Quote from FuryoIn these positions, you're given access to extremely sensitive information that can totally destroy the next few years of the company if they were to come out.
Like what? I can't imagine what sort of information could be enough to "destroy the next few years of a company". There's a ton of secrecy about stuff in games, and I've never really "gotten" it.
Seems to me like a non-compete is less about keeping secrets and more about "If I can't have it, nobody can!"
Quote from JetsetlemmingDude Silverman joined 3DRealms as a teenager as his one and only game development job, and he wasn't seeking it out either. He saw how neat Wolfenstein 3d was as a kid and tried to recreate it on his own with Ken's Labyrinth, sent a floppy of it to ID/Apogee/Epic Megagames, and he ended up getting head-hunted by that circle of Texas developers. He started work on the Build engine when he was only 18. I doubt he could read a single sentence of the contract he was handed, and didn't care because surely these nice cool game development guys wouldn't screw him over!
LOL are you for real? Seriously. Drop the fanboy crap. I'm sure he was a good programmer and the BUILD engine is legendary but to say that "ohhh he was only 18 he couldnt read this contract".... come on dude, seriously. I was 18 when I got my first game dev job and was over the moon about it. That doesn't mean my brain stopped working and I didn't know what I was getting myself into. When you're 18 and you sign a contract with a 3 year non-compete clause you accept the risk that it could screw you over if something happened to the company/project. You accept it by signing it. This is the real world, the games biz was a business even back then. We all deal with these contracts and we all get screwed over by them in one way or an other.
Quote from JetsetlemmingThat put him (a guy people referred to at the time as "John Carmack's biggest rival") pretty much permanently out of the game industry.
As HP said, welcome to the real world. If you put your signature on something you are responsible.
Quote from JetsetlemmingHearsay
nice source of information.
I haven't heard anything like it and I honestly don't care. Go ask the 1000 laid off EA employees if they got their royalty checks.
Quote from FuryoOn the subject of non compete contracts, us low level devs would never have to sign one
Did Ubi finally take them off their contracts for "regular" employees? I know I signed one but I also knew they didn't really enforce them for artists/designer type employees.
Quote from JetsetlemmingLike what? I can't imagine what sort of information could be enough to "destroy the next few years of a company". There's a ton of secrecy about stuff in games, and I've never really "gotten" it.
Seems to me like a non-compete is less about keeping secrets and more about "If I can't have it, nobody can!"
Well he was the CEO of Ubisoft Montreal, which is one of the (the?) most largest production studios in the world. He had access to the entire Ubisoft strategy for the next few years at least, titles in production, planned projects, financial information and who knows what else... It's quite normal for CEO types to sign non-competes but as Furyo said it doesn't really matter for them if they can't work for 1 year because the money they got for signing it pays a years worth of CEO-level salary anyway...
You sound bitter, dude. Sure, he's far from alone in being screwed over. But that doesn't mean that it's not a shame. Think of where the game industry might be today if we got a Build 2 to compete with IDTech3 and Unreal. Hell, Ken's Laybrinth was published by Epic, think of how differently the Unreal engine itself might've turned out if Epic had picked up Silverman post-Duke3d.
I'm not bitter I just don't get why I should feel sorry for him because he signed a non-compete and is now regretting it or why I should blame 3DR for his situation. It's a shame yeah, but also signing a non-compete doesn't mean you can't do your own work in your spare time so why didn't he cook up this super amazing engine you are talking about at home in his 3 years off? It seems like he just disappeared. Surely if he was half as great as you're making him sound he could have done SOMETHING that would have impressed people.
Quote from kleinlukasigning a non-compete doesn't mean you can't do your own work in your spare time so why didn't he cook up this super amazing engine you are talking about at home in his 3 years off?
http://www.advsys.net/ken/voxlap.htm
http://voxelstein3d.blogspot.com/2008/0 ... n-3-d.html
It's really neat. 
Obviously not commercial-quality but it's made by one guy in his parent's basement, forging a path of 3d that pretty much nobody else has done significant work in, so there's no online tutorials or other people's work to build off of here.
But it wasn't enough to get him picked up again ?
He doesn't want to get back in the industry or do anything with it as far as I know.
Quote from JetsetlemmingHe doesn't want to get back in the industry or do anything with it as far as I know.
So... why the hate? Move on and deal with this fanboy'ism crap.
I'm with Klein on this one, it's none of my business if he was an idiot and signed such a contract.... stuff like that happens every day deal with it dude. When you join this industry you learn that it's all about money and sales sooner or later and the more cold and professional you are the less chances of being exploited you have. People tend to be too passionate about the industry thinking it's all love and fun but it's not. It's a job like any other.
If what you are saying is true and he was 18 when he signed the contract and didn't even consult a lawyer before than he's even a bigger idiot imo. I always try to get any contracts read by a lawyer before I sign anything. It's common sense.
These contracts are also only valid for the area they were signed in usually. If you consider that 3d realms had ID software and Epic as neighbours it makes a lot of sense to come up with a non-compete clause for such a key guy.
I wonder why Levelord didn't have any problems leaving 3d realms if they were so abusive with their contracts....
I wonder why Levelord didn't have any problems leaving 3d realms if they were so abusive with their contracts....
Because he's levelord.
But according to him in the interview he just went back to study for a couple of years, and he's happy with 3drealms. That makes much more sense considering their reputation and past actions.
Thank you, Jetsetlemming, for making this thread hilarious.
