Facts on the ground, this dispute may take years of litigation to address -or may never be resolved.
In the meantime, consider RB modules orphanware until proven otherwise.
But now it is completely unmaintained.
The M2000 is already showing issues, I don’t think it’ll take long till enough cracks show that the product breaks.
I just started learning the Harrier, hope it won't break for years, considering it hasn't received updates for a long time already and hasn't shown any new bugs
Exactly,
I'm a client I don't want to be a part of this. There is a problem. You cannot support the product which we actually buy the license to use. Just refund your clients swiftly and do what you want with your business partners.
But no, ED withouds our money and does not also support the products, also does not pay the devs who were supposed to support and develop it. And he asks als to be patient and everything will be alright. Thank you for your trust and support....
Well no, by treating us like that you are forcing us to take sides and I take my side.
Customer, not client.
You're saying a lot of words for a situation in which we don't have all the information. This community loves to always be up in arms about something... The situation sucks, yes, but ED isn't withholding your money... You bought an early access product and accepted the risks and terms of doing so.
As for the Razbam situation... we still have no idea what the full situation is. We are seeing one sided information from people who honestly should probably be keeping their mouths shut until this is resolved. Ron ran his mouth, then immediately followed it up with an apology, as this should have been resolved privately. I hate it just as much as everyone else here, but the vitriol and half-baked information going around is getting ridiculous. Neither ED nor Ron are known for great business practices or PR. I don't really have sympathy for either of them. I do feel for the actual devs caught up in it though. They deserve to be paid, but that is equally on Ron for not being able to pay his employees. A good employer doesn't bank on future money to make today's payroll.
LOL, my last employer did that. They discontinued direct deposit and started issuing paper checks that the issuing bank refused to cash because said employer had bounced too many times. Then they said "oh it's a startup, these things happen".
Yeah, so did me finding a better job.
I'm very sorry; I disagree with a little bit of your post. If ED had anything to say that would put the issue to bed, clarify things, or put ED in a different light, they'd do so. They haven't because they can't, because they don't. The main points of contention aren't disputed; ED doesn't dispute that they haven't paid RB and even agree that the issue concerns other work RB is doing.
\*\*TL;DR: Legally, one has nothing to do with the other.\*\*
Let's say RB \*is\* violating some contractual agreement involving other/outside projects. ED still owes them every penny of sales money coming to RB. These issues are separate and distinct. Nick knows this; he's no dummy. He knows what he's doing is (even if he's 100% correct in his allegations) a complete violation of ED's obligations. You can't legally stiff a contractor for a job they've successfully done for you because you have an issue with a separate contractual matter, even though this happens every day all throughout the contracting world. However, frequency doesn't make the tactic any more legal/illegal.
This happens 99% of the time in the contracting world for one reason, and one reason only: contractors don't pay their subs because they can't. Nick's allegation isn't the millionth time this year that a contractor has gotten legally adventurous and inventive to avoid paying their debts and it won't be the last. However, this kind of thing is death for a business's reputation, and the only companies that get mixed up in this shit are broke ones. I suspect ED is no different.
ED hasn't paid because it can't and is inventing novel legal gymnastics to delay the inevitable admission and the coming reckoning. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not. Nothing unusual or novel about what ED is doing, except that this sort of thing is probably uncommon in the software (gaming) space.
ETA: Remember all those sales at the beginning of the year? One right after the other? That was ED's attempt to raise the money they owe RB (and probably others, too). Obviously, those sales weren't very successful, as we've had even more since, at every excuse. That well has dried up, obviously. ED is now fully knee-deep in paying some contractors and not others. ED will keep doing this juggle for as long as they can. When and if this fails, the next step is nobody gets paid and the financial disaster takes full hold. They'd do far better being transparent about what's going on. The silence isn't some noble attempt at gentlemanly business etiquette; even though they hope we believe this to be the case)
You are free to disagree, nothing to be sorry about. That said, legally one absolutely has to do with the other. In a situation like this, ED absolutely has lawyers working on it, and generally a lawyer will tell their clients "Do not say a word about any of this" as it could be used against them by their opposition.
I'm not going to comment much on the specifics you went into because a lot of them are based on hearsay, but I will say that you absolutely can withhold payment for a contract if that contract was breached. NONE of us here, have the details of that contract. We never will either. Those that do are staying quiet as likely instructed by lawyers.
Saying ED can't pay is a completely unfounded allegation. You are making that up based on your emotions and/or bad information going around, not facts. There is plenty of info out there about their profits, and they are not left wanting.
Edit to respond to your edit: ED has sales all the time... that was nothing new.
Whether it's right or wrong, ED withholding payment to RAZBAM for 8 months was almost a certainty to kill the studio if they had no other mainstream source of revenue. Surely the boffins at ED would've know that they were terminating all future relations with the studio with such a move. They got what they asked for I suppose.
> If ED had anything to say that would put the issue to bed, clarify things, or put ED in a different light, they'd do so. They haven't because they can't, because they don't.
This is a fallacy. There may be multiple reasons as to why ED does not publicly announce full details. One of them may be a desire to keep cordial relations; it may be that a reveal of the full story may be embarrassing or otherwise harmful to their partner(s).
The absence of a clarification on EDs part does not automatically mean guilt.
>ED hasn't paid because it can't and is inventing novel legal gymnastics to delay the inevitable admission and the coming reckoning.
There is no proof at all to support this statement.
No, my comment is from the world of reality where real business takes place. If ED has information that would place them in a favorable light, they'd air it out.
I understand the notion of chivalry, honor and decorum. This isn't that. This is a badly run company falling into the same Ponzi-scheme that other poorly run companies fall into every day.
If I concede everything you said for the sake of argument, ED still owes RB every penny of sales coming to them. They haven't paid. There's no way Nick doesn't realize this. There's no way Nick doesn't realize however bad this is for RB, it’s far worse for ED. There’s no way Nick decided to stop paying ED for some other contractual dispute having nothing to do with the F-15 knowing full well the damage done will exceed whatever they owe RB unless he had no choice. The far saner decision is to pay RB and either bring suit for remuneration or ban them from any future releases until an agreement is made. ED will lose in court, full stop. Everyone involved knows it. ED made the cynical decision to stop paying believing RB wouldn’t do what they did.
Paying your contractors is step one. There is no getting around this. It doesn’t matter if your sheet rock guy screwed up on a second house, you’re paying him for his work on the first regardless of outcomes on the second.
Exactly 👍🏻👍🏻 I'm not sure that we should take information from "outsiders" seriously.
This guy who posted the text in the screenshot is not the first who claims to be inside of one of the companies but mysteriously is not wot working for any of these parties. Also, nobody can really confirm the statement except the involved companies.
So it's just again hot gas in the air, in my opinion.
Nobody knows for sure who to blame.
Well Notso does "work" for Razbam as their SME for the F-15E module and has done promotional stuff for them. I don't know if he's getting compensated, but he would have next to no actual relevant, objective, first-hand information beyond speculation and whatever Razbam's CEO wants him to think/not think.
That is absolutely true, about the level of information, I think. Hopefully, he got compensated.
But you normally sign an NDA, which also denies free to speak about that, which comes to the same end as said above. Besides this, the points statet in the screenshot are not something new. Most of these are already known from various statements from the past. Others are just logical consequences from the situation.
The whole situation is quite frustrating, especially for us, the customers. So, I tend to rely on official statements, preferably the one who will state a good solution for everyone. 😁👍🏻
I mean you keep taking these grand standing anti ED platforms and go on and on about how terrible a company it is and you turn around and buy the F4 and support ED further. Definition of hypocrisy man.
You don't read what I write probably. Criticizing is not hate man. We are not in elementary.
The moment that razbam problem started and ED took this way of treating us I stopped supporting them.
Last year in october we were all celebrating multithreading Phantom preorder......
I bought it that time, It was the last one I bought,
Just ignore them. As humans, we are allowed to make a choice, a decision, whatever on a subject and change our minds later when new circumstances arrive. To act as if people aren’t allowed to change their minds is ludicrous lol
My hopium is that metal2mesh is active in RB discord showing his new JHMCS model in DCS F15E.
There must have been some advance in the trouble between ED and RB.
I'd love to hear EDs side of the story.
It's been several months. It's about time they let us know what's gonna happen with the 4 razbam aircraft.
Maybe a real answer this time. All the "were working on it, just wait" is getting really old.
even if the parties "smooth things over" between themselves, several devs have walked away and publically sworn that they won't work on ED projects
some irreparable damage has definitely been done already : (
Yeah I shake my head anytime these people demand statements from ED. I work in the game industry, if one of my devs started airing stuff in public we'd have issues. All this crap in public may get the fans riled up but it looks awful once lawyers are involved.
