Battlesphere. Tell me why it's "so great", or what I "should be doing".

[+remowilliams]

The problems with BattleSphere ultimately come down to it being managed by the sort of people who thought "4Play" and "Scatologic" would be good company names (i.e., talented but also very childish individuals).

 

Lets not forget "JUGS"....lol

 

Tuna taco, Penetrator

 

yeah maybe...

[PlaysWithWolves]

Considering the demands and costs/labor involved, I can't imagine any actual third-party profit even being made to donate to a charity. But if they don't donate something, then the optics may look bad. Anyway, here's a quote from the ScatoLOGIC FAQ (if it's still valid):

 

Q. Why doesn't ScatoLOGIC sell the rights to produce BattleSphere to Telegames or Songbird?

A. Simple. To persuade Hasbro to release the Jaguar into the public domain, 4Play offered that all profits from the game would be donated to charity. Because of this agreement, any company selling BattleSphere must also give their profits to charity. No 3rd party producers seem charitable enough to accept this agreement and produce BattleSphere.

Additionally, there are a number of strict quality issues which no other producer seems willing to meet. (Full-color decals applied properly aligned, Cardboard box inserts, Gold cartridge contacts, etc.)

Edited August 19, 2014 by PlaysWithWolves

[Rick Dangerous]

Considering the demands and costs/labor involved, I can't imagine any actual third-party profit even being made to donate to a charity. But if they don't donate something, then the optics may look bad. Anyway, here's a quote from the ScatoLOGIC FAQ (if it's still valid):

 

Q. Why doesn't ScatoLOGIC sell the rights to produce BattleSphere to Telegames or Songbird?

A. Simple. To persuade Hasbro to release the Jaguar into the public domain, 4Play offered that all profits from the game would be donated to charity. Because of this agreement, any company selling BattleSphere must also give their profits to charity. No 3rd party producers seem charitable enough to accept this agreement and produce BattleSphere.

 

Additionally, there are a number of strict quality issues which no other producer seems willing to meet. (Full-color decals applied properly aligned, Cardboard box inserts, Gold cartridge contacts, etc.)

 

This is interesting, but the Jaguar has been in the public domain for so long now the ship has to have sailed on that requirement from Hasbro. So it's doubtful that profits would actually HAVE to go to charity. (though that may be a hang-up of the programmers.)

 

Sonbirds games are high quality and meet the specs you mentioned. Not sure about the gold cartridge contacts...but is that really necessary?

 

It sounds like the developers are just happy hoarding their game.

Edited August 19, 2014 by travistouchdown

[Zerosquare]

My point, though, is that whatever hold-up was happening years ago isn't necessarily going to still be a factor today. Presumably both the Catbox and BS are protected intellectual property, but the real-world market value of all that IP has depreciated to nothing. So there's no reason to not allow a 3rd party to come in and do another run--if there really is demand.

[JagChris]

My point, though, is that whatever hold-up was happening years ago isn't necessarily going to still be a factor today. Presumably both the Catbox and BS are protected intellectual property, but the real-world market value of all that IP has depreciated to nothing. So there's no reason to not allow a 3rd party to come in and do another run--if there really is demand.

 

This statement isn't true at all. If Battlesphere were to be mass produced and released today the sales would be at least be double as many Jaguar consoles are out there. There would be most who would buy two for linking together at parties. Those who wouldn't buy two, or even one would be counterbalanced by those who would buy 3 or 4.

Edited August 19, 2014 by JagChris

[mos6507]

 

This statement isn't true at all. If Battlesphere were to be mass produced and released today the sales would be at least be double as many Jaguar consoles are out there. There would be most who would buy two for linking together at parties. Those who wouldn't buy two, or even one would be counterbalanced by those who would buy 3 or 4.

 

Still sounds pretty anecdotal. Whether you go into it for-profit or just to break-even you need to crunch the numbers and make sure you don't lose your shirt on it. That's what the crowdfunding is good for, as it kind of holds the entire thing for a vote. It's very democratic that way. In the past I did reservation lists so as not to take anyone's money before I was able to fulfill. Crowdfunding doesn't do that so donors can be screwed just as much as an old-school preorder.

