This doesn't feel right for me. OpenTTD is so much superior in every way compared to the original TTD, that noone in their right mind would ever play the original. So Atari now, while spending zero effort compared to the years of work that OpenTTD devs put in, will basically sell OpenTTD as if was their own creation. People who buy the new TTD will simply play OpenTTD anyway, since it's so much better.
I might be wrong, but it feels like Atari are like parasites in this situation feeding off the hard work of OpenTTD devs.
The downsides of putting “TTD” in the name “OpenTTD” is a certain level of vulnerability to the original creator (or a rights inheritor) deciding it’s worth their time to care again someday. I suspect this will do more for the TTD community than it will harm it, though; any modern sale of TTD is targeted precisely at the folks who would take mortal offense at harm to OpenTTD, and $10 (which would have been merely $5 in 2000) is the opposite of egregious after 100% inflation pushed AAA games towards $90 these days. I paid $5 for a used copy of SimTower back then, I would happily pay the same today for TTD resources, so this is all fine.
I get that Atari isn’t perhaps as loved as, say, Bullfrog or Dynamix, but better that companies respect their properties and their fans with an outcome like this, than be another boringly-common community-destroying Nintendo Lawyer Takedown Club.
(It’s also now in line with the various WAD and Descent games over time that used this model, where the engine is maximum rewrite amazing but the game resources require a GOG purchase. The point of rewrites isn’t to deprive the games of revenue!)
The modern Atari has no relation to the original Atari. They’re essentially copyright trolls. I do not believe we owe them any moral obligation for the works they bought from the original Atari via a series of many intermediaries.
> It’s also now in line with the various WAD and Descent games over time that used this model, where the engine is maximum rewrite amazing but the game resources require a GOG purchase.
FreeDoom, like OpenTTD, walks a fine line between ‘artistic reimplementation’ and ‘legally vulnerable’ due precisely to reimplementing art assets, yes.
I can look at this from 2 additional perspectives:
- OpenTTD (a game I truly love and have followed since before the 0.3 days) was not born as a clean-room reimplementation of TTD. It started as a disassembly effort, something which is perhaps morally gray, especially if you take into account the original TTD was coded in assembly (with sprinkles of C). Perhaps this way there is some vague contribution that goes towards Chris Sawyer?
- This is a way you can legally get the original graphics of the game (GRF). Although I think the shareware version technically also worked...
Atari didn't put in the effort, but Chris Sawyer did. Now Atari paid Sawyer for the rights to the game. I do not think Atari is a parasite here just because they paid for the game instead of creating it.
It seems to me that the logical outcome of your interpretation is that Sawyer's leniency towards the OpenTTD devs would be punished by losing exclusivity to his IP. Essentially, you are asserting "squatter's rights" to IP - if IP rights are not enforced, then they lapse. This is an interesting idea in principle, but I'm concerned that it might have prevented OpenTTD from ever being created. Original creators would be incentivized to chase off derivative works to protect their IP.
My issue with this argument is that I'm not sure how much of OpenTTD is their IP. OpenTTD has been development for so long that I doubt that any original disassembly remnants remain in the latest version of OpenTTD. The only true piece of IP that OpenTTD may use is the name (the TTD part of OpenTTD) and the graphics, the latter of which being the more important one. However, as far as I know, OpenTTD devs have created their own version of all the assets that are also much higher resolution compared to the original. As a result, I see OpenTTD as an entirely separate game, that's been heavily inspired by original, but is its own separate entity.
If you take an essay, and rewrite every paragraph and also add some new words, then it's still plagiarism. Perhaps not under copyright law, but ethically. OpenTTD goes beyond "heavily inspired" because it is intended to reimplement the original game.
I am sympathetic to arguments of the form "It was abandonware," "Copyright lasts for too long anyways," etc. But I don't think you can claim OpenTTD owes nothing to the creators of TTD. OpenTTD was meant to replace TTD and would not exist without it.
Before OpenTDD was ready, the improved signals and etc were originally part of "TTDPatch", which made the original 'model railroad' much more fun. So I stuck with that for a long time. They should at least ship the patch with the original game.
This is pretty typical for Atari... any software that ever graced their consoles magically becomes their IP, ripe for exploitation, even if they didn't write it...
Obviously having OpenTTD available for free on Steam would jeopardize Atari's paid rerelease of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, so I think this is a good compromise. Hopefully they rigged it up so the assets from Transport Tycoon Deluxe get picked up automatically by OpenTTD when you install the bundle. I also hope that Atari will be sharing some of the revenue from the bundle with the OpenTTD team as part of this arrangement. They've spent the last 20+ years adding nice quality of life features and keeping the game playable, and I think they deserve to be rewarded for that effort. Going back to stock TTD after playing OpenTTD feels like a massive downgrade, like going from vim to BSD vi.
