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[Cagar]

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[shmuppyLove]

DAT ARTWORK

[Cagar]

The developer(s) just added new enemy attribute, armor, which is currently completely out of hand. Starter weapon is way too weak for lvl 2 monsters etc.
This will be fixed (obviously), so don't panic if you feel way too weak.

*Image removed*

[Udderdude]

Waste of good art.

[Moniker]

I feel like I could watch a feature length movie of that pixel art. Will certainly check it out once it gets more developed.

[GaijinPunch]

Java based game... where is the LInux & Mac versions?

[Specineff]

10 times better-looking than the HD Pier Solar remake.

[Cagar]

Hahhahhah, waste of art, yeah.
Check the news out:
www.seyken.org

[shmuppyLove]

Yeah I've been getting the emails ...

[Despatche]

dear lord this art is making me cry

and yes the name is a corruption of "seiken" just look at that art

play

let me

play

please

[Cagar]

dear lord this art is making me cry

and yes the name is a corruption of "seiken" just look at that art

play

let me

play

please

Too late, the artist is a childish douche.
From seyken webpage this morning:

"PEOPLE WE GOT A CEASE & DESIST ORDER FROM FREELANCE PIXEL ARTIST CYANGMOU

Yes you read right - the very same Cyangmou that worked with us on the game for about two years.

He claims copyright on his work and gave explicit instructions of what he wants to be removed:

+ the game & game website
+ all websites containing his art - like:
+ Steam Greenlight
+ Facebook
+ Indiegogo
+ Indie DB

IF YOU GOT A SITE OR WHATEVER SHOWING HIS ART - REMOVE IT - OTHERWISE YOU MAY GET A CEASE & DESIST ORDER AS WELL.
DO NOT TAKE THIS RISK!!! REMOVE IT IMMEDIATELY!!!

Until yesterday I was totally unaware of his intentions - and even so his C&D is 35 pages long and must have taken ages to create he didn't say nothing about it to me or any other member of the team.

He threatens me with a lawsuit and assertion of compensation if I don't comply.

I keep you posted on whats going on as soon as time permits - but please understand that I'm totally devastated by this news.He ruins about 15 years of hard work on my site not to mention the other guys working with me and you the players and supporters.

I took the game off-line already and started to work down his list.

This guy totally lost it.

Presbyter."

[Ed Oscuro]

i don't want this for my life

4ver alone...and cold

[Hagane]

Oh, Cyangmou, that's why the pixel art is so good.

I would not be so quick to call him a douche with no further info. Chances are he wasn't getting paid enough for his work or something like that.

EDIT:

Regarding to that just some additional information from my side:


Yes I hold the copyrights for all the art I created. All of this art has a total workload of ~2360h (stand 09.09.2013)

560h of that were paid monthly with a pocket money amount - I still hold the copyrights
900h are still open and payment was promised
900h I additionally worked for a promised 15% revenue share.

During the work on S:CK I finished school and built up my own business. I always had to freelance next to S:CK for my living - since the amount agreed with Pres don't covered my monthly living costs - S:CK was my big plan for the future and the 15% revenue-share would have been the backbone for my finances once the game gets successful.

Presbyter kicked me out of the project September 20th. I additionally don't received the payment we agreed on for August, September and October. On top of that he don't wanted to talk with me and as I wrote another E-Mail to him he said he currently don't has any time to talk with me and he would come back to me - which don't happened within 3 weeks.
But he obviously had time to release an update in the meanwhile (which also contained a lot more of my graphics and definitely was a lot of work).

I decided to let my lawyer send a C&D catalogue with all work I own the copyright and I will bring that up in front of the court of law if we can't find a solution or my art is used after the given deadline.
The initial deadline was October 25th, Presbyter extended that one already with my lawyer until November 4th.
If we'd make an agreement, they would get a license to use my work and I won't sue them.

But Instead of trying to bargain with me Pres already took down the game and all related materials today (October 25th).
It neither was my intention that the game gets offline nor would it have been necessary until November 4th.
I just want what Pres owes me and that in a legally fixed way, since I can't trust him anymore.

Mou

[Ed Oscuro]

Yeah, the website info sounds like the typical "no actually WE lost it" hysterical screed against somebody who doesn't want to play that game.

How much work was put into this by people other than the pixel artist?

Also, holy fuck, Ninja Gaiden / Otogi (Xbox) 2D? I'm sure this is probably one of those "looks better on screen than in practice" concepts but that's really promising stuff. Would love to see more.

[Hagane]

Think of the players, supporters the time that developers have spent with this project, and now you bring it down.
Great job.
Hint: Your little "15.000 US$ and 15% revenue share." is FUCKING NOTHING compared to it, or what this project might have made in the future. What you did is beyond unbelievable. Look at the mirror and enjoy, if you still can.

Also, please stop this:

"You aren't correct, it's not alone my fault that the game went offline and the players can't play it any more.
I don't turned off the game - Pres did it. I am feeling so sorry for the community."

Your little amount of money and your little amount of work, no-one cares. You're sending a nuke to a country, because they didn't like your pee in the ocean. I will do whatever I can to warn other game developers about you.