 

As for juvenile attitudes, you should have heard how Eugene Jarvis talked when I interviewed him around '99, and he was already middle-aged. He was (and probably still is) a guy who never grew up (in a good way, of course). Videogames tend to attract people with that sensibility. But besides that, I would not expect them to feel as protective of this stuff now as they were years ago. I do know at one time they wanted to convert BS to other platforms, but that ship sailed long ago. They've moved onto other things.

 

The most recent date on their website is 2005 (9 years ago).

Edited August 19, 2014 by mos6507

[Mr SQL]

The problems with BattleSphere ultimately come down to it being managed by the sort of people who thought "4Play" and "Scatologic" would be good company names (i.e., talented but also very childish individuals).

 

Scott and Doug kind of remind me of Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. Yes, in that order.

LOL! ROFL!!! You're the same guy who came onto my KC thread the other day and called me a troll for putting artifact colours on a VCS game armed wth your silly wikipedia articles

 

Internet experts like you throwing insults at advanced devs looking for a reaction are generally perceived as offensive and poor sports; In the 80's gamers lined up at expos to get our autographs - they didn't call us trolls but then again they didn't have your wikipedia skillz

 

No doubt you pulled the same nonsense on the BattleSphere programmers and got the same reaction :)

[+SabertoothRetro]

I love how this game still inspires so much chatter 14 years on. As someone who has not yet pulled the trigger on a BS/BSG auction, I harbor no ill will towards the games' creators. I sold my first Jag collection in '98 and missed out on twelve years of limited releases like Battlesphere, Gorf, Mad Bodies, Painter, etc. Do I wish that Scatalogic would produce and/or authorize the production of more? Absolutely!

 

Also, nonprofits and not-for-profits can make money. Otherwise there would be no charity booze cruises. Money received pays for overhead, executives and staff. Any remaining excess funding would be put into charitable programs. It would be possible for someone to meet the stated criteria on the Scatalogic website for ongoing production, cover their material costs, receive some reasonable compensation and donate the rest. In fact, it would be kinda cool to be a non-profit games publisher.

[VladR]

Yeah - I'd pay for it. The same $79 I paid for my 2 BS carts. If they do a Gold version, I'd buy that for the $129 I paid for mine. The Scatalogic team did it in their free time as well, so what's the difference?

Well, that wouldn't pay for the costs of full-time development. Maybe if there was some young, lone, coder living at parent's basement, those revenues might provide for his noodle soups - perhaps even twice a week !

 

I was under the impression - perhaps wrong - that Battlesphere was developed full-time. What was the actual story then ? How many coders were involved ?

[+Stephen]

Well, that wouldn't pay for the costs of full-time development. Maybe if there was some young, lone, coder living at parent's basement, those revenues might provide for his noodle soups - perhaps even twice a week !

 

I was under the impression - perhaps wrong - that Battlesphere was developed full-time. What was the actual story then ? How many coders were involved ?

There were two coders (who both had other full-time jobs), and one musician. Scott LeGrand (Oppressor) did MOST of the code and game design (engine, all 3D work, AI etc.). He went on to write some code for VMLab's ill fated Nuon platform, and I believe he now works for NVidia. Doglas Engel (Thunderbird) was the asshole of the group He did the networking code and music engine, although he would have people believe he did the entire game and also coded some of the rules for the universe. He is also the reason 4-Play/Scatalogic have the reputation they do. Stephanie Wukovitz did the music. She was married to Scott for some years. I unfortunately lost touch with her a few years back. She had a kidney transplant due to diabetes, and I don't even know if she is still alive

[mos6507]

Stephanie also has a LinkedIn profile. I haven't added her but her health must have stabilized.

 

I'm sorry to report that Scott wrote me back on LinkedIn and unfortunately he's still feeling bitter after all this time. The exact details surrounding his beefs, I don't know, as there is always two sides to a story, but there's no reason to explore this unless the key people are in the right frame of mind, and he's not.

 

At one point in time I was trying to somehow engineer a sit-down coin-op version of Battlesphere with an analog control-scheme. I can't remember exactly how I thought it could be pulled off. It was pretty pie-in-the-sky, like a lot of my ideas. But they seemed to want to do more with the game besides just the stock version, and I guess there's a sense of anti-climax in how little became of it besides high auction-prices. But at some point you have to close the book on those unmet expectations and move-on. Getting the game into wider circulation would be one way to do it that at least pleases the stalwart fans, but that's not in the cards.

