Daybreak is Being Acquired

[Vizax_Xaziv]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

"EverQuest" is not intellectual property. Intellectual property is a copyright, a patent, a trademark, etc.

Daybreak owns the trademark to the term "EverQuest", just as The Coca-Cola Company owns the trademark to "Coke". But that doesn't mean that Rogean can't use the word "EverQuest" here ... if it did it would mean Coke could take down any anti-coke website for using their trademark! To violate it Rogean would have to (say) print and sell EverQuest t-shirts.

Daybreak also owns a copyright both on the server code from 1999-2001, and on the Titanium client. As I explained previously, the server code is lost to time: it doesn't matter who owns the copyright on it. The server code used here is 100% hand-written; it may copy "facts" about the '99-01' server, but every line of code is written and owned by R&N.

The only relevant intellectual property involved is Daybreak's ownership of the copyright on the Titanium client. As I noted it would be .... challenging for Daybreak taking anyone to court over it, but hypothetically they could go after us players over it.

They likely never will, for the same reason record companies don't sue MP3 downloaders anymore (even though they clearly violate more relevant/recent IP) ... but even if they did it'd be our necks on the line, not R&N's.



Again, not a lawyer ... but all it takes is a couple hours of reading wikipedia to understand the basics of intellectual property law. Based on that, my non-lawyer self doesn't see what IP R&N are violating.



This is a relevant point; it doesn't matter who will win in the end if you can't afford to fight the suit, and there's truth to Bellamy's point that:



But at the same time, obviously rich people can't just sue random people into oblivion [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] You need a case, ie. you need to show damages, ie. someone has to violate your IP ... and I still don't see anyone violating anything, except us players violating 20-year old Titanium copyrights.

What about all the various art assets? Models, music, animations spell effects etc etc

I guess technically that's not being provided by this project so it's a different issue?

[imperiouskitten]

Originally Posted by getsome [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Top google hit during the fappening. Admins bragged about it til some liability issues started to trend.

it's when the weird 1d unbelievable political personas started pouring in too (or maybe we in the west are just brain draining that fast collectively, idk)

[imperiouskitten]

anyway, Winter's Roar succumbed to legal harassment so I don't see what there is to debate about

[Vizax_Xaziv]

Originally Posted by zaldaben [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

not a bad deal for the owner for daybreak. he gets 10 percent of eg7 voting shares for the sale for 300 mil. not so sure about the 900 million in debt eg7 took out to acquire and finance the acquisition of daybreak.

https://www.enadglobal7.com/press/7758700B9A777D34/

They have also used this to acquire piranha gaming and big blue bubble.

financials are attached.

swedish company known as toadman for a while. the ticker symbol publ ( I think, cant find it on any exchange but its the only reference I could find on https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=EG7-SE&tab=profile and I even checked international ones as well as searched toadman and Enad)

according to their financials they have not came close to industry standards in a lot of areas and have taken on a massive amount of debt to buy these companies. according to their own website a few of their officers have already cashed out and sold their portion of the company.

CEO Gary Williams and COO James Cato to be specific.

Their website is transparent on who their officers are but not so much on what their strategies are or what particular games their design folks actually worked on.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Daybreak really doesnt develop much but it appears they were acquired by a company that does, but just doesn't say what they have actually worked on without further digging. Admittedly I am too lazy to dig that much into it.

EG7 board members can be found here if you want to check it out,

https://www.enadglobal7.com/management/

also they are looking at a 31 million a year return or EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) which means after they pay all the taxes and financing costs they are probably going to be around 22-23 million if I had to ball park it. it will take 13 years to pay off the 300 million price tag and still have millions in debt. they wont see a solid return for a long time.

In all honesty other than expanding for the sake of expanding I do not see the financial strategy here. maybe someone on here smarter than me can help me see it.

Well DayBreak was working a "new MMO" very recently. This probably good news for that title - the buyers have likely seen what they have developed so far.

[douglas1999]

Originally Posted by imperiouskitten [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

anyway, Winter's Roar succumbed to legal harassment so I don't see what there is to debate about

Yes it did. Yet it hasn't happened to p99 in a full decade. P99 has been more popular than winter's roar ever was for years now, long before the transition from SOE to daybreak, so why didn't SOE ever do the same thing to p99 that it did to winter's roar? I think it's at least an interesting question, if nothing else. Doesn't that seem strange and inconsistent?

Personally, my guess would be they realized that shutting down fan passion projects like this is incredibly bad PR, and may ultimately be more of a net liability to the company than a gain. I can't think of any other reason. Now that obviously doesn't mean that the new owners think the same way, but it's certainly possible. Even Nintendo got a shitload of backlash for shutting down that fan-made metroid 2 remake (AM2R), and other large companies with an interest in the gaming market might have taken notice of that.

