Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (
More info?)
I encourage anyone who wants to read more about this to see the
VPForums thread:
http://www.vpforums.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35631
It's tough to convince people in VPForums that you're doing a good
thing, but I think the Ultracade folks have generally been very good
about explaining their intentions and what they do NOT want to do (kill
the VP community).
Here's an example from David Foley:
"Absolutely, we have no intention of changing the state of what has
gone on in the community. I'm even writing into the contract that we
are simply licensing the body of work to use in our implementation and
that we have no claim to it with respect to any other use. We have no
concerns about people continuing to get and play as they do now, we
simply are looking to save time and effort in recreating the tables.
Some great table authors have agreed to work with us and we are very
excited about that. We have secured some of the best tables ever seen
on VP, and look forward to putting out an amazing product.
On that note, if anyone here has suggestions for our product, we are
open to input from anyone. We think we have a great plan in place, but
are always open to great suggestions from the community."
Sounds like a lot of care is being taken with the fact that the VP
community has helped such a product to become possible. It looks like
it could be pretty sweet, actually. And Josh makes a great point here:
to this day, none of the VP/VPM tables are technically legal. The
Ultracade group has done the same thing with video, working on doing
things in a way that can be both commercially viable and legal. People
who have worked on VP can choose not to be involved, so I don't see how
this is a problem.
I also want to point out that almost everyone in the linked VPForums
discussion has been civil and thoughful in the discussion, except for
one "MrHide". His reply to the above quote from David Foley was:
"you want input ? Take your product and shove it into your output"
It's fine if you don't want to be involved. Sounds to me like the
Ultracade project could have lived on without any input from the VP
community other than Randy Davis' engine, so to me, it's pretty cool
that they would want to use (and improve, and PAY FOR) the existing
tables other VP people have made.
In the end, MrHide may think of it as "vulgar capitalism", and that's
fine. Opt out. Your free community won't be affected in the least.
You're welcome to try to bring the project crashing down, but in the
end they can (and will) get the job done without you. MrHide said in
this thread, "I took thousands of pictures to help the project and
seeing greedy people just come and expect to sell it is just plain
wrong. I am really feeling bad about this." I don't see how anything
Mr. Foley said would suggest he is trying to sell YOUR work. He can't
sell your work. He can sell the licensed work of the fine people of
Bly/Wms, Capcom, and other pin companies -- and he can sell licensed
work by people in the VP community. I suppose his company will need to
take a few thousand pictures instead of paying you a royalty for your
work.
I look forward to seeing Pinball Legends sometime in the next year.
Hopefully the game and physics will "feel" right...!
- Bowen
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