 

I just find infighting within special-interests to be self-defeating. I've experienced some of the same sorts of clashes in other hobbies and it's really depressing. People should be in this because they love it, and there should be solidarity there.

[+remowilliams]

I'm sorry to report that Scott wrote me back on LinkedIn and unfortunately he's still feeling bitter after all this time. The exact details surrounding his beefs, I don't know, as there is always two sides to a story, but there's no reason to explore this unless the key people are in the right frame of mind, and he's not.

 

There never was anything to explore. Have you missed the last decade or so of him carrying on like a mental patient in another forum?

[mos6507]

 

There never was anything to explore. Have you missed the last decade or so of him carrying on like a mental patient in another forum?

 

Yes I did miss it, thankfully...

[+remowilliams]

Yes I did miss it, thankfully...

 

Ah well consider yourself lucky then. It was a rather unpleasant and long time... The BS crew (-Stephanie) have long made their particular brand of unpleasantry known, Doug being by far the worst offender.

 

I just find infighting within special-interests to be self-defeating.

 

Yes it is rather sad overall. Some communities have seen very little, some (like the Jag) have seen massive amounts with the efforts of a small but madly driven, vocal and infuriating band of individuals.

[VladR]

There were two coders (who both had other full-time jobs), and one musician. Scott LeGrand (Oppressor) did MOST of the code and game design (engine, all 3D work, AI etc.). He went on to write some code for VMLab's ill fated Nuon platform, and I believe he now works for NVidia. Doglas Engel (Thunderbird) was the asshole of the group He did the networking code and music engine, although he would have people believe he did the entire game and also coded some of the rules for the universe. He is also the reason 4-Play/Scatalogic have the reputation they do. Stephanie Wukovitz did the music. She was married to Scott for some years. I unfortunately lost touch with her a few years back. She had a kidney transplant due to diabetes, and I don't even know if she is still alive

Thanks for the summary. It was quite informative and I connected quite a few missing pieces now.

 

Did they code something on Jaguar before or was that their first game ? Creating a RISC-based SW rasterizer is quite an insane undertaking in one's free time !

 

While I am pretty confident I could code similar one (basically - just static simple mesh SW rasterizer) in 3 months full-time - e.g. at least 40+ hrs a week (of course, there's still the gameplay, AI, networking, audio, GUI components, tweaking, bug-fixing, failed experiments ...), I don't really fancy doing it in free time, as you never really know if you'll see the code again next week or next year.

 

With guaranteed persistence and making sure you see the code at least every other weekend, it's doable, but still insanely crazy an undertaking.

 

But to pull off something like that in free time, well - hat's off Mr. Coder, Sir !

[ZylonBane]

LOL! ROFL!!! You're the same guy who came onto my KC thread the other day and called me a troll for putting artifact colours on a VCS game armed wth your silly wikipedia articles

Everything you say is incomprehensible gibberish.

[SoulBlazer]

Everything you say is incomprehensible gibberish.

And I could say that you never post anything nice or positive....but I don't.

 

Back on topic, all of this about Battlesphere is fascinating to me, as I'm not a Jag player and missed all of this, but do poke in here now and then cause it's fun to read threads like this.

 

It would be nice if someone objective and fair -- I.E., probably someone NOT in the Jag community -- could write a article about the history behind BS and the people behind it, and the problems and fights that occurred over the years for those of us (myself included) who know very little about the situation. It would be a fascinating piece of history.

 

Someone said earlier (sorry, don't recall who) that they wondered if the hate toward the game was more cause of the high price meaning no one can play the game, or due to the crap-tastic nature of the game in their own mind. It's a interesting point, and I'd say that people are inclined to think the latter when they run up into the former. "Oh hell, the game is THAT much? I can't be any good!"

[JagChris]

Actually the numbers were crunched on JSII by a couple of professional coders. Tursi and someone else were discussing it I believe. Even with greenlight and elsewhere with the huge competition there and other places they found that with the success new games have on the Jaguar the market is still viable so that you don't 'lose your shirt'.

