DiCE and negotiations for source code

[Expendable Grunt]

I'm wanting to help the PR community by getting with DiCE about the future of their source code.

They don't respond to emails so I'm trying a direct assault via phone.

But, sadly, I'm an "ignorant American", and because I have had no business calling Europe ever, I was wondering if I could get some halp

I'd figure I'd dial 1 then the 10 digit number, or just the number itself, but nither works. Halp?

[Deadfast]

It depends what country are they based in.

There's a list of country numbers.
If you call in a foreign country you'll need the +xxx number.
For example +420 xxx xxx xxx for a number in Czech Republic.


BTW, you're phone bill will most likely grow huge.

[BeerHunter]

Me thinks that this has been discussed a few times before.

Probably looking in the neighborhood of thousands and thousands of $$'s if they are even interested.

The only thing I think that would sway them is if they thought PRM was a viable commercial product.

[Mora]

call on your work. and spam their email

[M4nicMin3r]

I wouldnt have thought it was anything to do with dice anymore..,i wouldve thought EA has bought the rights to the source code.., good luck with that :X

[Ledenko]

It'd be great, but I wouldn't hold my hopes up...
Releasing source code is usually a result of two things:
1. The game and its engine are obsolete, the company has made a new engine and they're being generous, let the gamers keep creating content for their favored game;
2. The company is not EA.

I don't think the second point needs further explaining =/

[LtSoucy]

good luck they will never give it unless you give them loads of money.

[Bowskill]

IMO, a better way of doing this would be to approach it from a financial point of view, that is what EA are interested in, not making people happy.

Write up a business plan, find distributors that would stock it, start surveys to find out how many copys you would aim to sell and in what time period. Basically approach EA after you can say to them "X company will sell this product at £9.99, we aim to sell 1 million copies within 6 months making £5 million profit, we want x% of this you can have the rest."

[markonymous]

I'm wanting to help the PR community by getting with DiCE about the future of their source code.

They don't respond to emails so I'm trying a direct assault via phone.

But, sadly, I'm an "ignorant American", and because I have had no business calling Europe ever, I was wondering if I could get some halp

I'd figure I'd dial 1 then the 10 digit number, or just the number itself, but nither works. Halp?

thanks for trying but its of no use. i live in sweden and i am acquainted with one of the producers not sure what he did but he was in some way involved (johan andersson) he says that theres no chance of them ever giving away the source code because that would be like giving away the game that they payed to develop.

[icehollow]

Probably have a better chance asking after BattleField 3 is in it's height of cash flow, even then, EA is a truly evil money grubbing company, so don't expect any favors.

Here's an analogy if you watch Scrubs: Think of EA as Dr. Kelso, he's 90% evil and only shows the little good left in him very very very rarely.

[BloodBane611]

lol that makes no sense. Kelso is really a kind hearted guy under a rock hard exterior. Or maybe a rolled steel plate exterior. Anyhow....

Yeah, this isn't going to happen. Also, while the source code would allow the DEVs more leeway in what they can do, it would be a huge amount of work to do it. I'm not against it, I just don't think it's likely to happen, and I think it could convince people to take things too far.

[s3v3ndust]

You can't really blame EA, they're probably a publicly traded company and if they don't make profits, people get fired and when people get fired, it's not good. They look at the amount of money they're making, not how many people are dissatisfied with their product, which is regular for any company, satisfy some and lose the rest.

[Waaah_Wah]

Anyone have a spare million?

[s3v3ndust]

Anyone have a spare million?

yep hang on let me pull it out of my closet where I keep all my skeletons.

[pureperversions]

quite a few company's give out the a sdk but EA with battlefield have always declined and only released a MDK i think they used to claim to reduce the amount of cheaters or make it harder for them to devolper cheats or that's how my screwed up memory sees it

[dunkellic]

not giving away the source code has nothing to do with evilness.
no company would ever give the source-code away just like that. it happens quite rarely actually.
if it happens, the games the source code stems from are usually already quite aged or in rare cases the developer just has a momentary case of crazyness (i.e. goodwillingness , or is just broke and hasnt any use of it anyway.
one of the few games with an open source code would be freespace two and apart from one or two others (i think some of the quake game source codes are free) i cant think of ANY game right now, that published its complete source code

[BloodBane611]

Yeah, releasing your whole source code for free is not a financially sound idea. Especially since (and this is definitely true with EA) your next game is probably based on that source code.

[IronTaxi]

something like 80thousand for the engine license?

thats last i recall..

[General Dragosh]

How about we make a very very very very very VERY smart program that can figure out the source code ???

[Rico]

How about we make a very very very very very VERY smart program that can figure out the source code ???

I LOL'd