[Suggestion] About Community Developers leaving on July 1st

[Studio60]

Alright... So a few of the community developers are leaving on July 1st, because they don't want to sign the new agreement. That is a choice each one of us has to make, but I would like to talk about the implications for a moment.

• Some Community Developers feel they don't have to support their products anymore after they leave (so they probably won't)
• Other Community Developers feel they should still support it, but they don't want to do it anymore
• If Bossland wants to enforce the support, they will have to take legal action for which Zwetan probably does not have the time or the energy
• Customers may find products they use and enjoy being frozen and left with half-hearted or a total lack of support
• Customers will find themselves having to buy replacement products, by basically re-buying the same product once more from another developer to get a supported version
• The Bossland store will overall lose credibility with abandoned products which will hurt sales in its whole

I propose this: Let other community developers take over products of community developers that are leaving, if both old and new community developers agree to it. Basically it would be as simple as signing over the rights to the product, sending the source code and asking Raphus to move the product to another community developer account. The new developer would take over the existing support responsibility and would get all future sales of the product. We would just have to create a new support thread under the "changed product management".

On a personal note:

I for one would be willing to do that for a couple of products if anyone is interested and if Bossland were so kind as to offer this option. Yes, pushing new stuff would generate more initial sales due to the front page phenomenon, but I feel that longevity is more important and benefits everyone. So if this were an option and you are one of those leaving developers just contact me and we will try to speak to Bossland about it together.

 

[hazard]

Signing 'left over' products to other developers in which they will earn profit from work they did not do should be a big no no.
It will only cause a feud between developers and in my honest opinion there is already enough of that at the moment.

Games and services released by other publishers have been abandoned and not supported for people in the past so why should the Buddy Store be any different? The products should be left available ONLY to those that have already purchased the product however the users should be made well aware that the product will no longer be supported or updated.

 

[Studio60]

Signing 'left over' products to other developers in which they will earn profit from work they did not do should be a big no no.
It will only cause a feud between developers and in my honest opinion there is already enough of that at the moment.

Games and services released by other publishers have been abandoned and not supported for people in the past so why should the Buddy Store be any different? The products should be left available ONLY to those that have already purchased the product however the users should be made well aware that the product will no longer be supported or updated.

Why it should be different? Really? I made a list up there. It is better for customers, Bossland and the Buddy Store image. I feel the only reason to not allow this is "because we make more money at the cost of customer satisfaction when we just dump similar products and make customers pay again". And why would that cause a feud? A developer can decide if and to whom he wants to hand over a product. And with many products it is for very little money, because the release sales wave has already passed. If anything this is a bad deal for the developer taking over who has to learn the quirks of the products newly added to his portfolio.

 

[Aion]

No offense, but this just look like the popular ingame chat: "Since you leave, can I get your gold plz?".

I know, you have much more serious background for this idea, but I am afraid, this could be done only by the free will of the product developer if he is leaving the BuddyStore and would not need any kind of BuddyStore moderation.

Correct me, if I am wrong, but even today, or anytime in the future, every Community Developer is free to transfer his paid products to different person or company, as long as the the receiver comply with all the BuddyStore rules - being already accepted as Community Developer and have signed the contract with Bossland GmbH.

 

[AknA]

What I liked about the buddy store was the protection of my code and protection of my identity.
Even tho there are users that haven't bought the product that can use it through some sites, the thing that was *****ed was the store, not my product so the source code is still protected (as I understand it).

I refuse to sign the new contract not due to the 10% extra fee, that I can live with, it's not a problem, it's that the new contract contains the invoice, by swedish law I can't strike out parts on a contract as it makes it a invalid contract, Bossland have to send me a new contract without the invoice part and then I will accept it.

However Bossland has said that he don't want to send out any new contracts as he has already sent out one so with his standpoint I'm not a community developer after July 1st. However my source code will never be given out to any other developer so they can (ab)use it for their own.

 

[Studio60]

No offense, but this just look like the popular ingame chat: "Since you leave, can I get your gold plz?".

I know, you have much more serious background for this idea, but I am afraid, this could be done only by the free will of the product developer if he is leaving the BuddyStore and would not need any kind of BuddyStore moderation.

Correct me, if I am wrong, but even today, or anytime in the future, every Community Developer is free to transfer his paid products to different person or company, as long as the the receiver comply with all the BuddyStore rules - being already accepted as Community Developer and have signed the contract with Bossland GmbH.