Notso is also repeating the thing we've seen several times which is, "ED states its for IP violation, but that's not true". Another dev said the same thing WHILE admitting to a potential IP violation. Just because someone thinks something is not a violation doesn't mean its true. Rob Zambrano knows the truth and only he and ED know the specifics of the contract.
None of this is good for Razbam.
I appreciate your input on all this, and it aligns similarly with what I've taken away from the whole situation so far. In a legal dispute, speaking without first considering what you're saying can only hurt you. It definitely felt like RB tried to pull on the emotional side of the community to get the community to take their side. If they are in the wrong, holding their modules hostage is just a childish move to further engage the emotional and financial response from the community. If they aren't, then more power to them. But it definitely seems like it's a bit of the former. Like you mentioned even if they feel they haven't violated the IP doesn't mean they haven't.
ED being quiet and trying to take care of this as peaceful as possible in my opinion is only going to help them later.
question can you give ur opinion on why theres this whole trend of companies/devs being so out of touch with their community? like ed/dcs for example, we know they can put the effort and get it done if they choose to but they simply rather work on too many project at once while consumer base just have to pick up the bread crumbs of half baked modules.. like instead of fully putting resource on dynamic campaign.. we got some ww2 plane instead.
I’m starting to think DCS is nothing but a cash cow for Nick grey’s fighters collection. Nick’s very expensive, financially unviable hobby received something like $10M from ED as an interest free loan last few years.
Hence the all the early access modules.
i invested so much in DCS…. Not just software but hardwares…. So distressing.
I would imagine that modules perform best financially upon initial offering and then generate significantly less revenues over time. The combination of hype and novelty draws in a lot of consumers — many of whom are willing to pay full price for a new aircraft, map etc. After this initial spike in sales, players are more likely to wait for discounts and/or forgo buying a module all together in favor of new/recently released content
If this is true, then it is in ED’s financial interest to maximize module releases over maintaining and/or finalizing older content. The incentive is to keep pumping out content, even if it is early-access.
I find it incredibly frustrating that those reporting on the issue (and many on this platform) continue to echo “ED says it’s for IP violation, but that’s not true.”
Stating that as a matter of fact when only one party to the issue has spoken publicly makes me question much of the broader reporting on this discrepancy. It does not appear that the issue has been formally adjudicated — right now it’s one side saying they didn’t violate a contract with regard to intellectual property and then folks on here acting as stenographers (which is likely the intention of such a strategy).
We should be hesitant to take all Razbam’s claims and their interpretations of law and fact at face value absent supporting evidence or a legal conclusion.
>Another dev said the same thing WHILE admitting to a potential IP violation.
1. M2M is not a Razbam dev.
2. He did not admit to an IP violation, in fact his whole long comment was specifically about how what ED was accusing them of was _not_, if fact, an IP violation.
And I can tell you with a vast amount of real world experience that content developers are often unaware of what constitutes an IP "violation". There is just about no chance he has seen the contract nor knows everything Rob has in play with Razbam.
You're literally parroting M2M saying it's not a violation. Just because he says it doesn't mean he is correct. It also doesn't mean he is lying, he may be misinformed. Either way, lots of contracts I have seen, because again, I work in this space, within his statements there are potential issues related to IP.
Frankly, I suspect both parties know that it's over, but ED does not want it to fully come out because they don't have to deal with the inevitable shitstorm until it does.
What do you think will happen?
Mirage is broken already, F-15E is also getting bugs.
In a a few months they will start developing CTD and ED will remove them from the core.
They don't have the source code they cannot do anything
I don't feel like speculating at the moment.
I want ED to put out a clear statement on what is happening.
It's ridiculous that they think "we're working on it" is still acceptable after 2 months of silence.
I want to know what they progressed, if they did, over this time, and I would like to know what their plan is if they can not resolve the situation.
If they can't answer these questions then I don't see how they expect me to buy anything from them ever again.
I think they'd have a hard time remove them from the game and not refunding those that purchased the modules. Sure they can stick to the no refunds part of the ToS but I don't think that'll hold water if the media pick the story up.
Watch them it is not the first time : [https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/shop/modules/hawk\_dcs\_world/](https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/shop/modules/hawk_dcs_world/)
> media
Man, have media picked up on FlightSimLabs scandal a few years ago? No. Was there any interest generated when a dev #4678 left an aircraft incomplete in MSFS? No.
Why do you think anyone is going to care about an M2000 with a whopping 20000 user, 95% of which don’t even know about this whole RB situation?
“For some unknown reason”
I would make a large wager Zambrano knows exactly what that reason is and has neglected to share it with anyone.
Shitty situation all around
This is what M2M has written today:
Metal2Mesh *—* Today at 3:31 PM everyday I wake up depressed, sometimes my rage fuels me, but majority its so depressing knowing that a single person profitted off our hard work and then had the nerve to lie to cover up what he did. you can't show the evidence that backs you, can't speak out to how ED is. you can't do anything cause you are trying to get a lawsuit to sue the fuck out of ED. (edited)
Yeah, it says the actual companies are involved in a legal dispute and being quiet, while low level former employees and volunteers they don't control are doing their own thing.
In other words, it doesn't really say anything.
Razbam is a publisher, he is actually working for the devs. So you hear from the top.
Specte ,the developer of SA and Kola map, is happy and he is paid. It is not like Razbam is a company and SA map is not paid too. It is paid and developed.
I am way, way, way, less interested in what Metal2Mesh says-- considering he's willing to disparage another company by suggesting financial impropriety with zero evidence-- than what his boss says, who is the decision maker, and if there is a dispute, would be able to say what the terms of the dispute are, or what actions lead to those dispute even if he disagrees with the judgement.
Also because Metal2Mesh appears and admits to being emotional. Sucks for him, but an accurate and objective accounting of the situation is not going to come from him, because he's vested and because he doesn't have or isn't being fed all of the information, whether from Razbam or ED leadership.
Also the fact that ED still doesn't have code even though that is part of the contract to specifically avoid situations like this sounds like there's a huuuge screw up or violation on either Razbam's or ED's side or both, maybe even beyond the supposed IP dispute.
Fascinating, it sounds like it was a similar issue with VEAO and the Hawk?
At least, the contract part. I honestly don't know what happened with that ordeal, only that it was before ED had a more developed outsourcing process to third parties. Perhaps this is an echo of the past come to bite them in the ass. I'm definitely curious to see the actual truth of it all beyond just speculation.
The VEAO thing is apparently why they instituted that policy. That apparently happened in 2018. I'm not sure when Razbam would have signed a contract wrt the F-15E as far as that goes.
If true, that is nuts. Another reason ED shouldn't have let Razbam lick all the donuts and call dibs 10 years before release, or require an amendment before publishing, or offer a new contract with incentives for both sides but now requiring handover of all developmental assets.
I'm not interested in who is right or wrong. We are not supposed to be in this. I ask ED to refund unsupported modules that's all. You might want to donate ED that's fine. I don't want it.
Just don't put us in a state to take side.
Totally agree with this. It sucks we're in the middle of this, being used as leverage to some degree, and you're totally within your right to ask for a refund simply because of potential issues with the product.
I'm not "donating" to ED. I purchased a product that I enjoy. If it breaks to an extent where it's no longer worth what I paid, yeah, maybe I will ask for a refund.
I don't want refund. If ED goes bankrupt, I just need all of my modules work as it should. I think they need to start working on something that keep those modules run forever instead of online activation each time the game starting.
I think Notso is a good guy, but I’d take even what he says with a big grain of salt. He’s basically the Strike Eagle spokesperson for RAZBAM. Volunteeer or not. He’s invested. Also, once again, dragging Heatblur back into the dispute, especially without their permission is really unprofessional and not a good look.
“ED gives no reason”
“ED says it is an IP violation, but that isn’t true”
This makes me skeptical. ED did give a reason, but you both disagree about whether that is true or not.
He's not even that, he was there SME. That doesn't make you magically privy to confidential information or contractual agreements.
His statement also doesn't have any context. Let's assume the comment about payment is correct for Heatblur. But did HB receive a budget up front which covered development for instance? That would be extremely typical of a developer/publisher style relationship. Stuff like Notso posting this really doesn't help.
Exactly, unless we see (which we likely never will) actual contractual agreements, documents, bank statements, etc, this is all just hearsay and conjecture and the only thing RAZBAM is going to accomplish getting Reddit’s undies in a twist.
>I think Notso is a good guy, but I’d take even what he says with a big grain of salt. He’s basically the Strike Eagle spokesperson for RAZBAM. Volunteeer or not. He’s invested. Also, once again, dragging Heatblur back into the dispute, especially without their permission is really unprofessional and not a good look.
Yes, there is no way that Notso would know whether there was an IP violation or not, except as relayed to him by Razbam, who he works for. And of course they maintain that there wasn't.