 

And that's not considering BattleSphere where multiple copies for each owner would probably be sold. Thats considering some solid side scroller game or somesuch.

 

 

Still sounds pretty anecdotal. Whether you go into it for-profit or just to break-even you need to crunch the numbers and make sure you don't lose your shirt on it. That's what the crowdfunding is good for, as it kind of holds the entire thing for a vote. It's very democratic that way. In the past I did reservation lists so as not to take anyone's money before I was able to fulfill. Crowdfunding doesn't do that so donors can be screwed just as much as an old-school preorder.

[sh3-rg]

Yes, I acquired a sealed Battlesphere Gold through a "second chance" offer on Ebay from Scatologic. I was about the 7th person back in the bidding so I imagine the six in front of me also got BSG's This was a good few years back though, do they still do the annual BSG charity auction?

whoa... you got that in one of the 1-off yearly charity auctions? So potentially each of those auctions each netted $10k or more with 2nd chance offers included. That's... eye-opening.

 

I don't remember anyone actually ever mentioning getting the game this way before. I can definitely see the bidding being a little less... enthusiastic... if those bidding knew 2nd chance offers would come their way or had in previous auctions and there wasn't just a solitary copy that had somehow once been mislaid.

 

That's a lot of money raised for whatever diabeetes charity it was all the money went to. I think eBay has charities are directly linked to auctions these days. Not seen a BSG auction since that has been so.

[sh3-rg]

 

LOL! That's perfect!

 

Translation: crying foul repeatedly with snarky posts resulted in the development team pointing all profits to charity but then still more crying!

 

Give me a break you can't have it both ways... sounds like the snarky posters deserve games written in two days by wannabe programmers who are the ones really looking to make a quick buck but incidentally cry the loudest when they see a game written in an extended timeframe by highly skilled devs

 

ROFL :) Please keep it comming ...

 

SELECT * FROM post WHERE content = WAT

 

[JagChris]

That is the weirdest picture I think I have ever seen. And rather disturbing.

[+CyranoJ]

You obviously haven't googled recently booted out forum users

 

That is the weirdest picture I think I have ever seen. And rather disturbing.

[+Stephen]

 

Yes I did miss it, thankfully...

Me too - I thought Scott quietly disappeared a decade ago, pretty much around the time Doug was banned from here. Glad the only drama BS brings me is when I get mad that I am not better at playing it.

[+Stephen]

Thanks for the summary. It was quite informative and I connected quite a few missing pieces now.

 

Did they code something on Jaguar before or was that their first game ? Creating a RISC-based SW rasterizer is quite an insane undertaking in one's free time !

 

While I am pretty confident I could code similar one (basically - just static simple mesh SW rasterizer) in 3 months full-time - e.g. at least 40+ hrs a week (of course, there's still the gameplay, AI, networking, audio, GUI components, tweaking, bug-fixing, failed experiments ...), I don't really fancy doing it in free time, as you never really know if you'll see the code again next week or next year.

 

With guaranteed persistence and making sure you see the code at least every other weekend, it's doable, but still insanely crazy an undertaking.

 

But to pull off something like that in free time, well - hat's off Mr. Coder, Sir !

I'm not sure if they did any other code on the Jag - if they did, it was never released. I know Doug did some stuff on the 8-bit Atari,but nothing that would help translate into any code BS used. I believe one of the mini-games (Rocks) in BSG was a port of his A8 game. Scott must have been used to low level coding for some time, as he went on to a write 3D software rendering library for the Nuon platform. It was basically a mini Open-GL type library, coded in the Nuon's VLIW assembly language, and it ran in parallel on all 4 cores. After that he got a good gig at Nvidia. I never heard what Doug went on to do afterwards. During the game's development, Scott was always the brains of the operation, and Doug was the mouthpiece. Scott would historically post when things got too hectic, or to answer specific technical questions.

 

The details of the development timeline are pretty fuzzy now, but I know at one point they were working with Atari, and getting some support. They tried to submit their working network code to Atari, but for some reason Atari never accepted it. It always was made to sound that BS was done in the evenings, after their regular day job work was finished.

[Rick Dangerous]

I hereby resolve not to post on any more BS threads until there is a copy sitting on my shelf.

 

I hope that there is some way, someday, that this can be brought to fruition.