Been Quiet Here on the Personal Front

So I haven’t posted in a while. I have a good reason though. Since aroung Thanksgiving time, I’ve been sinking a lot of time into a company I started, Venom Game Labs, LLC. It is basically a company who’s entire goal is to take all the mod makers and indie developers that I can find who are willing to work for free (temporarily) to create a marketable project and sell it. Its pretty cool, I suggest you check it out.

A second note, that actually just caught my attention was the fact that Eric Smith (one of the former programmers, and original creators of the Firearms Half-Life mod) created a website http://www.firearmsgame.com. It is a simple, short, and sweet website that basically sums up all of the rumors flying around about the Firearms: Source versus Firearms 2 fiasco. On that site, he talks about siding with FA2 because they “rescued” the mod. Now, my opinion is that he is correct. The FA2 team, which I was a member of for quite some time, did indeed rescue Firearms. The reason I say this is because I know first-hand, as do many others, what the original Firearms team (myself included) intended to do with the mod after the release of Half-Life 2. The intention was to leave it alone, for good, let it die. I wasn’t happy about doing this, but at the time I no longer had the time to keep plugging away at it. So I also had to let it fall by the way-side. Then a few years later, I had found out that a new Firearms mod was starting for the Source Engine–Firearms 2. Naturally I wanted in on it, I loved working on the first version. So I joined up and started working for a while, then got busy with real-life slapping me in the face and had to go on hiatus for a while.

Once I returned to working on FA2 I found out that Firearms: Source had started up and had been spreading a lot of nasty rumors about how the entire Firearms 2 team are a bunch of theives, etc. Which to me, was a complete lie. Nobody stole anything. We simply went through slightly drastic measures to revive the interest in the game. Keep in mind, this happened well before Firearms: Source even existed. So now this mod, coming out of nowhere, claims they’re the “official sequel” to Firearms because the original creators condoned it. Well, last I checked, the “original” creators left it to die and now just want a peice of the pie once they’ve discovered Firearms 2′s existence. In fact, the REAL creator of Firearms was Eric Smith, and it is his words of approval that are reassuring to us over at the Firearms 2 team.

Now, here’s the kicker, and this has nothing to do with Eric’s talent as a programmer, and his status as the original creator of Firearms. My problem with his statements is that he’s claiming to OWN the “intellectual property” of Firearms. He also claims he can prove this–he has “documentation” supporting this claim. Now, yes its widely accepted that he’s the creator, but when he tries to play the “ip infringement card” on people who want to take the game public and market it, it appears as if he is simply trying to ride the coat-tails of the Firearms name. When he infact, did NOTHING to the new contributions of the game. He has been asked by various members of the community to provide these documents, but they are never produced.

I have a problem with that. If you’re going to make such a bold statement such as “I OWN <xyz> intellectual property” then you better be able to back it up and not simply threaten law suit on someone who supposedly “infringes” upon it. So, I challenge you, Eric Smith, to prove this to everyone. Prove that you actually OWN the Firearms property, and show me the laws that state that Firearms 2, or even Firearms: Source, cannot continue without your consent. I’ve looked for trademarks and copyrights in the US patent and copyright office for anything containing your name. Do you know what I’ve found? Nothing. Yes, nothing. So where is your documentation? Why don’t you just send it over to me in an email. When you send it, I’ll provide it to the nay-sayers and you can indeed claim your place as the “owner of Firearms”.