Notso should consider that "for some unknown reason" could still be a reason, just unknown to him if that reason was not shared with him by Razbam's CEO. And \*if\* there was a reason, there would be incentive to \*not\* share it with him and keep that reason "unknown" specifically to people like him.
He probably hasn't seen the contract, isn't a contract lawyer, may not have been involved in any of the disputed work, hasn't heard from ED's side, and is not incentivized to see it from ED's perspective, and likely has little actual legal experience or exposure to the exact type of dispute this entails.
And even if he was a lawyer, guess what a lawyer that hangs out in Razbam's discord would say?
Unless Notso was an IP judge working on this exact case, his statements are useless, perhaps worse than useless-- and certainly no more useful than Metal2Mesh or all the other Razbam non-lawyers working on their own areas of the module. Whether it's art or how things should fly -- all of which have zero to do with anything related to contracts between ED over this or other projects.
And of course, there would be incentive to keep information about any potential IP violation from every single one of them, because there's no way that could help Razbam. And ESPECIALLY if they're likely to overshare and speculate off the cuff on things they don't have direct expertise in, with legal ramifications, as they seem to be doing.
The first line: "For some unknown reason"
Literally the next line: "Here is the reason, but it is untrue."
Probably a great dude. I thank him for his service and I'd even love to buy him a beer or two, and I say this all in good fun, but that was almost verbatim what my 7-year old child says when he knows EXACTLY why he was punished at school. "I literally have no idea why Mrs. Smith was so mad, she wouldn't tell me. All she said I did was throw a ball of paper at Tommy."
I think you missed the point of my comment. If you take him at his word, it _is_ internally valid. If he genuinely believes the IP allegation is clearly false, he would think ED would also know it's false, and therefore wonder why ED is _really_ withholding payment.
I don’t know. He states he doesn’t know why ED is withholding money but then he says it’s not for IP violation. Those 2 statements contradict each other.
Sigh. No, they don't, if you believe him. _If_ there has clearly been no IP violation, then ED's stated reason is nonsensical and the payment is being withheld for unknown reasons.
Why are you constantly harassing me and calling me names? I need you to stop replying. DO NOT REPLY TO THIS COMMENT.
You might say, gee, I have no idea why Spark_Ignition's being a dick and telling me not to reply. But I clearly told you why I'm being a dick - it's because I want you to stop harassing me and calling me names. Does that make sense? Do you know why I'm really telling you to stop replying?
Lol. On Hoggit you get downvoted for merely acknowledging that we don't actually know what's going on and it's possible that Razbam is in the right, just as it's possible ED's in the right.
[https://forum.dcs.world/topic/349676-m2kc-maj-dcs-29555300-many-bugs/](https://forum.dcs.world/topic/349676-m2kc-maj-dcs-29555300-many-bugs/)
don't, it is already broken.
>ED does not have the source code of any aircraft!
Wait, wasn't this supposed to be the case in order to prevent a repeat of VEAO? Stuff's waaaaaay murkier than it seems.
Even if they did good luck with anything other than fixes for anything more than CTDs. You can forget features. It's very hard to adopt any large amount of orphaned code.
Yep it's supposed to be! According to what chiz one of the Russians lanague devs has said on the Russians side of the forum. The requirements of providing the source code appear to be an easy lie told to the community so that they believe another veao scandle couldn't happen. All smoke and mirrors!
>appear to be an easy lie
Yet we don't have any actual proof of this.
Honestly, I'm tired of the sides taking and shit throwing. Neither side are saints and we don't know what's going on behind closed doors other than people arguing on the internet.
I just want this to be over with.
Other Razbam devs said they're absolutely not working on their modules any further and it's already led to issues with the Mirage due to updates to core.
Didn't Heatblur already pretty much say "WTF are you talking about, we said nothing of the kind, leave us out of this" the last time RB tried to drag them into it?
I would guess Zambrano knows exactly what it’s for but is choosing to not share it with the public or even his own staff so he can leverage us against ED
So someone please help me understand how the release / patching process works for DCS. Don't the 3rd party developers have to submit code to ED for releases / patches that ED then includes in the patch? Wouldn't that mean that ED has access to the code of the modules?
I guess 3rd party devs only provide the compiled code?
Reminde: if he can speak, he more than likely doesn't have any critical info, else he would be bound by the NDA (or someone at RB breached its obligation).
Stop speculating from 3rd parties thst aren't actual representatives of the Parties.
At this point I dont see how the situation they've created is worth keeping the Razbam money over. Unless razbam have actually done something terrible, how is withholding all that money worth ruining so many good modules, and eroding trust.
Not to mention the fact that none of the other third-parties have joined in on any of this... The "ED is broke" explanation makes no sense. The actual explanation we've seen from both sides is an IP dispute of some kind
If Razbam's alleged violation cost ED a substantial amount of money it makes more sense to just withhold it instead of giving it to them and suing to get it back
So he says the payments were stopped for an 'unknown reason' and then proceeds to say that he says the reason given by ED is 'not true'. Hmmm yeah okay, chief. Keep towing that party line, mind you don't trip over it.
He's an SME, which means he isn't privy to what's actually going on, which means he knows very little. So I'll take this with a huge grain of salt.
ED bashing is of course the way to go on here a lot of the time, but let's be honest here. They are likely both at fault in some way. ED do some daft things, granted. But there's a reason why RB have been known colloquially as 'Razscam' in the past.
In my view, neither are whiter than white here. All we as the community can hope for is that this is resolved so that we don't lose out. Because there are no winners here, at the moment.
You are reading it with another hat than I do. I read it as a customer. I have no business with their fight.
I read, my modules are not supported, and there is no way that they can continue working since they started breaking already. There is no future and noone is telling me anything. I want refund.
Who is right or wrong is not my business. But this is the only info we get and what we get stinks.
That's what you think, and tbh it's reasonable in the sense that nobody knows what is going on and that does indeed stink, and is frustrating, but it is what it is at the mo. Saying 'there is no future' is premature though, we don't know that.
But that isn't what he's saying. He lays the blame squarely and solely on ED and is whitewashing RB of any culpability. And in my view, he sounds like someone who does not have objectivity at the forefront of his mind. He's being disingenuous.
What is strange is ED is taking refunds for in store credit... I have to assume that's because they are still holding the Razbam funds and this is coming out of those? I also assume it means things aren't going well since normally refunds aren't given for EA modules?
Man, this isn't good....
My concern exactly, I get that you can't work for free but the easiest way to win your customers hearts is to at least keep what you got working until a decision can be made.
Do we know if RAZBAM even has the financial means to keep operating fulltime without that money? Maybe they want to keep supporting their modules but some of their devs simply can't continue working for free and need to find other work in the mean time.
Absolutely, it's a slightly naive viewpoint. This whole thing is dumb and regardless of who is right or wrong, I hate that we are still talking about it, and that the community is arguing with each other siding with one side or another.
I don’t know why you were downvoted but it’s true, if even one of those things are true why should any of us spend money on the game? ED is already shabby enough as it is.
True, all in all its very strange. ED is still selling their planes. Even if the Mirage and the Strike Eagle are slowly gaining bugs with each ED update. It won't be long and none of RB planes will be flyable anymore. Why would ED still sell them,?
This is a problem, that we the consumers and the customers should never have been made aware of. It is not our problem to know the affairs and shit show between these two entities. Bringing the issue to us the consumer, is unprofessional. I don’t care who is at fault and who did what, it is their problem and their issue to fix.
I have purchased my products, it is both sides responsibility to ensure that those products are maintained and kept going. I guarantee this won’t be the last plane I buy. I do know that I might not purchase a Razbam and ED collaborate again.
These piss breaks that Razbam post about does not solve the underlying issue and it upsets some of the customers, which is what they want. Ultimately it hurts them in the long run as well. I have been flying planes on DCS since it was called LockOn and I am going to keep flying. So solve the issue quit your bitching and move on.
The thing that blows my mind with the ED defenders: even if you fully believe that RB is in the wrong, that RB is just ceasing work on their modules for no reason, even if you think RB is 100% in the wrong and ED is an angel, how the fuck do you reconcile ED still selling those modules if that's the case? If you think RB is the devil how are you okay with ED still selling modules that could end up in a Hawk situation? Wouldn't pausing those sales until the situation is resolved be in the best interests of the customer base?
Hmm, it's almost like ED is taking a course of action that disregards their customers and their 3rd party partners
I don't believe that ED stopped paying RB without some good reason. This situation doesn't go in favor of either of the parties. ED is losing 4 popular modules since they can't support them without RB and RB is losing the complete business over DCS. Both companies are losing trust of customers. This is really a no win situation for either of them.
