Licensing in MWLL

[lordrushx1]

Ok, Sorry , I must intervene on the last comment Landros.
Trademarks will expire by law after 10 years unless the owner files an Application for Renewal before the end of the tenth year following the date of registration,which..I highly doubt that occured with EA. Part of the reason EA shut MPBT3025 down was due to the electronic licensing MS said EA owed and quite frankly ,didnt want to pay.
So..In technical terms, since the 10 years of the trademark has yet to expire...that would mean EA still at least retains the "namesake" to the time period of 3025. However..this HAS been stated by EA ,since the acquiring from S&T that they no longer carry any relationship to the said namesake. Which ultimatley lands in the hands of Jordan.
If it is true what you are saying...this would mean that really Jordan is in the same boat as EA was. And for the life of me, I cannot accept that he would spend millions to retain just a namesake and in turn pay MS, the one nemisis he fought to get his work back from. It just doesnt make any sense.
As Red said...it isnt the fact that we are trying to get that side of attention here....EA and MS screwed all of us,we want to rid of it, forever.

[Landros Radick]

Ok, Sorry , I must intervene on the last comment Landros.
Trademarks will expire by law after 10 years unless the owner files an Application for Renewal before the end of the tenth year following the date of registration,which..I highly doubt that occured with EA. Part of the reason EA shut MPBT3025 down was due to the electronic licensing MS said EA owed and quite frankly ,didnt want to pay.
So..In technical terms, since the 10 years of the trademark has yet to expire...that would mean EA still at least retains the "namesake" to the time period of 3025. However..this HAS been stated by EA ,since the acquiring from S&T that they no longer carry any relationship to the said namesake. Which ultimatley lands in the hands of Jordan.
If it is true what you are saying...this would mean that really Jordan is in the same boat as EA was. And for the life of me, I cannot accept that he would spend millions to retain just a namesake and in turn pay MS, the one nemisis he fought to get his work back from. It just doesnt make any sense.
As Red said...it isnt the fact that we are trying to get that side of attention here....EA and MS screwed all of us,we want to rid of it, forever.

When/where did EA state that? I don't see how it ultimately lands in the hands of Jordan unless Jordan IS Wizkids (which he is not and has since left ownership of) and even so they were sold to Topps in 2004 and he went on to found 42 Entertainment.

This is where I think everyone has misconceptions about how Jordan feels about Microsoft. This is the same guy everyone was cursing when they announced the creation of Mechwarrior: DarkAge and leading the direction of MechAssault to Xbox. He was also a creative director at Microsoft for the entire entertainment division.. This is someone (from the Gamesutra Interview) who likes to do things in new ways and is constantly looking to constantly renovate his older creations..

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Jordan-Weisman

Jordan more than likely didn't spend "millions" to license the titles. In my previous post, I was referencing that inorder to obtain OWNERSHIP of the IP's, it would take millions.. which Microsoft probably wanted. Thus it was probably a budget buy for licensing the three IP's as I don't think spending millions would have been a very worthy investment for a new company working off new VC money unless they had something really exciting coming down the pipe soon.. which as far as we can tell, it only sounds moderate.

I don't like what Microsoft did to Mechwarrior 4 either, in fact I think it should have stayed with Zipper Interactive if anything, but that's not what happened.

I'm sorry if I burst any bubbles, as much as I want to believe that Smith and Tinker is the holy knight we all want to believe they are, I just have a very hard time believing that they actually retain the ownership and if they did, would do anything we would enjoy.

[lordrushx1]

First off I just want to this...this is not an argument, it is purely a debatable conversation. So, I am not attempting to call anyone a liar or bash someone for what I speak of.
With that said...I find it very hard to believe that someone would invest time and effort into creating a company with idea's or plans on continuing this universe, if they didnt have control.
I also find it very hard to believe that a VC would even consider dropping the financial backing needed/required to operate something of scale,without some idea of what it can expect in return of financial gain. After all, we are just speaking on a fan based level. Jordan however...even though his love is passionate, it is still number 1# a business, and the goal is to make money.
With what you have said here, realy, there is only speculation, and that goes for all of our comments.
Until Jordan comes out with a full blown mission statement describing his intent...it would appear that no one knows exactley for sure what is goingon. And whomever is saying keep this tight and behind closed door's are doing very well at keeping it as such.
Again, I just cant sit here and believe on a business level that Jordan would only get part of what he truly wants in order just to create. I really dont believe he himself has that financial gain. Support? Very possible...a Venture Capitalist may be involved, but are you going to tell me they aren't sitting somewhere asking "Where is my money"?
This isnt a community based driven company..this is a full on LLC. Although not public..I see it as only a matter of time.
As for EA...you may not have seen it on the web, but I personally know from coversation's with people from all walks of the EA,Kesmai and other companies that this is true. EA is now out of the picture.
Damn...where is Nick Laicona when ya need em

[Cujo]

for anyone who doesn't know any legal mumbo jumbo, an LLC is a limited liability company.  Which to my understanding is not very difficult to create.  ok what I would suggest to people, as this is a debate, that you would state your sources.  This will help resolve the question much quicker.

