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Changes to OpenTTD Distribution on Steam

openttd.org

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Re: Changes to OpenTTD Distribution on Steam

#21

Post by Macha »

skulk wrote: post #9
jjmarr wrote: post #4

I like Simutrans more because the cargo and passengers have destinations in mind. TTD and OpenTTD do not which incentivizes mechanisms to dump everyone at the edge of the map. Aside from that they're both transport games with bad UIs.

OpenTTD has the `cargodist` option which simulates reality more closely. Passengers enter stations with a destination in mind and will transfer at other stations.

Note that a big difference between cargodist and simutrans is in simutrans the customers have a destination before they come to your station, so opening up new routes will increase your customer base. In cargodist, you get the same amount of passengers, regardless of connected destinations, and they just choose from among connected destinations in your network.

Re: Changes to OpenTTD Distribution on Steam

#22

Post by rpcope1 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #3

This seems quite positive to me: Clearly the rightsholders are not being total jerks since they're happy to allow an OpenTTD bundle, and the original game is available with modern fixes as well.

I kind of doubt that. Chris Sawyer is on record being really hostile to open source reimaginations, especially OpenTTD (and it's just a reimagination at this point as OpenTTD shares no assets or code with it's predecessor). It wouldn't remotely surprise me if Atari was putting legal pressure on the OpenTTD devs.

Re: Changes to OpenTTD Distribution on Steam

#23

Post by Krutonium »

Nition wrote: post #11
tonypapousek wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you already own OpenTTD on Steam, nothing changes. You’ll continue to receive game updates as usual. If you ever need to re-download the game, the game will remain in your Steam library. This part of the announcement was nice, too. It would suck if existing users had it deleted from their libraries.

Steam is really good about that kind of thing. Not quite the same, but I have a couple of games on my account that haven't been sold on the store for years, and I can still download them any time. I don't think there's any way for publishers to really remove a game that's already been purchased.

You're correct. It's part of the Steam Publisher Agreement that basically, you can't remove your game from users who have paid for it.

And if you push an update that deletes the files, Valve can, will, and has rolled back the update.

Of course, there's also situations where Valve has assisted in removing titles at developers request, but it was a situation Valve was involved in - Specifically, a game called "The Ship" had a Multiplayer version, and it was built on Source, but they could never quite get it to work correctly, even with Valve's help. Wouldn't sync.

Valve helped them remove the Multiplayer version. (but you still kept the single player.)

Re: Changes to OpenTTD Distribution on Steam

#24

Post by Krutonium »

integralid wrote: post #17
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They legally own the assets. Taking them off Steam if the title is no longer abandoned by the publisher is a 100% reasonable decision, so you need to understand this is above and beyond what the publisher needs to do. An outcome like this more than likely means the folks working on the rerelease are fans of OpenTTD and worked internally to protect it.

Are you sure the stream version has proprietary assets? I was under impression that they had some open assets, but I may be wrong.

OpenTTD has had entirely their own assets for 15 years.

Re: Changes to OpenTTD Distribution on Steam

#25

Post by Tuna-Fish »

denotational wrote: post #16
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #3

This seems quite positive to me: Clearly the rightsholders are not being total jerks since they're happy to allow an OpenTTD bundle, and the original game is available with modern fixes as well.

Given the “rightsholders” have no rights over OpenTTD (only the assets are copyrightable, and OpenTTD has had its own set of open-source assets for the past 15 years), I can’t agree with this. I’m not sure how to interpret this other than Atari not wanting to compete with OpenTTD on Steam.

It's more complicated than that. For an asset to be derived work from an original, it is not necessary for it to contain anything from the original. If you start from copyrighted assets, and meticulously replace them all with your own art piece by piece, while following the style and constraints of the originals, and while looking at the originals, I'd bet that a court would find your work to be derived from the originals and therefore under their copyright.

A lot of the fan-driven reimplementations of classic games are trivially derived works, because people seem to think that the copyright only covers the pixels in the originals and if you replace them you're fine.

Re: Changes to OpenTTD Distribution on Steam

#26

Post by r2vcap »

Atari? I never expected to see that ancient name again. If I remember correctly, I've been playing OpenTTD for more than a decade without the original TTD assets, and I usually build it from source, so this change won’t really affect me. Still, it feels a bit strange (even if it may be somewhat legitimate) to see Atari suddenly asserting rights over it.