You know what the sales curve of a product looks like. The first few weeks are usually the strongest and those will have passed when you take over a product. You take on a long-term obligation for probably very little pay-off. A correct analogy would be "Hey, since you leave, can I take over your running auctions? I will in turn manage your guild bank, your guild invitations, be the guild counselor and take care of the whole DKP system for the foreseeable future".

I am also not so sure if anyone can just transfer his products to another developer. There is no precedence as far as I know and I have seen nothing written by the staff that supports this theory. If I were aware of such a process, I would not have considered making a post. I am also baffled by the responses so far. I make strong points and the counter arguments are "it is bad for the community developers" and "products get abandoned all the time".

The only response so far that makes sense is that AknA does not want to give other people access to his source code. The price he has to pay for it is that he has to support his products for the remainder of the time. 18 months come July 1st or until the next expansion. That is quite a commitment.

 

[MaxMuster]

What I liked about the buddy store was the protection of my code and protection of my identity.

What Protection? After 3 Days my Product was on CD and the Source Code was leaked into the Web, too.

B2T: I only have Problems at the moment with the 10% more Fees.
I know the 10% more are for thinks like the lawsuits.
The Question is: will the money be used for all process or only I. Honorbuddy case? Because the other 4 has nothing to do with me or honorbuddy:

II. interim injunction Demonbuddy case
III. private liability case
IV. Diablo 3 goldselling case
V. Countersuit in the city of Munich

So why should i pay for this, too?

Another think is the chargebacks, which will now take over bossland. But as i know in the last half year there was only 10-20 chargebacks and i dont think the the sum was more then 300-500€.

Last reason for the 10% more fees are the higher fees from the payment prodiver but i dont think that is so much more.

During the 10% more i will lost ~400€ more every month...and i ask myself? for what?

P.S. Sorry my bad english, i hope you understand me anyway ;-)

 

[Studio60]

This is not a discussion about the increased fee. This is a discussion about the way, we handle the products of community developers that are leaving.

If you want to discuss the increase in fees, please open up an extra thread.

 

[Mirabis]

This is not a discussion about the increased fee. This is a discussion about the way, we handle the products of community developers that are leaving.

If you want to discuss the increase in fees, please open up an extra thread.

The only way I can see other developers take over someone's code/project is if there's mutual consent between the two developers themselves. I for one would be extremely unhappy with someone taking my source and continuing on it randomly.

 

[bossland]

What I liked about the buddy store was the protection of my code and protection of my identity.
Even tho there are users that haven't bought the product that can use it through some sites, the thing that was *****ed was the store, not my product so the source code is still protected (as I understand it).

I refuse to sign the new contract not due to the 10% extra fee, that I can live with, it's not a problem, it's that the new contract contains the invoice, by swedish law I can't strike out parts on a contract as it makes it a invalid contract, Bossland have to send me a new contract without the invoice part and then I will accept it.

However Bossland has said that he don't want to send out any new contracts as he has already sent out one so with his standpoint I'm not a community developer after July 1st. However my source code will never be given out to any other developer so they can (ab)use it for their own.

Could you please forward me the law rule, that the contract which has crossed out paragraphs is agains Swedish law. As far as i know there is no such, as Sweden is part of the EU.

 

[bossland]

You know what the sales curve of a product looks like. The first few weeks are usually the strongest and those will have passed when you take over a product. You take on a long-term obligation for probably very little pay-off. A correct analogy would be "Hey, since you leave, can I take over your running auctions? I will in turn manage your guild bank, your guild invitations, be the guild counselor and take care of the whole DKP system for the foreseeable future".

I am also not so sure if anyone can just transfer his products to another developer. There is no precedence as far as I know and I have seen nothing written by the staff that supports this theory. If I were aware of such a process, I would not have considered making a post. I am also baffled by the responses so far. I make strong points and the counter arguments are "it is bad for the community developers" and "products get abandoned all the time".

The only response so far that makes sense is that AknA does not want to give other people access to his source code. The price he has to pay for it is that he has to support his products for the remainder of the time. 18 months come July 1st or until the next expansion. That is quite a commitment.

US Law allows transfer, German law does not know anything like transfer of source code, only licencing

 

[AknA]

Could you please forward me the law rule, that the contract which has crossed out paragraphs is agains Swedish law. As far as i know there is no such, as Sweden is part of the EU.

[h=2]Lag (1915:218) om avtal och andra rättshandlingar på förmögenhetsrättens område[/h]

 

[bossland]

From what i see that law is about bidding and bidding procedures, we do have no bidding here.