atari's handling of it seems to have generated a lot (more?) hate for them in the past few days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 And, whilst i'm here:Other than the marmite reviews (Edge loved it, The Rev Stuart...slags the hell out of it on his site), what was the story behind NUON Tempest 3000 then? Minter asked to code it for the NUON, all legal aspects in place/it had Atari's blessing or what?. From what i've read, Minter simply put his hand up when Atari asked who'd be interested in coding it on Jaguar (probably over-simplified events, but thats the gist), Tempest X3 was High Voltage re-doing game for PS1 hardware and it had several changes made from Tempest 2000, but even then there were mixed messages appearing online-some said Ohhh Jeff really hates it, yet you looked and found Jeff just listed what he felt did'nt work and what he'd of done differently himself, had he coded it... And do 'we' think Sony will be drawn into all this as they 'allowed' game on Vita?. The legal side of things is jusat so beyond my mere understanding it might as well be written in Hebrew. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emehr Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 If anything in TxK screams "That's Tempest!!!", it's the claw ship. If I make a Super Mario clone and the protagonist looks exactly like Mario, I would expect a call from Nintendo's lawyers. Also, there's an article on Ars Technica and one of the screen shots comparing TxK to Tempest 2000 shows similar in-game text ("Jump Enabled"), among other things. I'm not taking sides here but when Zynga was ripping off the games of indie developers the community was in an uproar. How is this any different? From what I've seen and read, TxK appears to be a straight up Tempest game. Not just a clone or "inspired by". It's a modern, evolved version of Tempest in the same vein as Space Invaders Extreme or Pac-Man Championship Edition. That said, TxK looks cool as hell and I'd love to play it. Too bad Atari and Minter couldn't work something out instead of involving lawyers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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