Anyone know how to get in touch with Chris Roberts?

Hmm......in that case, EA's actually a consideration this time around, isn't it? I didn't run into that problem with The Starflight Role-Playing Game because Binary Systems owned the game and EA was simply licensed to distribute it, and I had Rod McConnell's (the owner of Binary Systems both then and now) permission to publish as long as I made no profit. If EA owns Wing Commander, it's them I need to talk to.

Damn.
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Yeah, Chris never owned Wing Commander outright, it was work he did for Origin. There was some thought of giving it to him before the buyout, but EA basically pointed out that Origin wasn't really worth anything without the Wing Commander and Ultima IPs.

Wait, wait, wait, now I'm confused......did the Standoff and Saga folks have to get clearance for their projects from EA? I seem to recall asking something like this before (different thread, of course) without getting a clear-cut answer. And if so, the question becomes how to get in touch with the legal department at EA, and whether or not I then want to go through all the ensuing hassle.
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EA has an unofficial live-and-let-live policy about the fan projects; if you aren't making money (or a spectacle of yourself) then they aren't going to shut anything down.

In any case, even if I have EA's blessing, Mr. Roberts oversaw the creation of the original game, and so he's the one to whom I'd want to mail a copy.
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That won't be a problem.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
EA has an unofficial live-and-let-live policy about the fan projects; if you aren't making money (or a spectacle of yourself) then they aren't going to shut anything down.
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Which is really awesome of them. Not all companies do that. Whenever anyone gripes about the big, bad, corporate EA, they should remember this.
 
Farbourne said:
Which is really awesome of them. Not all companies do that. Whenever anyone gripes about the big, bad, corporate EA, they should remember this.
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Hah, I remember in the early days of the internet when FOX went after people for starting websites about their shows!
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Yeah, Chris never owned Wing Commander outright, it was work he did for Origin. There was some thought of giving it to him before the buyout, but EA basically pointed out that Origin wasn't really worth anything without the Wing Commander and Ultima IPs.
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Ah, okay. Poor choice of words on my part.

Bandit LOAF said:
EA has an unofficial live-and-let-live policy about the fan projects; if you aren't making money (or a spectacle of yourself) then they aren't going to shut anything down.
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Okay. Phew.......I was worried there for a little while, what with being almost 80% done at this point.

Bandit LOAF said:
That won't be a problem.
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Good to know, thanks.
 
capi3101 said:
Wait, wait, wait, now I'm confused......did the Standoff and Saga folks have to get clearance for their projects from EA? I seem to recall asking something like this before (different thread, of course) without getting a clear-cut answer. And if so, the question becomes how to get in touch with the legal department at EA, and whether or not I then want to go through all the ensuing hassle.
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Yes... and no.

Yes, we had to get clearance from EA, but no, we did not. EA, as the copyright holder, would be perfectly within their rights to tell us to cease and desist, or even to sue us for punitive damages (they could, for example, claim that Standoff and Saga somehow ruined the chances for a new WC product). However, EA has not done this, and it should be very clear that this is their policy, rather than merely negligence - they will not sue someone making a fan project unless it actually abuses their rights in some way. We certainly never made any attempt to contact them and get permission.
 
As long as you are not collecting any revenue whatsoever from your game, EA will probably leave you alone. Not merely "no profit above recovering your development costs"--you have to not be charging customers money for its use.
 
Ijuin said:
As long as you are not collecting any revenue whatsoever from your game, EA will probably leave you alone. Not merely "no profit above recovering your development costs"--you have to not be charging customers money for its use.
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I wouldn't be - I plan on a release in both PDF and hardcopy. The PDF would be a free download; the hardcopies would have some cost involved, but only to cover the cost of printing and binding (i.e. they would have no profit margin whatsoever).
 
Although I would imagine EA (or any IP holder, for that matter) would go after/shut down a fan project that they viewed as somehow damaging the quality or reputation of their product. An extreme example might be if someone was making a Wing Commander fan project that involved Grand Theft Auto-ish sex and crime things, or even something illegal like child pornography. They also might frown on something that would reduce marketability of their copyrighted products...for example, an exact re-make of Wing Commander 1 with better graphics...
 
capi3101 said:
I wouldn't be - I plan on a release in both PDF and hardcopy. The PDF would be a free download; the hardcopies would have some cost involved, but only to cover the cost of printing and binding (i.e. they would have no profit margin whatsoever).
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I'm assuming this is a Wing Commander related project, so if I were you I really wouldn't contact EA. Companies tend to ignore fan projects, as long as they are not for profit, as they can always pretend that they were not aware of them should there be any future legal action with regards to unauthorised use of the IP. On the other hand, if you directly make them aware of your project they will be forced to do something in order to avoid potential weakening of their future position with regards to defending their copyright. That something would be to either grant you somekind of none profit license or to issue a cease and desist, and, given that the former would cost them money in legal fees while gaining nothing but good will in return, it would probably be the latter. Seriously, unless someone has experience with EA being magnanimus in situations like this, don't contact them.
 
Farbourne and Quarto have basically said everything important.
If they want they can shut everything down (AFAIK even including parts of this page for example), and they will never allow anything officially, regardless of how small the request is. So they can always say they knew of nothing. If you ask them you almost force them to answer, and the answer will be 99.99% "no". They have to do that.

Also I want to emphasize Farbourne's last sentence: Don't make remakes of complete games. Don't make remake campaigns for Saga or using the vision engine. With that you would harm EAs financial interests and they will shut this down.
As long as you do something which doesn't collide with official EA plans you should be pretty safe.

I, for example wouldn't bother to create a Wing Commander P&P RPG if I knew that EA wants to do that kind of stuff. They won't tolerate such a thing.

Everyone doing a fan project (including my Kilrathi mod/campaign) has the danger of getting shut down at any point. You can bet that topic came up more than once in internal chats of the Saga and Standoff teams. Imagine EA had decided to shut Standoff or Saga down after X years of development..... (that thought still makes me shiver, and I did only a small part of work for Saga).

So yes, that's the risk. Deal with it! :cool:
 
Well something happened today and I should post it here .Chris Roberts replied to me on FB 6hours ago.I sent him a message on November 2011 and then again on March 2012 and he replied very kindly just 6 hours ago !I am so ecxited ! He mentions a new project!

Chris Roberts: "Hi - sorry for the late reply. I almost never get on FB! Thanks for the support. I'm working on something that hopefully I can announce later this year. Stay tuned!"
 
That's great to hear! Chris is a good guy.

(... and he's right, he's never on his social networking accounts.)
 
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