[Bisonzabi]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

https://wccftech.com/daybreak-game-c...r-300-million/

Here's hoping the new overlords keep the agreement with Project 1999 ...

I doubt anything is going to happen. The Everquest franchise is practically worth nothing (take a look at their game portfolio estimates).

[Bisonzabi]

Originally Posted by douglas1999 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yes it did. Yet it hasn't happened to p99 in a full decade. P99 has been more popular than winter's roar ever was for years now, long before the transition from SOE to daybreak, so why didn't SOE ever do the same thing to p99 that it did to winter's roar? I think it's at least an interesting question, if nothing else. Doesn't that seem strange and inconsistent?

Personally, my guess would be they realized that shutting down fan passion projects like this is incredibly bad PR, and may ultimately be more of a net liability to the company than a gain. I can't think of any other reason. Now that obviously doesn't mean that the new owners think the same way, but it's certainly possible. Even Nintendo got a shitload of backlash for shutting down that fan-made metroid 2 remake (AM2R), and other large companies with an interest in the gaming market might have taken notice of that.

Nintendo is a huge outlier. They're notoriously mean to fan projects such as games and roms in general compared to the likes of Sega or Capcom who really endorse them. I just don't think this new owner will be specifically annoyed over a few emulated servers much like how Daybreak wasn't in the past. Of course I could be dead wrong.

[douglas1999]

Originally Posted by Bisonzabi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Nintendo is a huge outlier. They're notoriously mean to fan projects such as games and roms in general compared to the likes of Sega or Capcom who really endorse them. I just don't think this new owner will be specifically annoyed over a few emulated servers much like how Daybreak wasn't in the past. Of course I could be dead wrong.

Right yeah I think we agree, I also don't think anything is likely gonna happen to p99, because SOE had about 6 years to do something about it and didn't.

I was saying that it's strange they *did* shut down one eq fan server (winter's roar) in the mid 2000's, but then didn't shut down this one even though it's much more popular, and the reason for that might be that they noticed shutting these things down is incredibly unpopular among the playerbase and gamers in general like when nintendo shut down AM2R, and isn't worth the bad PR they got for it.

[Blingy]

Originally Posted by Vizax_Xaziv [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What about all the various art assets? Models, music, animations spell effects etc etc

I guess technically that's not being provided by this project so it's a different issue?

All of the art assets are indeed on our computers. When I paid for the Ruins of Kunark box forever ago their TOS made it clear I was allowed to enjoy the art and other things on my computer for personal use. Ditto for Velious, Luclin, etc.

The Daybreak TOS does say:

The Daybreak Games are licensed, not sold, to end users. Subject to your acceptance of and continued compliance with all the terms and conditions of the Daybreak Terms of Service and Daybreak End User License Agreement, during the period of time that you have an account for any Daybreak Game(s) or for a shorter period of time (as determined by Daybreak), Daybreak grants you a limited, personal, non-transferable, non-sublicenseable, revocable, non-exclusive right to load the client-side software of such Daybreak Game(s) solely in the format made available to you by Daybreak onto your personal computer, console, or other permitted device; provided that your installation of, access to and play of any Daybreak Game(s) are solely for your personal, non-commercial use and in accordance with each of the restrictions and limitations set forth in the Daybreak Terms of Service and Daybreak End User License Agreement. The client-side software may not be reproduced, transferred, distributed, sold, disassembled, reverse engineered, modified, used as a stand-alone game (without connecting to Daybreak’s game servers), or used in connection with non-Daybreak game servers. If you fail to comply with any of the terms or conditions set forth in the Daybreak Terms of Service and/or the Daybreak End User License Agreement, the Daybreak Terms of Service and Daybreak End User License Agreement (including, without limitation, the grant of permission to play any Daybreak Game(s)) will automatically terminate, whereupon you will immediately (y) cease using any Daybreak Game(s); and (z) remove (i.e., uninstall and delete) the Daybreak software from your computer system.

So if I'm interpreting the above correctly DBG has the authority to make all of us disconnect from p99. Big question though is do they think they'll gain more than loose if they choose to enforce this?

Me personally? I've done regular servers, played on FV for awhile, done a couple progeression servers and in general am done with the Sony/DBG/whoeverownsitnow servers. If the new owners do decide to bring crap to p99 I'll find another way to relax. I like the people on p99, the "you won't box your own raid" scene is pretty dam good. I'd consider going back to the live servers if and only if things were ran just like they are ran on p99; which I don't see happening. Something tells me I'm not alone.

[Cassawary]

WR took the excuse to blow up the moon zones

@Elon get on it