Blitz Publishing Question

[Greg Squire]

(taken from www.blitzbasic.com)
Blitz Research and Idigicon are pleased to announce that a settlement has been reached over an ongoing dispute between the two parties. The settlement grants Idigicon exclusive publishing, distribution and other rights to the Blitz2D package and in addition the right to clear their current stock of Blitz3D which will be fully supported by Blitz Research and Idigicon. Both look forward to the ongoing growth and success of the Blitz family of software products.

I saw the above news blurb on the Blitz3D web site. Can anyone elaborate on what this means? Does it mean that if I write a game with Blitz2D, then I can only use Idigicon as my publisher and no one else? What if I wrote it in Blitz3D, but only used the 2D portion of that? I take it that Blitz3D is unaffected also. Is that right? That "exclusive" word made me wonder.

My assumption was if you purchased Blitz3D (for $100), then there are no ongoing royalties, and no restrictions on the number of products (games) you can make and sell. Is this true?

[simonh]

My assumption was if you purchased Blitz3D (for $100), then there are no ongoing royalties, and no restrictions on the number of products (games) you can make and sell. Is this true?

Yes, this is true for all Blitz products.

That agreement was just between Idigicon and Blitz Research - Idigicon used to publish Blitz, then Blitz Research cut all ties from Idigicon, causing an ongoing dispute until now.

[Dom]

The settlement grants Idigicon exclusive publishing, distribution and other rights to the Blitz2D package and in addition the right to clear their current stock of Blitz3D

This means Idigicon can publish the Blitz 2D & 3D development software - nothing to do with what you develop with it :)

[Greg Squire]

This means Idigicon can publish the Blitz 2D & 3D development software - nothing to do with what you develop with it :)

Thanks guys, that helps clear it up for me.

[Sybixsus]

My assumption was if you purchased Blitz3D (for $100), then there are no ongoing royalties, and no restrictions on the number of products (games) you can make and sell. Is this true?


Yep. There are Blitz games being sold on RealArcade, Alawar, Garage Games and all sorts of other places. You don't even have to pay for use of the integrated FMod library.

[Diragor]

Garage Games? What Blitz game is published there? I'm interested because I took note of this bit in their publishing FAQ:

"Your game must run on MAC and WIN. We have found that the Mac market is very receptive to indie games and 65% of our game sales are for the MAC. Linux is a little more of a labor of love, with only 7% of our sales coming from that market. Unless your WIN game is extremely hot or it has the capability of being ported to the Mac or Linux, GarageGames is not the right place to have it published."

Blitz games don't run on Mac, so apparently it would have to be pretty hot for them to publish it.

[Anthony Flack]

Aerial Antics.

[Greg Squire]

...Blitz games don't run on Mac, so apparently it would have to be pretty hot for them to publish it.

From what I've gathered, this is changing with BlitzMax. I believe it's meant as a replacement for Blitz+, so it's 2D based, but will compile to Windows, Mac, and Linux. I just looked at a rocket demo that had all three versions in the zip. After BlitzMax comes out (soon), I read in the forums that they'll be working on the next 3D engine. (Probably with Mac and Linux support too; BlitzMax3D?)

[Anthony Flack]

Definitely with mac and linux support too, that is the very much the point. And Mark is absolutely gagging to stop working on the compiler and start making the bling bling next-gen 3d engine he is dreaming of. But he wanted to make a solid, robust, modular and expandable cross-platform language to build it on first.