Atari got a game I like called Awesomenauts and revived it from being shutdown F2P to $20. They paid an old dev to get it playable on a temporary contract. Though it has a few rough qualities I'm glad it's playable again.
What is the story with OpenGFX then? It sounds like OpenTTD is completely new codebase and OpenGFX (which I also helped with) is completely new graphics. Why does one have to pay for that?
If you like OpenTTD, you may want to try OpenTTD-JGRPP (JGRennison's Patch Pack). It has a bunch of additional QoL improvements and additional features. It was never distributed on Steam, so nothing has changed there.
In my opinion this is just another example of our broken copyright system. That copyright should have expired years ago, so no troll company which happens to resurrect Ataris corpse for the tenth time can pull stuff like this.
But the lobbyism is too strong for a reasonable 15 or 20 year copyright limit.
Atari? I never expected to see that ancient name again. If I remember correctly, I've been playing OpenTTD for more than a decade without the original TTD assets, and I usually build it from source, so this change won’t really affect me. Still, it feels a bit strange (even if it may be somewhat legitimate) to see Atari suddenly asserting rights over it.
Wade Rosen resurrected a failing Atari, but from multiple interviews it doesn't feel like he is really OK with emulation, as he often refers to the piracy part of this. I feel this was an action they as project did not have much say in, ... as they also clearly stay away from answering a why
People seems to forget that besides console offshoots, the original Transport Tycoon (Deluxe or not) has not been legally available for what seems to be an eternity, without paying crazy eBay prices.
This is a much better compromise than usual in the gaming industry.
131 comments
I might be wrong, but it feels like Atari are like parasites in this situation feeding off the hard work of OpenTTD devs.
I get that Atari isn’t perhaps as loved as, say, Bullfrog or Dynamix, but better that companies respect their properties and their fans with an outcome like this, than be another boringly-common community-destroying Nintendo Lawyer Takedown Club.
(It’s also now in line with the various WAD and Descent games over time that used this model, where the engine is maximum rewrite amazing but the game resources require a GOG purchase. The point of rewrites isn’t to deprive the games of revenue!)
> It’s also now in line with the various WAD and Descent games over time that used this model, where the engine is maximum rewrite amazing but the game resources require a GOG purchase.
I don't know about Descent, but this hasn't been true wrt Doom for decades: https://freedoom.github.io/about.html
- OpenTTD (a game I truly love and have followed since before the 0.3 days) was not born as a clean-room reimplementation of TTD. It started as a disassembly effort, something which is perhaps morally gray, especially if you take into account the original TTD was coded in assembly (with sprinkles of C). Perhaps this way there is some vague contribution that goes towards Chris Sawyer?
- This is a way you can legally get the original graphics of the game (GRF). Although I think the shareware version technically also worked...
It seems to me that the logical outcome of your interpretation is that Sawyer's leniency towards the OpenTTD devs would be punished by losing exclusivity to his IP. Essentially, you are asserting "squatter's rights" to IP - if IP rights are not enforced, then they lapse. This is an interesting idea in principle, but I'm concerned that it might have prevented OpenTTD from ever being created. Original creators would be incentivized to chase off derivative works to protect their IP.
I am sympathetic to arguments of the form "It was abandonware," "Copyright lasts for too long anyways," etc. But I don't think you can claim OpenTTD owes nothing to the creators of TTD. OpenTTD was meant to replace TTD and would not exist without it.
> Atari
> parasites
This is pretty typical for Atari... any software that ever graced their consoles magically becomes their IP, ripe for exploitation, even if they didn't write it...
> while spending zero effort
Why do you think it took such little effort? Is it simply utilizing an emulation/portability package like Proton?
TTD and OpenTTD do not which incentivizes mechanisms to dump everyone at the edge of the map.
Aside from that they're both transport games with bad UIs.
https://github.com/JGRennison/OpenTTD-patches
But the lobbyism is too strong for a reasonable 15 or 20 year copyright limit.
There is even an Android version with the same very much not touch friendly (but somewhat customizable) UI.
In order to play OpenTTD you needed the original assets. Now they are bundled
People already having the assets were most likely always technical enough to get the OpenTTD builds
Only casual users would discover OpenTTD on stream to be frustrated by not being able to play it without an additional purchase
This is a much better compromise than usual in the gaming industry.
At least I already have it in my library so, looks like I still get updates.
You aren't forced to play OpenTTD and you aren't forced to get it on Steam/GoG.
It's acceptable.