Ren'Ai Archives Compilation CD

[PyTom]

One idea I had for promoting our community was the creation of a compilation CD to sell at cons and the like. The idea behind this is that by creating a CD to be distributed at cons, we can get into the artist's alleys, and from there have an opportunity to meet with a number of fans who might not otherwise know about our work. If they decide that they're interested, we can immediately sell them a CD containing all of our games on it.

I would like to get the first version of the CD done in time for LLamacon 2006, where I will also be giving a talk on Ren'Py and visual novels in general.

At the very least, I will be contributing Moonlight Walks 1.1 to the CD. I will also be writing a Ren'Py-based launcher program that will allow the user to select the game he wishes to play.

I've spoken to Lemma, Eclipse, and mikey, and they've graciously allowed me to include their games on the CD. Now that I'm going public with this project, I'd like to ask permission for people with games in the archive to allow me to add their games to the CD.

My current plans are to sell the CD for about 5 USD. Apart from covering the cost of the CD, I think making the CD cost something makes it more likely that people will actually use the finished product. (As compared to a freebie, which would be thrown into the bottom of bags and forgotten.) I don't plan to make any money on this deal, so if I do I'll donate it to charity.

Since I'd probably begin work on this CD in late January/early February, this won't include the NaNoRenO 2006 games, but it would include any games released before then. We may want to issue a revised CD after NaNoRenO, so I probably won't make many copies of the first edition.

My question to game makers with games in the archive is, would you let me include your games on this (and future) compilation CDs? I'd like to ask permission before doing anything like that.

[Megaman Z]

hopefully, I'll have a game done for NaNoRenO 2006. if that happens, I really do not care whether or not it gets put on a disc by you, so feel free to do so. I just worry that some idiot out there is going to try and use our games to make money.

[monele]

Maybe adding some disclaimer right in the game as it's done with fansubs : "If you've paid for this, you've been ripped off !" ? Something that would at least require good computer knowledge to remove.

[papillon]

Anyone who wants to rip us off could easily do so just by downloading the games from the archive and burning them, they wouldn't need a CD to copy.

I have no objection to Abigail going into any collections - being so tiny its best enjoyed with other games anyway

[PyTom]

I think Papillion has the right idea. I don't think that this would be any different from someone taking the photocopy-comic that somebody releases, and making copies of it and selling it. Since nobody does that, I don't think anybody will do that to our work, either.

Besides, even if they do, it does serve the purpose of getting our work out into the public eye, which is the real purpose of making the CD.

Abigail brings the number of games up to 12 (7 ATP, 2 Rio, 1 Lemma, 1 Hanako, 1 AB). This is out of the 18 games we have in the archive at the moment.

[Kikered]

I'm fine with having Met. Blues added to the compilation CD. Hopefully, eclipse and Taleweaver are fine with it as well.

[rioka]

re Kikered>> Sure! I have no problem with it.

Anyways, quite an eclectic selection. It'll give interested parties quite a good sampling. =)

[Quin]

I'm not sure if my first game will be out in time for that convention, let alone the burning of the disc, so I can't commit to having it on there. (Especially with my first game, I'm not willing to fall into the trap of publicly preannouncing a completion date, then cutting corners at the end to make it.) When it does eventually come out, I have no problem with it appearing on a compilation disc, as long as the disc is somehow directly and distinctly promoted as being affiliated with Ren'Py or renai.us or a similar entity. (I just don't want it on Uncle Joe's 50 Games on a Disc vol. 37.)

But the other comments here have me thinking. It's easy enough to put info in a read_me file explaining the permission I grant to others as far as copying and distributing... but it's just as easy for someone with ill intent to strip that info out of the file and do as they wish with it. And yet I really don't want to slap a big, ugly hard-coded "not for sale, rent or eBay" disclaimer across my immaculate title screen.

I guess ultimately, yes, I am giving my game away for free to anyone who wants to play it... but I'm also opposed to a stranger making money off it. (PyTom, of course, is not a stranger, and I wouldn't even complain if some of that money went to Ren'Py-related expenses instead of charity. ^_^) Maybe I can slip the message into my opening credits that the game is available for free at sites X and Y... something just enough to make the player realize that if they've paid money for it, they've been had by whoever sold it to them... but I don't want to cause any ill will toward PyTom or the community.

Such a dilemma. Funny how I can say with equal conviction "I don't want a stranger making money off my game" and "I don't mind if a friend charges a token fee for my game"... ^^

[PyTom]

Hm... I think it would suffice to simply include with your game a license that specifies clearly what you allow and do not allow in terms of distribution. This will be binding on people who follow ther law, and as for people who do not follow the law... well, there's very little you can do that will be binding on them.

It's always possible to give exemptions to the usual license for people who you want to give those exemptions to. One of these days, I want to add some legalese to the archives that says something to the effect of:

"By submitting a game to the archive, you give us and our designates permission to distribute your game in both electronic and physical media."

This has some problems... Apart from the rather off-putting wording, there's the fact that the archives don't really exist in a legal sense. I may replace "us" with "the management of the archive", to try to clarify that.

One of these days I need to register AB as a business name, just to stop similar problems with Ren'Py. I do believe that the current arrangement, in which Ren'Py is copyright me under my PyTom pseudonym, is legal... and I do have a number of people who could testify as to who I am, should push come to shove. Plus, Ren'Py is licensed under such an incredibly liberal license that I can't see why anyone would _bother_ trying to violate my copyright in it.

[Taleweaver]

Feel free to add "Metropolitan Blues", too. The more people get to see it, the better.