Wow, what a douche. So basically you are saying that he should be a slave so you can get your game. Hint: if you work, you should get paid. If not, fuck the project. Nobody is forced to work for free.

[cicada88]

i don't want this for my life

4ver alone...and cold

i like it, looks nice and also happy

[Ed Oscuro]

"a bunch of images he did after school or what ever this is about." - greedy douchebag project leader

yep that's the spirit - the work is so crap you were happy to get it for free! @_@

Cagar shut the FUCK up, seriously. I rarely like to use a tone like this but the guy plowed in hundreds of hours that were supposed to be paid, and you think he should just sign it over for free just because the team leader decided not to pay money anymore? christ on a cracker you're dumb.

Edit: So I'm not just going off without leaving any evidence why somebody shouldn't think this way, take a look at this:
http://www.printmag.com/obsessions/harl ... ting-paid/
This has been a problem throughout the modern era:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-04-06/ ... -they-pay/

[n0rtygames]

It's fine to do revenue share if everybody is operating on that basis - makes it a real team effort. Coder takes a %, artists take a %, sound guys take a %...

The problem with revenue share is that a 100% of nothing is still £0 - it's not like this artist is incapable of finding work elsewhere is it?

If the project leader isn't paying this guy for the amount of work he puts in and he has an agreement to pay like 15% or something - he deserves that 15% purely on principal. Our situation is that I have to fill out a lot of paperwork to actually extract the money, so I just tell artists "invoice me for X amount"... then sort it out from my own pocket.

If I had this guy as an artist on a project I was leading, I'd be treating him extremely well because quite frankly anyone able to output that quality of art consistently is worth treating like gold if you're a coder. I have contracts with my profit-share based artists that state they're handing over ownership for my own protection to avoid situations like this - but contract also states that they're entitled to their percent of royalties for the rest of time. We have a spoken agreement that they won't hassle me if the game stops making money and their % turns out to be something like £10 after the games sales have dried up - but contractually they'd be entitled to do so. What matters is what's in writing and if they were psychotic enough - could in fact take me to court if I refused to pay like 50p...

Sounds like this artist has been mistreated by the project leader and he's right to walk in this situation.

It's called business. Grown ups do it.

[Ed Oscuro]

Also I noticed that in the comments on the DeviantArt page, Cyangmou mentions that it started off as a free project but went to a for-profit model at some time. This kind of trust in free projects keeps backfiring. Even in non-commercial projects, people need agreements so stuff like this doesn't happen.

[Cagar]

Cagar shut the FUCK up, seriously.

You have less side-story about cyangmou than I do.

I rarely like to use a tone like this but the guy plowed in hundreds of hours that were supposed to be paid, and you think he should just sign it over for free just because the team leader decided not to pay money anymore?

Yes. Go ahead and call me dumb like you just did, but I think that in this case everything would've ended MUCH better for both parties.
Insulting me because I have a different view is just immature

Wow, what a douche. So basically you are saying that he should be a slave so you can get your game. Hint: if you work, you should get paid. If not, fuck the project. Nobody is forced to work for free.

Alright captain obvious! This post has so much thought in it that it must've taken ages!

I would also like to say that this Cagar does not represent the attitude of others of us from Shmups Forum. We're all pulling for a nice resolution that would serve all parties well, but the most important thing here is that nobody is expected to work for free.

What the fuck? How is shmups forum related?

[Udderdude]

MMO-JRPGs - Not even once.

[Ed Oscuro]

Cagar, so let me get this right, you have "history" with the guy and rushed in to kick him while he's down?
That's even lower than I expected. I'm quite astonished at your behavior here.

It's one thing for one side or another to make an error in negotiation and get called out for it. It's another thing to ignore how somebody was being exploited and to call them a "greedy" developer because they actually have to get paid.

I understand your complaint about monetizing games, but my friend, that's just how it goes. There should be better ways of monetizing a game than "exp boosts" but what isn't negotiable is that everybody gets paid. Maybe you can't make a living with pixel art, but again, if you're going to say "let's have an agreement to make it work," you don't try to ignore reality unless everybody on the project is OK with not getting paid. The artist isn't wrong to pull out and pull his stuff out - besides if it was so "amateurish" then surely Pres could slap together a replacement in a few hours. Right? Obviously there is a lot problematic with this simple-minded viewpoint.

Simply put, if the team lead was doing his job, the artist wouldn't have to be trying to figure out a viable business strategy for him.

I had to post what I did on DA so that people don't think we're a bunch of gibbering idiots over here.

[Cagar]

Cagar, so let me get this right, you have "history" with the guy and rushed in to kick him while he's done?
That's even lower than I expected. I'm quite astonished at your behavior here. Your argument seems to be "I am mad because the guy doesn't let other people leech off him and somehow that's inconvenient to me." You ever think for a moment that pouring in hundreds of hours on a project that was originally noncommercial and ended up becoming somebody's cash cow - and being expected to still pour in the hours

Yeah. History about arguing with him about exp/gold boosts in the game. Cyangmou is the one who wanted the game to be pay-to-win cash cow, presbyter (the project leader) didn't care about money (at least YET, the game was very early beta).
You didn't understand my argument either, so let's make it clear:
I think that if he would've just waited with the payment, he could've got back in the project, get more money in the future while getting famous, the game wouldn't be destroyed. If he would've "suffered" for a few weeks, he could've made thousands, probably tens of thousands people happy and himself rich. Now he is getting his money for those weeks and the game is destroyed. Think further than this Harlan Ellison, please.
EDIT: Who could've answered that woman "No", btw

while some smart-ass coder essentially calls your work, which is the main draw for the project, amateurish - might be just a bit much?

