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Bioware putting the handcuffs on Fansites already...
stragen001
Member UncommonPosts: 1,720
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/12/bioware_handcuffs_fansites/
Bioware are saying that if you want to be a SWTOR fansite then you cannot accept any money from anyone, anywhere to do it or you wont get any inside information. Makes me wonder whats gonna happen to darthhater....
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
Comments
Hummff ...
Not that I think highly of those that use aggressive advertising to make a buck with a fansite but they do have to pay the hosting and traffic bills right? Sounds a little like (rotten) Apple-style vendor-locking. Meh :-/
My brand new bloggity blog.
hmmm, tough topic. I think the thought behind it is probably related to licensing of the Star Wars Brand. They probably don't want people making money outside of "official" channels. I don't know if this is the case, but i'm willing to bet it plays into it.
I self identify as a monkey.
It will be interesting to see how this works out considering hosting a fasite (a good one) can be expensive.
I'd simply giva a sh*t about official support.
Even mmorpg or any other big site has advertisements going, so I guess that Bioware/EA don't want any fansites at all there to start with.
I don't know any big fansite that could do without money from advertisement to pay their traffic.
eh seems reasonable to me
I want to own property too
Doesn't this just mean no paying for information? Like some pay to be a member site? Advertising would not apply.
I'm not upset about it.
I get information either way.
I want to own property too
They're a bunch of idiots to even propose such an agreement. It's 2011 for crying out loud.
It is very reasonable... If a site is more generalist then they classify as Media and hey Ho......
If a site is dedicated to their MMO then Bioware/Lucas Arts don't really want people profiteering off of the back of all their hard work and I don't blame them....
Something for nothing seems unreasonable.......
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Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
You know, it wouldnt surprise me if this is why.
They give away the fansite kits with all sorts of Official Logos and other intillectual property and dont want other people making money off of it.
Still stupid though beause all of those fansites (making just enough money to survive probably) would be promoting their game for free!
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
Lucas Arts I reckon, they are notoriosly guarded about the Star Wars intellectual property
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
You are entitled to your view but it is as it is and totally fair. With the investment put into this game it seems they would preffer to deal primarily with the Media sites.
And they consider Media Sites mainstream, Fan Sites more Hobbyist, if you can't cope with or respect the developers opinion/approach or afford to do it without abusing their investment go elsewhere. I guess piggy backing on the back of their circa $50 million to $300 million investment is fine I don't think so.
A large number of Fan Site while interesting ruin in game immersion and bring on paint by number game play , they are no great loss.
What may seem obvious to you is also a massive assumption, so thats a fail on your part.
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Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
.... Based on this post you are missing an 'n' from your name, three guesses where it should go and I bet you don't need two of those guesses.
"Don't let anyone drive you insane when it is within walking distance."
Saw this response on swtor.com about the same thing
I'm thinking it has something to do with the fact Bioware is operating under a license from LucasArts. Star Wars is intellectual property. If you're making money from it, then you have to have a license too. Fan sites are no different.
Heres the link http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=262335
This would be my guess as to the reasoning of this. Not sure how much a license for such a thing would be. My guess if they did get one they could post about it, but i doubt any fan site would go that far.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Oh yeah, definitely LA. They've always been jeolous of their IP and you can trace that all the way up to George Lucas himself. I can't imagine that Bioware cares in the slightest, especially since such fan sites can only bring more people into the game. When it comes to Star Wars George Lucas is like a jeolous husband. Yeah, he'll whore it out, but only on his terms.
Pug your being too quick with the trying to brand me on something. I said i think this is the reasoning and this would be my guess. If you take a step back and look at it again instead of my interest in the game i neither say it's a good thing or a bad thing. I just said this looks like a good reasoning to me.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Greed has nothing to do with it. In fact such a move can only hurt them financially. But the IP is owned by LA and they have to do what LA tells them, whether they like it or not.
You are really trying to equate IGN and Gamespot, which make money by covering the genre of gaming, to a fan site for a specific game huh?
Reality, join it!
The only sites that get these restrictions are those who get exclusives from BioWare / LA before other people.
Please think before you post, the Star Wars IP is owned by LucasArts, you can not make money out of someone elses intellectual property without consequences.
If you chose to be a fansite, you don't get to make money out of your coverage.
If you chose to be press, you get to make money out of your coverage, but you don't get a direct connection to the developers just like that. You'll have to make tough information deals with the publisher first.
It has nothing to do with big bad BioWare putting handcuffs on fansites.
This deal has been known since they first made the fansite kit available, I wonder why people are making fuss about it now.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Lets throw something out there. I've run fansites for Star Wars games for over a decade. From galacticbattles, SWGalaxies.net, Empireatwar.net and now KOTORMMO.net.
Over this period of time, I have found LucasArts (because that is who I dealt with directly) to be extremely accommodating for requests - I had live developer chats, exclusive interviews, exclusive screenshots, reveals etc and in no way were they heavy handed.
As those who do it know, when you embark on creating a fansite for a game you like, you do it because of your passion for that game and you shouldnt make any financial gains. You sometimes get other rewards, like access to free copies of the game, free play time(in the case of Galaxies) and access to events. This more than offsets any cost from hosting. Besides, hosting costs is very low in todays world.
I also received the email from Bioware but KOTORMMO .net doesnt have any kind of advertising today or will it in the future. Personally, I have found adverts too intrusive on the content.
All I can say is, that if you dont want to shell out the small expense, then dont make a fansite.
get your 7 day FREE sub to SWTOR
http://www.swtor.com/r/7DDKjQ
Nice post, Fdzzaigl, and I agree.
This is quoted from the link given in the OP: "There’s a big difference between press and fansites. Fansites are those who cover SW:TOR exclusively. IGN and Wired are press, and therefore they have a completely different process (and have to go through EA and Lucas in order to get anything). The benefit of being a fansite is that you get a direct line to BioWare”.
Not everything is a conspiracy. You can't make money of LucasArt's intellectual property. If you're considered press, which covers a wide range of topics and not just SW:TOR, then you have different rules.
You are justifying fairness at the dollar sign rather than the commitment and devotion of people trying to help? Makes sense, money is worth far more than humans, morals, and fairness today. So by that perspective, money IS fairness.. Just lose yourself in the corporate sociopathic machine, and don't think twice.
Must be slow news day or trolling by mass-media (as if this never happens).
You want a direct connection to the devs with no PR? Fansite but no $$$ off of it
You want to make $$$ off of it? Restricted access (legal agreement and all that jazz) with PR- Media
Seems fair, otherwise why would you have 'Media'?
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
It's a bit of a prick move by Bioware. But it seems like more of a scare tactic than anything else.
Most of the info about the game I have gotten directly from Bioware anyways. It's not like fansites have been giving out their own press releases on SWTOR.
They'll release information about the game in DLC packs for their up and coming Star Wars: The Old Republic Informational Minigame available only on Facebook!