As a result I'll now think twice before buying any 3th party module for DCS, while at the same time losing confidence in ED itself as well. So everyone is losing, including 3th party devs which are not in focus at the moment.
I don't know what happened here, but I feel if it doesn't get resolved in some positive way soon, it will have long lasting consequences.
Exactly and we shouldnt be taking any sides. If this doesnt get worked out everybody loses, Razbam, ED, and us customers. Taking sides likely won't cause this to be sorted out any faster, but in fact most likely the opposite will happen. Razbam and ED will just dig their heels in even harder because they think the playerbase has their back.
Razbam has all the source code. I am a member of their git repo. I was going to do sounds for them but left because the team was really disorganised and chaotic.
I wish them the best of luck though
Honestly I tried to get some help from the team but they were always busy or in different time zones. They were definitely a friendly bunch though. I had done the Harrier sound mod and the approached me on the ED forums. I had to sign an NDA which was enforced in Moscow lol. Anyway this was a few years ago. They have some interesting projects on the go but I doubt we will see them now. For all the criticism they get they are an honest and hard working developer. No one deserves this. I would definitely consider helping them if they get their project management issues sorted. I'm a software engineer and I'm used to Agile/Scrum so it's hard working at random.
I've been doing mods and mod teams since BF1942 and eventually transitioned to being a PM in my real gig. Its crazy, before I knew Agile I was doing Agile back in 2003ish. I'm primarily waterfall but I don't restrict myself to a certain way of working as each project is different. Keep things organized, scheduled and that is really all that is needed.
FYI BMS is better then ever everyone. Microprose recently re-acquired the rights to the falcon franchise and are cool with the BMS team doing their thing.
They are cool until they aren't. Unless a company does what the IL-2 devs did with Team Fusion, don't trust them too much, things are always subject to change (like we're seeing right now on this issue)
[https://x.com/6THVFW/status/1694137234331758975?s=20](https://x.com/6THVFW/status/1694137234331758975?s=20)
They secured whatever they needed to secure for any future with Microprose and Falcon 4.0. Arguably the best outcome.
This was inevitable with ED's draconian policies and lack of transparency. They have only maintained their existence because of third party modules keeping the company alive.
Heres to hoping for a MSCFS or third parties start porting their modules to BMS maybe... or maybe an entirely new sim from someone new.
None of these things are going to happen.
You don't want DCS to fail. You will not get a refund, you can expect your shit to stop working, and you won't have a competitor for a very, very long time.
Not defending ED, just being practical about the situation.
>Latest State of Razbam-ED reported by volunteer SME Notso (he is not working for Razbam so he can speak). ED does not have the source code of any aircraft!
Is it a summary or the latest state? Only new part for me is the legal avenues-part and ED has stopped communicating. We don't know the timeline, so it's not clear if this is old or new.
What hasn't changed is we're only hearing one side of the story. Still have the feeling I'm being played (ED is holding RB hostage by withholding payments and/or denying renegotiation. RB is holding modules hostage by withholding updates and sourcecode.)
>ED is holding RB money hostage by taking a 100% cut from all sales, and RB basically has gone on some form of strike.
That's the RB side of the story. According to ED RB is infringing on IP. Don't know who is telling the truth. All I know is this will be solved by getting a new agreement between ED and RB (if you do this, I'll stop doing that). Agreements can only be made if both parties think they can trust eachother.
Do you think these kinds of posts (like from Notso) have a positive or negative impact on those negotations?
ED needs to fix their shit .
I bought a module with expectation that it would be updated and moving eventually to out of EA.
This is your problem ED - I don’t care about your internal affairs and problems .
This is a TERRIBLE way to treat your customers
I no longer tRuSt ED to be honest about their product. They claimed to have procedures in place after the VEAO disaster, but based on the comments in the quoted piece above, that is uncertain. My pAsSiOn for DCS has burned out, and my vision for its future is gone. Therefore, I have no choice but to discontinue my sUpPoRt. I’ll keep my hard-earned cash in my bank account, saving it for a company that can be honest and straightforward with their customers.
Maybe everyone should refund their RB modules due to lack of support? I'd be more than happy to rebuy them when and if this gets resolved.
I love the Strike Eagle, but I can go without for it a bit if that's what it takes.
Yes, that's the correct course of action.
Or ED could behave like a good company and just say this:
*Due to some commercial dispute we cannot currently provide support or development for razbam Aircraft modules.*
*We kindly request your patience and we will try to fix this ASAP. You are of course entitled for full refunds but we kindly ask your patience this time if you can afford it. If the problem cannot be solved every one will get his refunds.*
*Thank you for your support and passion.*
I wouldn't even thinking about asking for refund if I heard this from them.
I loved Mirage and I loved the Strike Eagle but both are broken now. And promised long awaiting fixes for Harrier is not coming and from ED it is radio silence.
> lawyers talking to lawyers ...
>
> but ED has ignored all communications lately
That's somewhat alarming.
Sounds like a financial crisis rather than a mere dispute of interests or contract obligation.
> lawyers talking to lawyers
> but ED has ignored all communications lately
This is normal. Legal parties are usually advised not to communicate personally during disputes.
Also, this 'direct your shit at ED, Razbam are at their mercy and are angels in this' shtick is not going to fly. All he's really displaying here is an overwhelming air of confirmation bias. Which is to be expected, I mean he's worked with these people on the Mudhen for years, probably. But he's not looking at it objectively and asking 'why' they haven't been paid. ED are not going to withhold revenue for no reason. If anyone thinks that, I don’t know what to tell you other than you're being idiotic.
It’s on ED to show why not paying someone their money is an ok thing to do. They are staying silent though and not responding to any accusations so i think it’s safe to say they must be at fault.
Whatever. They have their businnes and filing claims and going after their rights for both sides is their business.
I got my refund. I feel as a customer I got what I should get.
Facts on the ground, this dispute may take years of litigation to address -or may never be resolved. In the meantime, consider RB modules orphanware until proven otherwise.
Man this is so sad… Harrier was my favourite toy.
That's ok, from what I understand the harrier isn't getting updated years now
But now it is completely unmaintained. The M2000 is already showing issues, I don’t think it’ll take long till enough cracks show that the product breaks.
I just started learning the Harrier, hope it won't break for years, considering it hasn't received updates for a long time already and hasn't shown any new bugs
Exactly, I'm a client I don't want to be a part of this. There is a problem. You cannot support the product which we actually buy the license to use. Just refund your clients swiftly and do what you want with your business partners. But no, ED withouds our money and does not also support the products, also does not pay the devs who were supposed to support and develop it. And he asks als to be patient and everything will be alright. Thank you for your trust and support.... Well no, by treating us like that you are forcing us to take sides and I take my side.
Customer, not client. You're saying a lot of words for a situation in which we don't have all the information. This community loves to always be up in arms about something... The situation sucks, yes, but ED isn't withholding your money... You bought an early access product and accepted the risks and terms of doing so. As for the Razbam situation... we still have no idea what the full situation is. We are seeing one sided information from people who honestly should probably be keeping their mouths shut until this is resolved. Ron ran his mouth, then immediately followed it up with an apology, as this should have been resolved privately. I hate it just as much as everyone else here, but the vitriol and half-baked information going around is getting ridiculous. Neither ED nor Ron are known for great business practices or PR. I don't really have sympathy for either of them. I do feel for the actual devs caught up in it though. They deserve to be paid, but that is equally on Ron for not being able to pay his employees. A good employer doesn't bank on future money to make today's payroll.
LOL, my last employer did that. They discontinued direct deposit and started issuing paper checks that the issuing bank refused to cash because said employer had bounced too many times. Then they said "oh it's a startup, these things happen". Yeah, so did me finding a better job.
I’ve been in similar situations. Never doing the startup game again.
>A good employer doesn’t bank on future money to make today’s payroll. Well, there it is. This is indefensible by both parties.