I don't remember him calling his work amateurish. He might have said that "pictures after school" stuff and even that is just him being blinded by rage.

Your stance here is completely indefensible and selfish.
I had to post what I did on DA so that people don't think we're a bunch of gibbering idiots over here.

Like I said, immature. How would he have known that I'm from shmups forum, or that I present the whole shmups forum as a person? Did I say "Hi i'm from shmups forum btw" somewhere?

[Ed Oscuro]

It's up to the project leader to actually lead that discussion, and anything else. If he's not given the artist any reason to believe that payment will be forthcoming - and apparently this didn't just happen overnight, but was the result of being asked for payment over the long period - then we have no reason to chide the artist for not being compromising enough.

The lead (Pres) definitely did say that stuff about a project after school.

Thanks for explaining your viewpoint better. I think you're being naive, though, and I still think you're piling on, but I can give you a little credit now.

But it seems to me you're a bit too close to this to view it rationally, too.

[Cagar]

It's up to the project leader to actually lead that discussion, and anything else. If he's not given the artist any reason to believe that payment will be forthcoming - and apparently this didn't just happen overnight, but was the result of being asked for payment over the long period - then we have no reason to chide the artist for not being compromising enough.

The lead (Pres) definitely did say that stuff about a project after school.

Thanks for explaining your viewpoint better. I think you're being naive, though, and I still think you're piling on, but I can give you a little credit now.

But it seems to me you're a bit too close to this to view it rationally, too.

From long newsletter email from presbyter:

We were totally unaware of the situation that there was a problem with Cyangmou other than that we temporarily
had to remove him from the the project because of destructive behavior and breaking agreements on a larger scale.
We had a skype conference the whole team - I spoke for 2 hours straight about how important it is that we stick
together and if everybody is still with me on that. I asked:"Is there anyone who got a problem with me who wants
to bail out? Speak up now or lets get back to work". Nobody spoke up. Cyangmou just made a few comments
about monetizing the game more.

we already had an agreement on how he will get payed and copyrights
are uphold prior to his C&D - Cyangmou, Matbtt, Vierbit & me.

Took me a while to set it up - he lost patience - still did not talk to me about his intentions.
Off you go little C&D - here we are.

Also he had been removed from the project - wanted to come back - I told him we would talk about that once
time permits = lots of time to write a C&D. We really looked forward to his return - he told us he put a lot of
thought into what happened, had his distance, would be ready. That wont happen now anytime soon.

[Ed Oscuro]

No smoking guns there. The bigger text block is of course something that nobody is going to agree upon: "Getting in line" is easily double-talk for "my way or the highway," as you know.

The more important thing is that the project lead fucked up the administration - you don't keep somebody on the project without a written agreement of some kind, and you don't just have good speeches thinking that is going to actually heal big rifts of this type, especially if the issue is money and not something nebulous like loyalty or vision. I also don't understand what taking the artist "off the project" was supposed to do when the issue was time that he had already sunk into the project, when his work was still being used. Do you just ditch somebody when you have all the drawings you need from them? If that's what you want to do, you label it piecemeal work and pay them a commission, flat fee, or something like that, and then you can part ways amicably. If he's just kept "on the team" and not actually expected or even allowed to make any input, that's just asking for trouble.

And of course you don't keep making use of assets that you haven't paid for, or have some kind of payment schedule for.

Without knowing the timescale, we don't really have any way of saying whether that "impatience" was reasonable or not.

The stuff about taking him off the project due to (unspecified) "destructive" behavior, the dismissive attitude towards the art that (as it turned out) was absolutely irreplaceable to the project (at least for now), etc. all point towards amateur hour in the project leadership. Whether or not the artist was being difficult shouldn't be a surprise - you have to expect that kind of thing. That's why everybody gets set in stone an agreement early on about "vision," and then everybody agrees what to do with money as well (or the potential for making money off a project that starts free).

If you could put your comments to the artist in a more reasonable tone and not start out by accusing him of being greedy, then perhaps I could be supportive of what you write. But starting off accusing him of greed, when I don't think anybody argues that he hasn't sunk substantial work into this project which he won't likely ever see a return on, is not a wise or just move.

[shmuppyLove]

I only skimmed the emails quickly because they were very "lol drama butthurt rage quit"

Even when the game was progressing steadily and Pres was sending update emails, I got the feeling he was a bit of an odd duck. I'm not surprised that things went sideways, with someone obviously not playing with a full deck running the ship.

[BryanM]

MMO-JRPGs - Not even once.

World of Warcraft is the most elaborate and expensive Dragon Quest 1 remake I've ever seen.