Re: Changes to OpenTTD Distribution on Steam

#27

Post by refulgentis »

denotational wrote: post #16
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #3

This seems quite positive to me: Clearly the rightsholders are not being total jerks since they're happy to allow an OpenTTD bundle, and the original game is available with modern fixes as well.

Given the “rightsholders” have no rights over OpenTTD (only the assets are copyrightable, and OpenTTD has had its own set of open-source assets for the past 15 years), I can’t agree with this. I’m not sure how to interpret this other than Atari not wanting to compete with OpenTTD on Steam.

I can’t tell if this is narrowly worded to only talk about copyright because you don’t know it was built from decompiled TTD, that source code is copyrightable, and TTD is a trademark. or, you do know, but feel the current IP rights regime is illegitimate. And I don’t want to insult you by quietly assuming the first, so figured I’d spell it out.

I’m usually sentimentally open to IP rights being overly constrictive in the current regime, but faced with a company that owns TTD™ saying “hey, instead of going full lawyer nastygram to avoid confusion, let’s work this out so people get your stuff when they download ours”…seems pretty nice. Like I can’t imagine Microsoft allowing alt-universe OpenWindows™ on the Windows Store.

Re: Changes to OpenTTD Distribution on Steam

#28

Post by jorl17 »

TuxMark5 wrote: post #20

This doesn't feel right for me. OpenTTD is so much superior in every way compared to the original TTD, that noone in their right mind would ever play the original. So Atari now, while spending zero effort compared to the years of work that OpenTTD devs put in, will basically sell OpenTTD as if was their own creation. People who buy the new TTD will simply play OpenTTD anyway, since it's so much better. I might be wro…

I can look at this from 2 additional perspectives:

- OpenTTD (a game I truly love and have followed since before the 0.3 days) was not born as a clean-room reimplementation of TTD. It started as a disassembly effort, something which is perhaps morally gray, especially if you take into account the original TTD was coded in assembly (with sprinkles of C). Perhaps this way there is some vague contribution that goes towards Chris Sawyer?

- This is a way you can legally get the original graphics of the game (GRF). Although I think the shareware version technically also worked...

Re: Changes to OpenTTD Distribution on Steam

#29

Post by QuantumNomad_ »

TylerE wrote: post #14
jjmarr wrote: post #4

I like Simutrans more because the cargo and passengers have destinations in mind. TTD and OpenTTD do not which incentivizes mechanisms to dump everyone at the edge of the map. Aside from that they're both transport games with bad UIs.

Why the simutrans folks decided on a weird hardcoded frame rate (40fps) that looks janky as hell on every single display ever I will never understand. Unplayable. instant motion sickness.

I haven’t played simultrans, but I wonder if it feels less janky on a 120 Hz or 240 Hz monitor, since both of those values are evenly divisible by 40. Compared to playing on a 60 Hz display or other non-multiple of 40 refresh rate monitors.

Re: Changes to OpenTTD Distribution on Steam

#30

Post by altairprime »

TuxMark5 wrote: post #20

This doesn't feel right for me. OpenTTD is so much superior in every way compared to the original TTD, that noone in their right mind would ever play the original. So Atari now, while spending zero effort compared to the years of work that OpenTTD devs put in, will basically sell OpenTTD as if was their own creation. People who buy the new TTD will simply play OpenTTD anyway, since it's so much better. I might be wro…

The downsides of putting “TTD” in the name “OpenTTD” is a certain level of vulnerability to the original creator (or a rights inheritor) deciding it’s worth their time to care again someday. I suspect this will do more for the TTD community than it will harm it, though; any modern sale of TTD is targeted precisely at the folks who would take mortal offense at harm to OpenTTD, and $10 (which would have been merely $5 in 2000) is the opposite of egregious after 100% inflation pushed AAA games towards $90 these days. I paid $5 for a used copy of SimTower back then, I would happily pay the same today for TTD resources, so this is all fine.

I get that Atari isn’t perhaps as loved as, say, Bullfrog or Dynamix, but better that companies respect their properties and their fans with an outcome like this, than be another boringly-common community-destroying Nintendo Lawyer Takedown Club.

(It’s also now in line with the various WAD and Descent games over time that used this model, where the engine is maximum rewrite amazing but the game resources require a GOG purchase. The point of rewrites isn’t to deprive the games of revenue!)

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