[Landros Radick]

First off I just want to this...this is not an argument, it is purely a debatable conversation. So, I am not attempting to call anyone a liar or bash someone for what I speak of.
With that said...I find it very hard to believe that someone would invest time and effort into creating a company with idea's or plans on continuing this universe, if they didnt have control.
I also find it very hard to believe that a VC would even consider dropping the financial backing needed/required to operate something of scale,without some idea of what it can expect in return of financial gain. After all, we are just speaking on a fan based level. Jordan however...even though his love is passionate, it is still number 1# a business, and the goal is to make money.
With what you have said here, realy, there is only speculation, and that goes for all of our comments.
Until Jordan comes out with a full blown mission statement describing his intent...it would appear that no one knows exactley for sure what is goingon. And whomever is saying keep this tight and behind closed door's are doing very well at keeping it as such.
Again, I just cant sit here and believe on a business level that Jordan would only get part of what he truly wants in order just to create. I really dont believe he himself has that financial gain. Support? Very possible...a Venture Capitalist may be involved, but are you going to tell me they aren't sitting somewhere asking "Where is my money"?
This isnt a community based driven company..this is a full on LLC. Although not public..I see it as only a matter of time.
As for EA...you may not have seen it on the web, but I personally know from coversation's with people from all walks of the EA,Kesmai and other companies that this is true. EA is now out of the picture.
Damn...where is Nick Laicona when ya need em

I'm in agreement that this has now turned into a debate in regards to our speculation. With that said, I still see no proof that what Smith and Tinker has called "Licensing" is in fact full ownership of the IP, nor can that be said as Licensing is a very different from a transfer or buyout of an IP. No amount of believing will change the fact that the Trademark is still with Microsoft and Smith and Tinker is currently licensing from them unless you can provide a reputable source that says otherwise. Doing some more digging, I did find that they DID buy the Crimson Skies property outright, but have only licensed Shadowrun and Mechwarrior.

Speculatively, I do believe they intend to buy the ownership of the IP's after they have either attained an investment amount that will allow them to do so or through product development. The company can still create and continue with idea's without a full ownership and dependent upon the deal they struck with Microsoft, can still be profitable. I can fully believe that is what is going on because I have seen this happen with my own two eyes in the past with Zipper Interactive, Microprose and Microsoft.

I have no doubt's the VC's are sitting somewhere asking "Where is my money" but as with all VC's they have to give a certain amount of time for development of products, of which S&T has not even announced any to the public. The company isn't community driven.. YET. Every company becomes community driven in regards to their established audience. Depending on what their product is or the direction they are bringing their product, the community and audience they have acquired will determine the direction to go either by direct feedback or the purchases of said product (or lack thereof). That's a large generalization for any company, but it's literally supply and demand.

I have had no illusions that EA isn't out of the picture since the disbanding of Kesmai and the cancellation of MPBT3025. What I don't believe happened is that the Videogame trademark of Battletech went to Smith and Tinker by default as there is no indication or even evidence it has done so. That was it for EA.. and the license, in whatever way it got there, is now with Microsoft or so says the US Governments trademark website... which was filed for registration in 2002 and granted in 2004.

Venture Capitalist sources:
http://www.foundrygroup.com/blog/archives/2008/06/our-investment-in-smith-tinker.php
http://www.ryanmcintyre.com/blog/archives/2008/06/smith-tinker-1.php

[PanzerBoxb]

Doing some more digging, I did find that they DID buy the Crimson Skies property outright, but have only licensed Shadowrun and Mechwarrior.

<threadjack>

Boy, I really hope they redo Crimson Skies to take advantage of today's system capabilities.  The original PC game was a bit on the arcade side but fun none the less.  A remake with cooperative single player would be friggin sweet.

</threadjack>

[Cujo]

I enjoy the xbox game for crimson skies.  It would be very cool if they remade it and made a GOOD movie of it (good director, good cast, etc...).  I think it's got a good story to it and with how far CG has come it would look pretty sweet.  The only issue is that if you got a bad director it would just flop, like eragon, great books, very poor movie.