The
ultimate goal of our proposal would be
to produce and publish an enhanced and modern PC compatible version
of Red Baron 3D in cooperation with Sierra Entertainment.
1.
Internet sales only of Red Baron 3D "Players Edition",
which would preferably take the form of completely new executables
and files , or possibly a stock Red Baron 3D with Players Edition
install options.
a. RedBaronPlayers.net
would be ideal for this purpose and would quickly become the center
of the community. Sierra could have part ownership of this site,
for easy monitoring of sales and content with the development group.
Links to Sierra.com and advertising of newer Sierra titles could
mitigate website costs.
b. Sierra would receive a royalty for the republish license
of Red Baron 3D and perhaps royalty on the add-on value of the Players
Edition enhancements in exchange for variable degrees of assistance
and/or endorsement. This scenario would have this site and the publishers
become the de facto support personnel for Red Baron 3D. It would
be equitable, then, that internet sales of Red Baron 3D CDs , full
stock or enhanced, become exclusive to this outlet.
2.
PlayersEdition Development Group ( PEDG )
a. Director is an individual that has, as much as possible,
proven trust in the past and has positive reference from current
and/or past Sierra employees and should have a solid history of
leadership and organization within the player and RB3D mod community.
He should encourage whatever positive talents any community member
might have to contribute without bias withstanding quality, consistency
and compatibility issues with the whole. He would have to accept
a fiduciary responsibility with Sierra and allow no decisions or
actions of the community side group, contrary to Sierra's stated
interests or restrictions with their intellectual property ( IP
)
b. Directorship is proposed to be about 12 people
with good prior relationship yet still reflect a diversity of viewpoint
and expertise. All in this group should have intimate knowledge
of the community and a majority should be long term and consistently
active players. Important decisions should be by vote of this core
group, yet each would need to have a healthy respect for the general
working team's input and those of the community in general.
c. General working team would be the larger body of
participating modders and important community members who's input
would be solicited regularly by the directorship and act as a wider
testing team (under NDA as required)
95%+ of this
team, and the talent to accomplish the goals, already exists among
community members, that have worked together amiably together for
1-5 years. 4 persons currently onboard were involved in confidential
releases of Dynamix tools and/or information prior to public release,
and at least 3 were among the closed small group beta testing for
RBII and RB3D development through most of 1998.
3.
Protecting Sierra's interests
a. One or more of the directorship group would have a fiduciary
agreement with Sierra, and be answerable to an appointed Sierra
employee. The entire directorship group would be under Nondisclosure
and confidentiality agreements with Sierra and each other , should
Sierra desire such.
b. Any material deemed sensitive by Sierra should only be
made available from passworded ftp and/or CVS under Sierra's control.
Under no circumstances would compilable source code be distributed
outside of those with approved access to the Sierra servers or other
repository acceptable to Sierra..
c. The community group publisher of any collection of player
made mods and/or mods in conjunction with changes to Red Baron II/3D
executables , would be solely responsible for all support of the
end product.
d. Sierra retains all rights to it's Red Baron properties
and Dynamix development tools and documentation , including any
modifications or additions to source code or said development tools
we might achieve. In exchange, Sierra would grant exclusive license
to publish Players Edition over some reasonable set time, perhaps
2 years from publication of Players Edition *final*. Obviously,
Sierra would grant use of all existing game artwork and allow derivatives
to be used in the production of Players Edition, yet retain copyright
to said derivative work.
e. PEDG would be solely responsible for IP and business issues
between the participating authors of original work. We see no significant
barrier to quick agreement of details between the current proposed
working team and directorship group when we form the development/publishing
business entity.
4.
The Relationship between Sierra and Players Edition's success
a. Progressively,
the more access we have to data layouts, documentation, the original
development tools and source code to Red Baron II/3D, the better
we can create Players Edition(s), increase it's value and marketability,
and maximize benefit to all parties to the equation.
b. Keeping the Red Baron franchise name visible , it's community
and Red Baron 3D viable, is of benefit
to Sierra, should it decide to make a future version of the game
(It might also prove out some ideas for a future version) Players
Edition will tend to maintain or increase the value of the Red Baron
trademark and promote general good will in the gaming communities
towards Sierra.
c. The more *official* and *endorsed* Players Edition is
, the greater the likelihood of community participation in the process,
and acceptance of Players Edition as a new *standard*. We do not,
however, expect any difficulties in establishing wide acceptance
with the existing community, as much of the work is already in wide
use and the current development work highly anticipated.
d. There are unique qualities to the Red Baron community that
would make it an excellent testbed for Sierra policy in it's relations
to older Sierra game communities.
e . How much the community mod group can realistically do will
be mostly a function of access(4a) over time. Obviously,
the longer before this project starts, the less likely it will succeed,
as players and modders decrease in number with time for a variety
of reasons. Consequently, we are thinking of a 2 stage introduction
of Players Edition versions.
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Product and Market