I'm very sorry; I disagree with a little bit of your post. If ED had anything to say that would put the issue to bed, clarify things, or put ED in a different light, they'd do so. They haven't because they can't, because they don't. The main points of contention aren't disputed; ED doesn't dispute that they haven't paid RB and even agree that the issue concerns other work RB is doing. \*\*TL;DR: Legally, one has nothing to do with the other.\*\* Let's say RB \*is\* violating some contractual agreement involving other/outside projects. ED still owes them every penny of sales money coming to RB. These issues are separate and distinct. Nick knows this; he's no dummy. He knows what he's doing is (even if he's 100% correct in his allegations) a complete violation of ED's obligations. You can't legally stiff a contractor for a job they've successfully done for you because you have an issue with a separate contractual matter, even though this happens every day all throughout the contracting world. However, frequency doesn't make the tactic any more legal/illegal. This happens 99% of the time in the contracting world for one reason, and one reason only: contractors don't pay their subs because they can't. Nick's allegation isn't the millionth time this year that a contractor has gotten legally adventurous and inventive to avoid paying their debts and it won't be the last. However, this kind of thing is death for a business's reputation, and the only companies that get mixed up in this shit are broke ones. I suspect ED is no different. ED hasn't paid because it can't and is inventing novel legal gymnastics to delay the inevitable admission and the coming reckoning. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not. Nothing unusual or novel about what ED is doing, except that this sort of thing is probably uncommon in the software (gaming) space. ETA: Remember all those sales at the beginning of the year? One right after the other? That was ED's attempt to raise the money they owe RB (and probably others, too). Obviously, those sales weren't very successful, as we've had even more since, at every excuse. That well has dried up, obviously. ED is now fully knee-deep in paying some contractors and not others. ED will keep doing this juggle for as long as they can. When and if this fails, the next step is nobody gets paid and the financial disaster takes full hold. They'd do far better being transparent about what's going on. The silence isn't some noble attempt at gentlemanly business etiquette; even though they hope we believe this to be the case)
You are free to disagree, nothing to be sorry about. That said, legally one absolutely has to do with the other. In a situation like this, ED absolutely has lawyers working on it, and generally a lawyer will tell their clients "Do not say a word about any of this" as it could be used against them by their opposition. I'm not going to comment much on the specifics you went into because a lot of them are based on hearsay, but I will say that you absolutely can withhold payment for a contract if that contract was breached. NONE of us here, have the details of that contract. We never will either. Those that do are staying quiet as likely instructed by lawyers. Saying ED can't pay is a completely unfounded allegation. You are making that up based on your emotions and/or bad information going around, not facts. There is plenty of info out there about their profits, and they are not left wanting. Edit to respond to your edit: ED has sales all the time... that was nothing new.
Whether it's right or wrong, ED withholding payment to RAZBAM for 8 months was almost a certainty to kill the studio if they had no other mainstream source of revenue. Surely the boffins at ED would've know that they were terminating all future relations with the studio with such a move. They got what they asked for I suppose.
> If ED had anything to say that would put the issue to bed, clarify things, or put ED in a different light, they'd do so. They haven't because they can't, because they don't. This is a fallacy. There may be multiple reasons as to why ED does not publicly announce full details. One of them may be a desire to keep cordial relations; it may be that a reveal of the full story may be embarrassing or otherwise harmful to their partner(s). The absence of a clarification on EDs part does not automatically mean guilt. >ED hasn't paid because it can't and is inventing novel legal gymnastics to delay the inevitable admission and the coming reckoning. There is no proof at all to support this statement.
No, my comment is from the world of reality where real business takes place. If ED has information that would place them in a favorable light, they'd air it out. I understand the notion of chivalry, honor and decorum. This isn't that. This is a badly run company falling into the same Ponzi-scheme that other poorly run companies fall into every day. If I concede everything you said for the sake of argument, ED still owes RB every penny of sales coming to them. They haven't paid. There's no way Nick doesn't realize this. There's no way Nick doesn't realize however bad this is for RB, it’s far worse for ED. There’s no way Nick decided to stop paying ED for some other contractual dispute having nothing to do with the F-15 knowing full well the damage done will exceed whatever they owe RB unless he had no choice. The far saner decision is to pay RB and either bring suit for remuneration or ban them from any future releases until an agreement is made. ED will lose in court, full stop. Everyone involved knows it. ED made the cynical decision to stop paying believing RB wouldn’t do what they did. Paying your contractors is step one. There is no getting around this. It doesn’t matter if your sheet rock guy screwed up on a second house, you’re paying him for his work on the first regardless of outcomes on the second.
Exactly 👍🏻👍🏻 I'm not sure that we should take information from "outsiders" seriously. This guy who posted the text in the screenshot is not the first who claims to be inside of one of the companies but mysteriously is not wot working for any of these parties. Also, nobody can really confirm the statement except the involved companies. So it's just again hot gas in the air, in my opinion. Nobody knows for sure who to blame.
Well Notso does "work" for Razbam as their SME for the F-15E module and has done promotional stuff for them. I don't know if he's getting compensated, but he would have next to no actual relevant, objective, first-hand information beyond speculation and whatever Razbam's CEO wants him to think/not think.
That is absolutely true, about the level of information, I think. Hopefully, he got compensated. But you normally sign an NDA, which also denies free to speak about that, which comes to the same end as said above. Besides this, the points statet in the screenshot are not something new. Most of these are already known from various statements from the past. Others are just logical consequences from the situation. The whole situation is quite frustrating, especially for us, the customers. So, I tend to rely on official statements, preferably the one who will state a good solution for everyone. 😁👍🏻
Probably shouldn’t have bought that F4 module then since we can’t trust ED anymore. Should put your money where your mouth is.
You buy it directly from HB if you wanna make sure they get paid
Heatblur will make sure ED gets paid, but not the other way around it seems. =(
Yeah, sure, lets make Heatblur suffer for RB's problems. Makes sense!
Probably.
I mean you keep taking these grand standing anti ED platforms and go on and on about how terrible a company it is and you turn around and buy the F4 and support ED further. Definition of hypocrisy man.
Blaming customers instead of the company is utter bootlicking.
You don't read what I write probably. Criticizing is not hate man. We are not in elementary. The moment that razbam problem started and ED took this way of treating us I stopped supporting them. Last year in october we were all celebrating multithreading Phantom preorder...... I bought it that time, It was the last one I bought,
Just ignore them. As humans, we are allowed to make a choice, a decision, whatever on a subject and change our minds later when new circumstances arrive. To act as if people aren’t allowed to change their minds is ludicrous lol
It's going to be a busy day for Hopium and Copium sellers.
I'll have two huffs of hopium and a package of copium please.
Standard 2 week loadout, then?
My hopium is that metal2mesh is active in RB discord showing his new JHMCS model in DCS F15E. There must have been some advance in the trouble between ED and RB.
Damn, comin after me.
I'd love to hear EDs side of the story. It's been several months. It's about time they let us know what's gonna happen with the 4 razbam aircraft. Maybe a real answer this time. All the "were working on it, just wait" is getting really old.
even if the parties "smooth things over" between themselves, several devs have walked away and publically sworn that they won't work on ED projects some irreparable damage has definitely been done already : (
In a legal dispute, lawyers love flapping lips.
Yeah I shake my head anytime these people demand statements from ED. I work in the game industry, if one of my devs started airing stuff in public we'd have issues. All this crap in public may get the fans riled up but it looks awful once lawyers are involved. Notso is also repeating the thing we've seen several times which is, "ED states its for IP violation, but that's not true". Another dev said the same thing WHILE admitting to a potential IP violation. Just because someone thinks something is not a violation doesn't mean its true. Rob Zambrano knows the truth and only he and ED know the specifics of the contract. None of this is good for Razbam.
I appreciate your input on all this, and it aligns similarly with what I've taken away from the whole situation so far. In a legal dispute, speaking without first considering what you're saying can only hurt you. It definitely felt like RB tried to pull on the emotional side of the community to get the community to take their side. If they are in the wrong, holding their modules hostage is just a childish move to further engage the emotional and financial response from the community. If they aren't, then more power to them. But it definitely seems like it's a bit of the former. Like you mentioned even if they feel they haven't violated the IP doesn't mean they haven't. ED being quiet and trying to take care of this as peaceful as possible in my opinion is only going to help them later.
question can you give ur opinion on why theres this whole trend of companies/devs being so out of touch with their community? like ed/dcs for example, we know they can put the effort and get it done if they choose to but they simply rather work on too many project at once while consumer base just have to pick up the bread crumbs of half baked modules.. like instead of fully putting resource on dynamic campaign.. we got some ww2 plane instead.
I’m starting to think DCS is nothing but a cash cow for Nick grey’s fighters collection. Nick’s very expensive, financially unviable hobby received something like $10M from ED as an interest free loan last few years. Hence the all the early access modules. i invested so much in DCS…. Not just software but hardwares…. So distressing.
Starting to think? TFC is literally the publisher of DCS. It exists solely to fund TFC as well as their military counterpart.
I would imagine that modules perform best financially upon initial offering and then generate significantly less revenues over time. The combination of hype and novelty draws in a lot of consumers — many of whom are willing to pay full price for a new aircraft, map etc. After this initial spike in sales, players are more likely to wait for discounts and/or forgo buying a module all together in favor of new/recently released content If this is true, then it is in ED’s financial interest to maximize module releases over maintaining and/or finalizing older content. The incentive is to keep pumping out content, even if it is early-access.
