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Socoder -> Microsoft Gaming -> Remake a Microsoft Game..

Tue, 14 Aug 2007, 03:29
Jayenkai
Linkage

Microsoft have announced a Homebrew License, allowing us lot to rip off their games!
You can choose from a list of available games, and are given the rights to play about with it's assets.
General rules are that you can't go nicking the audio, because they're not always sure where it comes from, and that you can't use the original trademarked logos, so you'll have to draw your own.

Oh, and you can't sell them.. But right at the end, it says that you could always ask if you'd like to do more with your creations.

The oddest bit, though, is that it says..
You can’t add to the game universe or expand on the story told in the game with “lost chapters” or back story or anything like that.


So, quite what type of gameplay they're expecting, I don't know! Exact ports?

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''Load, Next List!''
Tue, 14 Aug 2007, 04:45
Phoenix
Too bad Microsoft didn't make Command and Conquer, then maybe we'd see Blitz3DMan's DS port The only Microsoft game I own is Age of Empires 1, so that doesn't help me much.
Tue, 14 Aug 2007, 07:27
JL235
Microsoft do own quite a lot of games, and even if it does look quite restrictive, I do think this is a good step in the right direction. Lately I really like Microsoft, they have been doing a lot of really nice things.
Tue, 14 Aug 2007, 09:49
Afr0
Jayenkai You can choose from a list of available games, and are given the rights to play about with it's assets.


Actually - no! According to Microsoft, '(...) you can’t reverse engineer our games to access the assets or otherwise do things that the games don’t normally permit in order to create your Items.'

So basically, let's say a game like Age of Empires comes with alot of packaged *.dat files. That means you can't legally open those files to extract their assets and expect to be able to use them. No, you have to start Age of Empires manually, take a screenshot, and rip art assets manually from there. I.E this whole license is totally pointless for 3D games (except in the case of textures...), and IMHO seems more like a publicity stunt from Microsoft than anything else.

|edit| Though, on second though, this *might* be a Microsoft/legal way of saying that you have to own the actual games before you are entitled to use their assets, so someone can't warez their games and delete all the executables, dlls and write a tool to unpack the game's data. |edit|

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Afr0 Games

Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
Tue, 14 Aug 2007, 10:55
Blitz3Dman
Dang, no 3D? That kills my hopes to use the only game I have from microsoft (At least that I know is microsoft), Rise of Nations. That might of been nice, but it's 3D. Oh well.

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( Insert 16 remarks about to what extent people know hex here )
Tue, 14 Aug 2007, 13:05
Afr0
Well, if you want to be perfectly sure about what you're allowed to do as far as the actual assets are concerned, you should probably either email Microsoft (slow) or make a thread over at the corresponding (don't ask me which one, there's too many of them already) MSDN forum (fast) to get all the juicy details.

Also, of course, just to make sure I get this cleared up; If (for instance) Rise of Nations doesn't store it's data in any kind of (packed) data format (which is unlikely, but still...), then you're free to go!

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Afr0 Games

Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
Tue, 14 Aug 2007, 13:38
Forklift_Fred
Well, with my expert coding skills... I'd stick to Minesweeper

It's got to be on the list somewhere

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Come rain or shine...
Tue, 14 Aug 2007, 13:50
blanko1324
Microsoft is definitely on my good side now. They've just been on a roll for the past year and a half or so...

This is pretty dang cool, especially coming from such a big company.

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