I try.
I've been replying the Cave Voxlap demo and man is it fun to do nothing but just shoot little procedurally generated cubes and have them blow up.
[attachment=0]Voxlapcave.JPG[/attachment]
i still don't see how this compares to carmack sorry.. 
Quote from kleinlukai still don't see how this compares to carmack sorry..
To get the comparison between carmack and silverman you have to look at what they were doing when they were both making commercial games- Build engine vs Doom 2/Quake engine (Quake came out half a year after Duke3d).
Quote from JetsetlemmingTo get the comparison between carmack and silverman you have to look at what they were doing when they were both making commercial games- Build engine vs Doom 2/Quake engine (Quake came out half a year after Duke3d).
...and was infinatly better.
Sorry mate, but kleins got a point. Sure he was one of the forefathers of the big 3d games biz we got now, and he could be compared to carmack during that time but he still failed later on, which in turn makes it hard to compare the two now.
I don't know how anybody could say Quake was better than Duke, especially now. Quake's a very brown shooter and is hard to play it for longer than 10 minutes without getting an eyesore, while Duke's amazingly fun even today, especially with source ports. Quake 2 and 3 are excellent, but Quake 1 is pretty bad.
engine is not the same as texture color.
Besides, quake spawned a lot of mods (and half-life).
Quote from JetsetlemmingI don't know how anybody could say Quake was better than Duke, especially now. Quake's a very brown shooter and is hard to play it for longer than 10 minutes without getting an eyesore, while Duke's amazingly fun even today, especially with source ports. Quake 2 and 3 are excellent, but Quake 1 is pretty bad.
it's hardly the fault of the engine that everything is brown. generally speaking about features i'd say that the quake one engine beats the build engine. i mean, you had 6DoF in quake whereas you didn't in build.
3D Realms: We're Not Dead, Take-Two's Lawsuit BaselessResponding to a just-filed Take-Two lawsuit over Duke Nukem Forever, creator 3D Realms is claiming that it will continue as "a much smaller studio", and rebutting several of T2's lawsuit claims.
In an official press release sent to the game media, un-named 3D Realms company representatives have debuted the following update on the company's plight.
As previously documented, development on the long in-development Duke Nukem Forever recently ceased, with the vast majority of the team being laid off.
As recently noted, the official 3D Realms website currently has a 'Goodbye' post with a picture of the full Duke Nukem Forever team inside the company's Texas offices.
However, 3DR representatives have made the following statement regarding the developer and the lawsuit circumstances, claiming the developer will continue to exist as a much smaller entity:
"In light of recent press articles and statements by Take-Two (to the media and in a lawsuit), we want to set the record straight on some issues.
Despite rumors and statements to the contrary, 3D Realms (3DR) has not closed and is not closing. 3DR retains ownership of the Duke Nukem franchise. Due to lack of funding, however, we are saddened to confirm that we let the Duke Nukem Forever (DNF) development team go on May 6th, while we regroup as a company. While 3DR is a much smaller studio now, we will continue to operate as a company and continue to license and co-create games based upon the Duke Nukem franchise.
As some of you may know, Take-Two filed a lawsuit last week containing various accusations and claims against 3DR and the uncompleted DNF game. Take-Two never paid 3DR advances or any signing bonus or any other funds related to DNF, up until July 2008, at which time they paid $2.5m in connection with another agreement for an unannounced game.
This is the sum total Take-Two has paid 3DR in connection with DNF. Take-Two claims that they paid $12m to GT Interactive/Infogrames to acquire the publishing rights for the DNF game. To be clear, 3DR was not a party to that transaction and did not receive any money from it. When the DNF game was originally signed with GT Interactive in 1998, GT paid 3DR a $400,000 signing bonus. Up until July 2008, this was the only publisher money we received for the DNF game. Meanwhile, 3DR put over $20m into the production of DNF.
Take-Two retains publishing rights for the DNF game, although 3DR retains certain rights to sell the game directly to the public. Late last year, 3DR began negotiations with Take-Two to provide funding to complete the DNF game. In the meantime, 3DR was hitting mutually-agreed milestones, despite not having a new agreement finalized.
Take-Two was well aware that 3DR needed the funding to continue the DNF game development. Suddenly, after months of negotiations, Take-Two materially changed the parameters of the proposed funding agreement. 3DR informed Take-Two that it could not financially afford the changes Take-Two was suggesting and would be forced to release the team if an agreement was not reached.
Take-Two made a last minute proposal to acquire the Duke Nukem franchise and the 3DR development team. Take-Two's proposal was unacceptable to 3DR for many reasons, including no upfront money, no guarantee minimum payment, and no guarantee to complete the DNF game. From 3DR's perspective, we viewed Take-Two as trying to acquire the Duke Nukem franchise in a "fire sale." Those negotiations fell through on May 4th, a deal never materialized, and the DNF team was sadly released a few days later.
Less than a week after the DNF team was released, Take-Two filed its lawsuit in New York, seeking immediate temporary injunctive relief. The court denied Take-Two's request for a temporary restraining order. While we cannot comment on the details of the ongoing lawsuit, we believe Take-Two's lawsuit is without merit and merely a bully tactic to obtain ownership of the Duke Nukem franchise. We will vigorously defend ourselves against this publisher."
Gamasutra will have more details on the lawsuit and Take-Two's position regarding Duke Nukem Forever as public statements are made.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_i ... tory=23681
Round 2 begins 
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