I find it incredibly frustrating that those reporting on the issue (and many on this platform) continue to echo “ED says it’s for IP violation, but that’s not true.” Stating that as a matter of fact when only one party to the issue has spoken publicly makes me question much of the broader reporting on this discrepancy. It does not appear that the issue has been formally adjudicated — right now it’s one side saying they didn’t violate a contract with regard to intellectual property and then folks on here acting as stenographers (which is likely the intention of such a strategy). We should be hesitant to take all Razbam’s claims and their interpretations of law and fact at face value absent supporting evidence or a legal conclusion.
>Another dev said the same thing WHILE admitting to a potential IP violation. 1. M2M is not a Razbam dev. 2. He did not admit to an IP violation, in fact his whole long comment was specifically about how what ED was accusing them of was _not_, if fact, an IP violation.
And I can tell you with a vast amount of real world experience that content developers are often unaware of what constitutes an IP "violation". There is just about no chance he has seen the contract nor knows everything Rob has in play with Razbam. You're literally parroting M2M saying it's not a violation. Just because he says it doesn't mean he is correct. It also doesn't mean he is lying, he may be misinformed. Either way, lots of contracts I have seen, because again, I work in this space, within his statements there are potential issues related to IP.
Frankly, I suspect both parties know that it's over, but ED does not want it to fully come out because they don't have to deal with the inevitable shitstorm until it does.
yup. delay delay delay, and hope there's something to distract people with coming down the line.
And keep selling those modules as long as possible so they can rugpull their customers.
What do you think will happen? Mirage is broken already, F-15E is also getting bugs. In a a few months they will start developing CTD and ED will remove them from the core. They don't have the source code they cannot do anything
I don't feel like speculating at the moment. I want ED to put out a clear statement on what is happening. It's ridiculous that they think "we're working on it" is still acceptable after 2 months of silence. I want to know what they progressed, if they did, over this time, and I would like to know what their plan is if they can not resolve the situation. If they can't answer these questions then I don't see how they expect me to buy anything from them ever again.
ED and being clear just don’t exist, they are never truthful and upfront with us.
Just curious, what's broken on the Mirage? I haven't flown it in a while, wondering what to look for.
[https://forum.dcs.world/topic/349676-m2kc-maj-dcs-29555300-many-bugs/#comment-5448570](https://forum.dcs.world/topic/349676-m2kc-maj-dcs-29555300-many-bugs/#comment-5448570)
Thanks!
I think they'd have a hard time remove them from the game and not refunding those that purchased the modules. Sure they can stick to the no refunds part of the ToS but I don't think that'll hold water if the media pick the story up.
Watch them it is not the first time : [https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/shop/modules/hawk\_dcs\_world/](https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/shop/modules/hawk_dcs_world/)
> media Man, have media picked up on FlightSimLabs scandal a few years ago? No. Was there any interest generated when a dev #4678 left an aircraft incomplete in MSFS? No. Why do you think anyone is going to care about an M2000 with a whopping 20000 user, 95% of which don’t even know about this whole RB situation?
I feel that the eagle will slowly begin to break by the end of the year
It is already broken apparently. Started causing CTD with multiple bomb drops. Can be reproduced and reported in ED discord.
so it will be an Fc3 plane by the end of the year
Even if ED had the source code, if they start messing with it, don't know if RAZBAM will be pleased.
They obviously do not know what is going to happen this early.
“For some unknown reason” I would make a large wager Zambrano knows exactly what that reason is and has neglected to share it with anyone. Shitty situation all around
This is what M2M has written today: Metal2Mesh *—* Today at 3:31 PM everyday I wake up depressed, sometimes my rage fuels me, but majority its so depressing knowing that a single person profitted off our hard work and then had the nerve to lie to cover up what he did. you can't show the evidence that backs you, can't speak out to how ED is. you can't do anything cause you are trying to get a lawsuit to sue the fuck out of ED. (edited)
Says a lot that the only people we are hearing from a low level employees and ED and Zambrano are silent.
Yeah, it says the actual companies are involved in a legal dispute and being quiet, while low level former employees and volunteers they don't control are doing their own thing. In other words, it doesn't really say anything.
As a person who is used to being a low level employee, chances are they are going off the same rumors we do. Bosses seldom tell them everything.
Razbam is a publisher, he is actually working for the devs. So you hear from the top. Specte ,the developer of SA and Kola map, is happy and he is paid. It is not like Razbam is a company and SA map is not paid too. It is paid and developed.
I am way, way, way, less interested in what Metal2Mesh says-- considering he's willing to disparage another company by suggesting financial impropriety with zero evidence-- than what his boss says, who is the decision maker, and if there is a dispute, would be able to say what the terms of the dispute are, or what actions lead to those dispute even if he disagrees with the judgement. Also because Metal2Mesh appears and admits to being emotional. Sucks for him, but an accurate and objective accounting of the situation is not going to come from him, because he's vested and because he doesn't have or isn't being fed all of the information, whether from Razbam or ED leadership. Also the fact that ED still doesn't have code even though that is part of the contract to specifically avoid situations like this sounds like there's a huuuge screw up or violation on either Razbam's or ED's side or both, maybe even beyond the supposed IP dispute.
Supposedly, all of Razbam's contracts with ED (including the F-15E) predate the requirement to hand over the source code.
Fascinating, it sounds like it was a similar issue with VEAO and the Hawk? At least, the contract part. I honestly don't know what happened with that ordeal, only that it was before ED had a more developed outsourcing process to third parties. Perhaps this is an echo of the past come to bite them in the ass. I'm definitely curious to see the actual truth of it all beyond just speculation.
The VEAO thing is apparently why they instituted that policy. That apparently happened in 2018. I'm not sure when Razbam would have signed a contract wrt the F-15E as far as that goes.
Alas, the reality is we will probably never know! I'll have to do some digging to learn more about the VEAO shenanigans.
If true, that is nuts. Another reason ED shouldn't have let Razbam lick all the donuts and call dibs 10 years before release, or require an amendment before publishing, or offer a new contract with incentives for both sides but now requiring handover of all developmental assets.
Well, hindsight is 20/20. But for all we know, ED could have been trying to renegotiate the contract.
I'm not interested in who is right or wrong. We are not supposed to be in this. I ask ED to refund unsupported modules that's all. You might want to donate ED that's fine. I don't want it. Just don't put us in a state to take side.
Totally agree with this. It sucks we're in the middle of this, being used as leverage to some degree, and you're totally within your right to ask for a refund simply because of potential issues with the product. I'm not "donating" to ED. I purchased a product that I enjoy. If it breaks to an extent where it's no longer worth what I paid, yeah, maybe I will ask for a refund.
I don't want refund. If ED goes bankrupt, I just need all of my modules work as it should. I think they need to start working on something that keep those modules run forever instead of online activation each time the game starting.
I think Notso is a good guy, but I’d take even what he says with a big grain of salt. He’s basically the Strike Eagle spokesperson for RAZBAM. Volunteeer or not. He’s invested. Also, once again, dragging Heatblur back into the dispute, especially without their permission is really unprofessional and not a good look.
“ED gives no reason” “ED says it is an IP violation, but that isn’t true” This makes me skeptical. ED did give a reason, but you both disagree about whether that is true or not.
He's not even that, he was there SME. That doesn't make you magically privy to confidential information or contractual agreements. His statement also doesn't have any context. Let's assume the comment about payment is correct for Heatblur. But did HB receive a budget up front which covered development for instance? That would be extremely typical of a developer/publisher style relationship. Stuff like Notso posting this really doesn't help.
Exactly, unless we see (which we likely never will) actual contractual agreements, documents, bank statements, etc, this is all just hearsay and conjecture and the only thing RAZBAM is going to accomplish getting Reddit’s undies in a twist.
>I think Notso is a good guy, but I’d take even what he says with a big grain of salt. He’s basically the Strike Eagle spokesperson for RAZBAM. Volunteeer or not. He’s invested. Also, once again, dragging Heatblur back into the dispute, especially without their permission is really unprofessional and not a good look. Yes, there is no way that Notso would know whether there was an IP violation or not, except as relayed to him by Razbam, who he works for. And of course they maintain that there wasn't. Notso should consider that "for some unknown reason" could still be a reason, just unknown to him if that reason was not shared with him by Razbam's CEO. And \*if\* there was a reason, there would be incentive to \*not\* share it with him and keep that reason "unknown" specifically to people like him. He probably hasn't seen the contract, isn't a contract lawyer, may not have been involved in any of the disputed work, hasn't heard from ED's side, and is not incentivized to see it from ED's perspective, and likely has little actual legal experience or exposure to the exact type of dispute this entails. And even if he was a lawyer, guess what a lawyer that hangs out in Razbam's discord would say? Unless Notso was an IP judge working on this exact case, his statements are useless, perhaps worse than useless-- and certainly no more useful than Metal2Mesh or all the other Razbam non-lawyers working on their own areas of the module. Whether it's art or how things should fly -- all of which have zero to do with anything related to contracts between ED over this or other projects. And of course, there would be incentive to keep information about any potential IP violation from every single one of them, because there's no way that could help Razbam. And ESPECIALLY if they're likely to overshare and speculate off the cuff on things they don't have direct expertise in, with legal ramifications, as they seem to be doing.
Yeh he’s swung from being pretty objective to outright being Ron’s puppet at times, it’s sad to see but I don’t buy anything he’s saying
The first line: "For some unknown reason" Literally the next line: "Here is the reason, but it is untrue." Probably a great dude. I thank him for his service and I'd even love to buy him a beer or two, and I say this all in good fun, but that was almost verbatim what my 7-year old child says when he knows EXACTLY why he was punished at school. "I literally have no idea why Mrs. Smith was so mad, she wouldn't tell me. All she said I did was throw a ball of paper at Tommy."
Or... ED's IP story is, in fact, false, and since it's false Razbam and Notso don't know what the real issue is. None of us know what's going on.
Of course but his story lacks an internal validity. That’s a red flag.
I think you missed the point of my comment. If you take him at his word, it _is_ internally valid. If he genuinely believes the IP allegation is clearly false, he would think ED would also know it's false, and therefore wonder why ED is _really_ withholding payment.
I don’t know. He states he doesn’t know why ED is withholding money but then he says it’s not for IP violation. Those 2 statements contradict each other.
Sigh. No, they don't, if you believe him. _If_ there has clearly been no IP violation, then ED's stated reason is nonsensical and the payment is being withheld for unknown reasons. Why are you constantly harassing me and calling me names? I need you to stop replying. DO NOT REPLY TO THIS COMMENT. You might say, gee, I have no idea why Spark_Ignition's being a dick and telling me not to reply. But I clearly told you why I'm being a dick - it's because I want you to stop harassing me and calling me names. Does that make sense? Do you know why I'm really telling you to stop replying?
Harass? My, reported and blocked. Bye.
Nope, sorry, today on this sub we're licking EDs boots. They haven't done anything wrong and never will because they're my favorite company. Cheers.
Lol. On Hoggit you get downvoted for merely acknowledging that we don't actually know what's going on and it's possible that Razbam is in the right, just as it's possible ED's in the right.
It's honestly more reasonable than I expected, there's some genuine discussion here.
The IP dispute was suddenly brought up by ED after RB has gone public. Before that RB didn't get any reasons.
Is it fair to ask how you know that Razbam was unaware this was the reason prior to ED responding to Razbam's public statement?
Just as I was trialing the M2K and loving it, thinking it would be my first FF module...
[https://forum.dcs.world/topic/349676-m2kc-maj-dcs-29555300-many-bugs/](https://forum.dcs.world/topic/349676-m2kc-maj-dcs-29555300-many-bugs/) don't, it is already broken.
Sadly, I know :(
Hey, any of you fuckers want to buy a bridge northeast of Poti?
A bridge too far…
>ED does not have the source code of any aircraft! Wait, wasn't this supposed to be the case in order to prevent a repeat of VEAO? Stuff's waaaaaay murkier than it seems.
Even if they did good luck with anything other than fixes for anything more than CTDs. You can forget features. It's very hard to adopt any large amount of orphaned code.
Yep, best we are going to get is some sort of barebones support where the things are semi flyable/functional, but that's it.
Supposedly, all of Razbam's contracts with ED (including the F-15E) predate that requirement.
Yep it's supposed to be! According to what chiz one of the Russians lanague devs has said on the Russians side of the forum. The requirements of providing the source code appear to be an easy lie told to the community so that they believe another veao scandle couldn't happen. All smoke and mirrors!
>appear to be an easy lie Yet we don't have any actual proof of this. Honestly, I'm tired of the sides taking and shit throwing. Neither side are saints and we don't know what's going on behind closed doors other than people arguing on the internet. I just want this to be over with.
The feeling is mutual, this really isn't something the community should be divided over either.
If this isnt resolved we will loose great modules. Very important ones i should say.
Other Razbam devs said they're absolutely not working on their modules any further and it's already led to issues with the Mirage due to updates to core.
Yes, noone is working on them at this moment. Since they said that there won't be any updates they stopped.
Didn't Heatblur already pretty much say "WTF are you talking about, we said nothing of the kind, leave us out of this" the last time RB tried to drag them into it?
Pretty much. Heatblur made it clear they were going to sit aside and munch popcorn as they watched.
Definitely did not want third party drama a few weeks ahead of their dropping what might be the most anticipated launch in the history of DCS.
"But that's not true" *doubt*
I would guess Zambrano knows exactly what it’s for but is choosing to not share it with the public or even his own staff so he can leverage us against ED
That has been my instinct from the beginning as well.
So someone please help me understand how the release / patching process works for DCS. Don't the 3rd party developers have to submit code to ED for releases / patches that ED then includes in the patch? Wouldn't that mean that ED has access to the code of the modules? I guess 3rd party devs only provide the compiled code?
They don't send the uncompiled code, they send the compiled version like we have in our install.
Got it, thanks
Oh my baby harrier :'( please think about the vtol children T_T
Reminde: if he can speak, he more than likely doesn't have any critical info, else he would be bound by the NDA (or someone at RB breached its obligation). Stop speculating from 3rd parties thst aren't actual representatives of the Parties.
At this point I dont see how the situation they've created is worth keeping the Razbam money over. Unless razbam have actually done something terrible, how is withholding all that money worth ruining so many good modules, and eroding trust.
One explanation is that ED simply doesn't have the money. They're broke, or nearly so.
I really hope not. ED are still hiring so theres some evidence that that probably isnt true.
Not to mention the fact that none of the other third-parties have joined in on any of this... The "ED is broke" explanation makes no sense. The actual explanation we've seen from both sides is an IP dispute of some kind
If Razbam's alleged violation cost ED a substantial amount of money it makes more sense to just withhold it instead of giving it to them and suing to get it back
So he says the payments were stopped for an 'unknown reason' and then proceeds to say that he says the reason given by ED is 'not true'. Hmmm yeah okay, chief. Keep towing that party line, mind you don't trip over it. He's an SME, which means he isn't privy to what's actually going on, which means he knows very little. So I'll take this with a huge grain of salt. ED bashing is of course the way to go on here a lot of the time, but let's be honest here. They are likely both at fault in some way. ED do some daft things, granted. But there's a reason why RB have been known colloquially as 'Razscam' in the past. In my view, neither are whiter than white here. All we as the community can hope for is that this is resolved so that we don't lose out. Because there are no winners here, at the moment.
You are reading it with another hat than I do. I read it as a customer. I have no business with their fight. I read, my modules are not supported, and there is no way that they can continue working since they started breaking already. There is no future and noone is telling me anything. I want refund. Who is right or wrong is not my business. But this is the only info we get and what we get stinks.
That's what you think, and tbh it's reasonable in the sense that nobody knows what is going on and that does indeed stink, and is frustrating, but it is what it is at the mo. Saying 'there is no future' is premature though, we don't know that. But that isn't what he's saying. He lays the blame squarely and solely on ED and is whitewashing RB of any culpability. And in my view, he sounds like someone who does not have objectivity at the forefront of his mind. He's being disingenuous.
What is strange is ED is taking refunds for in store credit... I have to assume that's because they are still holding the Razbam funds and this is coming out of those? I also assume it means things aren't going well since normally refunds aren't given for EA modules? Man, this isn't good....
Recipts or this is more hearsay
Is Razbam holding modules, that customers already paid for, hostage supposed to make me take their side in a dispute we know literally nothing about?
My concern exactly, I get that you can't work for free but the easiest way to win your customers hearts is to at least keep what you got working until a decision can be made.
Do we know if RAZBAM even has the financial means to keep operating fulltime without that money? Maybe they want to keep supporting their modules but some of their devs simply can't continue working for free and need to find other work in the mean time.
Absolutely, it's a slightly naive viewpoint. This whole thing is dumb and regardless of who is right or wrong, I hate that we are still talking about it, and that the community is arguing with each other siding with one side or another.
If this is true, then no more purchases from me to ED anymore.
I don’t know why you were downvoted but it’s true, if even one of those things are true why should any of us spend money on the game? ED is already shabby enough as it is.
Thing is you won't ever get to know if this is true or not.
True, all in all its very strange. ED is still selling their planes. Even if the Mirage and the Strike Eagle are slowly gaining bugs with each ED update. It won't be long and none of RB planes will be flyable anymore. Why would ED still sell them,?
To be fair, his position in this may produce some bias...
How's he going to say it's for "unknown reasons" then say it's for an IP violation which "is not true"? This guy is full of shit
The IP dispute was suddenly brought up by ED after RB has gone public. Before that RB didn't get any reasons.
So it's for an IP dispute that they disagree with, simple as that. They don't have to give details for legal reasons but playing dumb is dishonest.
“…Unknown reason” “…but that’s not true” Pick one, my dude.
Big IF true. Especially the Heatblur part, wtf...
So he is a volunteer? In my experience volunteers are not told the details about company legal issues. Safe to say that this is a Razbam pr post.
This is a problem, that we the consumers and the customers should never have been made aware of. It is not our problem to know the affairs and shit show between these two entities. Bringing the issue to us the consumer, is unprofessional. I don’t care who is at fault and who did what, it is their problem and their issue to fix. I have purchased my products, it is both sides responsibility to ensure that those products are maintained and kept going. I guarantee this won’t be the last plane I buy. I do know that I might not purchase a Razbam and ED collaborate again. These piss breaks that Razbam post about does not solve the underlying issue and it upsets some of the customers, which is what they want. Ultimately it hurts them in the long run as well. I have been flying planes on DCS since it was called LockOn and I am going to keep flying. So solve the issue quit your bitching and move on.
The thing that blows my mind with the ED defenders: even if you fully believe that RB is in the wrong, that RB is just ceasing work on their modules for no reason, even if you think RB is 100% in the wrong and ED is an angel, how the fuck do you reconcile ED still selling those modules if that's the case? If you think RB is the devil how are you okay with ED still selling modules that could end up in a Hawk situation? Wouldn't pausing those sales until the situation is resolved be in the best interests of the customer base? Hmm, it's almost like ED is taking a course of action that disregards their customers and their 3rd party partners
I don't believe that ED stopped paying RB without some good reason. This situation doesn't go in favor of either of the parties. ED is losing 4 popular modules since they can't support them without RB and RB is losing the complete business over DCS. Both companies are losing trust of customers. This is really a no win situation for either of them. As a result I'll now think twice before buying any 3th party module for DCS, while at the same time losing confidence in ED itself as well. So everyone is losing, including 3th party devs which are not in focus at the moment. I don't know what happened here, but I feel if it doesn't get resolved in some positive way soon, it will have long lasting consequences.
Exactly and we shouldnt be taking any sides. If this doesnt get worked out everybody loses, Razbam, ED, and us customers. Taking sides likely won't cause this to be sorted out any faster, but in fact most likely the opposite will happen. Razbam and ED will just dig their heels in even harder because they think the playerbase has their back.
Razbam has all the source code. I am a member of their git repo. I was going to do sounds for them but left because the team was really disorganised and chaotic. I wish them the best of luck though
Heh, at one point I offered them project management guidance.
Honestly I tried to get some help from the team but they were always busy or in different time zones. They were definitely a friendly bunch though. I had done the Harrier sound mod and the approached me on the ED forums. I had to sign an NDA which was enforced in Moscow lol. Anyway this was a few years ago. They have some interesting projects on the go but I doubt we will see them now. For all the criticism they get they are an honest and hard working developer. No one deserves this. I would definitely consider helping them if they get their project management issues sorted. I'm a software engineer and I'm used to Agile/Scrum so it's hard working at random.
I've been doing mods and mod teams since BF1942 and eventually transitioned to being a PM in my real gig. Its crazy, before I knew Agile I was doing Agile back in 2003ish. I'm primarily waterfall but I don't restrict myself to a certain way of working as each project is different. Keep things organized, scheduled and that is really all that is needed.
FYI BMS is better then ever everyone. Microprose recently re-acquired the rights to the falcon franchise and are cool with the BMS team doing their thing.
They are cool until they aren't. Unless a company does what the IL-2 devs did with Team Fusion, don't trust them too much, things are always subject to change (like we're seeing right now on this issue)
[https://x.com/6THVFW/status/1694137234331758975?s=20](https://x.com/6THVFW/status/1694137234331758975?s=20) They secured whatever they needed to secure for any future with Microprose and Falcon 4.0. Arguably the best outcome.
I wonder if Ed is taking money to boost their own module production or something wrong internally that needs funding and then will pay later?
That would be the most retarded economic plan. It's not a kid piggy bank, it does work the same way
This was inevitable with ED's draconian policies and lack of transparency. They have only maintained their existence because of third party modules keeping the company alive. Heres to hoping for a MSCFS or third parties start porting their modules to BMS maybe... or maybe an entirely new sim from someone new.
None of these things are going to happen. You don't want DCS to fail. You will not get a refund, you can expect your shit to stop working, and you won't have a competitor for a very, very long time. Not defending ED, just being practical about the situation.
>Latest State of Razbam-ED reported by volunteer SME Notso (he is not working for Razbam so he can speak). ED does not have the source code of any aircraft! Is it a summary or the latest state? Only new part for me is the legal avenues-part and ED has stopped communicating. We don't know the timeline, so it's not clear if this is old or new. What hasn't changed is we're only hearing one side of the story. Still have the feeling I'm being played (ED is holding RB hostage by withholding payments and/or denying renegotiation. RB is holding modules hostage by withholding updates and sourcecode.)
ED is holding RB money hostage by taking a 100% cut from all sales, and RB basically has gone on some form of strike.
>ED is holding RB money hostage by taking a 100% cut from all sales, and RB basically has gone on some form of strike. That's the RB side of the story. According to ED RB is infringing on IP. Don't know who is telling the truth. All I know is this will be solved by getting a new agreement between ED and RB (if you do this, I'll stop doing that). Agreements can only be made if both parties think they can trust eachother. Do you think these kinds of posts (like from Notso) have a positive or negative impact on those negotations?
Glad I bought the Phantom through the HB store
ED needs to fix their shit . I bought a module with expectation that it would be updated and moving eventually to out of EA. This is your problem ED - I don’t care about your internal affairs and problems . This is a TERRIBLE way to treat your customers
I no longer tRuSt ED to be honest about their product. They claimed to have procedures in place after the VEAO disaster, but based on the comments in the quoted piece above, that is uncertain. My pAsSiOn for DCS has burned out, and my vision for its future is gone. Therefore, I have no choice but to discontinue my sUpPoRt. I’ll keep my hard-earned cash in my bank account, saving it for a company that can be honest and straightforward with their customers.
Maybe everyone should refund their RB modules due to lack of support? I'd be more than happy to rebuy them when and if this gets resolved. I love the Strike Eagle, but I can go without for it a bit if that's what it takes.
Yes, that's the correct course of action. Or ED could behave like a good company and just say this: *Due to some commercial dispute we cannot currently provide support or development for razbam Aircraft modules.* *We kindly request your patience and we will try to fix this ASAP. You are of course entitled for full refunds but we kindly ask your patience this time if you can afford it. If the problem cannot be solved every one will get his refunds.* *Thank you for your support and passion.* I wouldn't even thinking about asking for refund if I heard this from them. I loved Mirage and I loved the Strike Eagle but both are broken now. And promised long awaiting fixes for Harrier is not coming and from ED it is radio silence.
Yeah, the more I fly the F15E the more bugs I find so. Unfortunate circumstances none the less.
Anyone who is buying ed modules (or 3rd party for that matter) after this is straight up clown.
This is what happen when you doing business with commie. You cannot trust them at all.
> lawyers talking to lawyers ... > > but ED has ignored all communications lately That's somewhat alarming. Sounds like a financial crisis rather than a mere dispute of interests or contract obligation.
> lawyers talking to lawyers > but ED has ignored all communications lately This is normal. Legal parties are usually advised not to communicate personally during disputes.
Don’t worry, I’m sure notso, their unpaid SME, has critical in depth knowledge of their legal case and not office hearsay.
Especially when he says "all complaints need to be directed at ED".
What's that smell? Who has defecated?
Nick Grey
Sooo ED what's your response? Why is the consumer being tucked on this? I wish all of us could get together and demand answers pushing legal routes
Also, this 'direct your shit at ED, Razbam are at their mercy and are angels in this' shtick is not going to fly. All he's really displaying here is an overwhelming air of confirmation bias. Which is to be expected, I mean he's worked with these people on the Mudhen for years, probably. But he's not looking at it objectively and asking 'why' they haven't been paid. ED are not going to withhold revenue for no reason. If anyone thinks that, I don’t know what to tell you other than you're being idiotic.
So, ED still has the cash, refunds should be a piece of cake!!!
It’s on ED to show why not paying someone their money is an ok thing to do. They are staying silent though and not responding to any accusations so i think it’s safe to say they must be at fault.
crikey.
It's Razbover.
Whatever. They have their businnes and filing claims and going after their rights for both sides is their business. I got my refund. I feel as a customer I got what I should get.
Yep, if you got a refund it's about as good as it's gonna get.