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Revvin
Oct-20-2014, 14:55
As if our wallets hadn't taken enough strain in recent months with new modules and the recent sale VEAO Simulations has opened pre-orders for the Hawk. There are two versions available for pre-order - one with the Standard Flight Model (SFM) available for $31.99 and the other version has the Advanced External Flight Model (EFM) version is available for pre-purchase at $39.99. If you buy the Advanced External Flight Model (EFM) you will get the SFM during the open beta and then receive the EFM version as a free upgrade when the final version is released. Pre-orders are currently being taken on VEAO's site but will also be available on ED's store and Steam soon apparently. http://veaosimulations.co.uk/dcs-hawk/presale/

ATAG_Freya
Oct-20-2014, 21:56
Wow! I thought this project was scrapped. Good to see it's got ... wings. legs. whatever. :thumbsup:

LuseKofte
Oct-21-2014, 10:49
I never buy fighters, after this I never will. If you dont count the 109 K I preordered. This game for sure fuck up all my prestige

implicit A
Oct-27-2014, 14:18
done ! ;-)

never say never ! what about Prestige ?

for me : F-86 it was because it's a vintage one with rustic oldschool cockpit....
same for the Huey witch i finally love.
Used to say i'll never fly german. But I'm inlove with the Dora now, and I've preordered BF109 k too.
FC 3 it was because of september massive sale. but it's hard for me to dogfight with missiles ... I prefer guns in its six.

Hawk : i really enjoy its look of a "baby trainer jet" wich looks predictable and nice aerobatics abilities ....

Black034
Oct-27-2014, 14:45
Posted 45 minutes ago in their News section:


VEAO Simulations

46 minutes ago
VEAO Simulations

Hi Guys,

Unfortunately I have some not so good news on our A-4 Skyhawk projects.

As a responsible developer one of our golden rules is that we will not develop a module without an agreement or waiver from an aircraft manufacturer, its common knowledge that this was one of the main hold ups with development of the Hawk.

As such we have been in talks with McDonnell Douglas (A division of Boeing) regarding obtaining agreements for the A-4C and the A-4M Skyhawks.

Sadly the terms offered to us in exchange for the licence are not economically viable for the project to continue. Therefore we have to stop works on the Skyhawk and park the project indefinitely.

Obviously this is a disappointing development not least for the DCS community but the members from the VEAO development team who have put blood sweat and tears into the project.

I want to publically thank the members of the Skyhawk development team for their hard work and commitment to this project.

But one thing in life is for sure, as one door closes another one opens.

Obviously due to the sensitive nature of commercial discussions such as this there is only limited amount of information that we can divulge in public but true to the nature of the relationship Chris and I work hard to maintain with you all we wanted to bring you this news as soon as we were able.

On behalf of everyone at VEAO we thank you for your understanding regarding this announcement.

Pman
VEAO Consumer Products Manager.

Source (http://veaosimulations.co.uk/veao-news/)

Combat Wombat
Oct-27-2014, 15:53
Regarding A-4 Skyhawk projects. Who would of thought with so much work completed it would be shelved . sad.

Foul Ole Ron
Oct-27-2014, 16:58
TL/DR it's a grey area currently in case law that companies can exploit for a free revenue stream as developers have to weigh up infringements court case costs against licensing at the beginning. It appears to really depend on the company in question and the extent of the rights that they claim to hold and how protective they are of their IP. Personally I think VEAO could tell Boeing to jog on but that could mean court cases, etc. and they won't have the time and money to go the distance with these guys.

Some companies just claim trademark rights i.e. the use of the name and require that game developers, toy manufacturers, etc. get a licence from them to use these trademarks. From what I can tell Northrop Grumman falls under this category. They also grant a free licence for artists to produce reproductions of their aircraft accompanied by their trademark provided that the run doesn't go over 5,000 and that the artist basically does a decent job.

Other companies go further and will claim trademark, copyright and trade dress to protect their IP. In the Textron v EA case brought over BF3 Textron alleged that in addition to their trademark being infringed that trade dress was as well i.e. that even if EA left off the trademark the designs were sufficiently well known that users could infer that Textron had endorsed the product somehow.

This would tie in with how e.g. Warthunder have licensed. The Grumman planes just mention the names while the Bell and Lockheed planes specifically mention the body designs as well. Similarly in DCS the Huey had to be fully licensed. I would think that it probably gets more important as the fidelity of the simulation rises as people could infer that the original manufacturer provided some expertise and knowledge to help make it more realistic. This was applied in the BF3 case which is about as far as realistic as it gets so the likes of DCS would have more difficulty here.

World of Warplanes take a different tack and don't appear to licence explicitly as they obviously don't have much fidelity that they're simulating. They go with the trademarks are owned by their owners and, with a nod to the EA case, state that users shouldn't infer any sort of endorsement by the owners of the trademarks. Though this statement of non-endorsement didn't seem to initially stand up in the EA case where their motion to have the counter-claim dismissed based on this type of text was denied as conceivably users could miss the text (though this wasn't a definitive ruling on the matter in question – just an initial decision to not dismiss the counter-claim). In the EULA WoW mention that some trademarks may have been licensed from third parties though they make no specific mention.

To be honest while it might be more difficult to argue against trademark infringement I'm not convinced at all by claims of copyright or trade dress when it comes to companies looking to protect their designs being used in games - especially designs that are no longer manufactured and were possible due to the US taxpayer in the first place. Also these companies didn't really look to protect their IP on WW2 planes for a long time. They were happy to let people use representations of their designs in model toys, etc. for decades as they saw it as free advertising. Was only fairly recently that they changed their approach and saw the whole trademark / copyright protection as a potential source of revenue. There's also some tests to qualify for trade dress infringement such as functionality and I don't believe that the holder would win when it comes to planes such as the Skyhawk or for any other WW2 planes.

Unfortunately until somebody is willing to go the distance with one of these companies to get a definitive ruling we're stuck with the situation where a company might look to enforce its IP with a developer and this can be applied to more than just the trademark name by some companies. The trademark name is just generally going to be the first thing they’ll hit you with for flight sims as developers typically want to use the name. However if a developer tried to get around that by entering the wrong name of the plane but leaving it open to edit by the user so they could put in the right name I think some companies would resort to other means to challenge this.

With some older or smaller games they might not have bothered and it's possible that some smaller developers could fly under the radar but developers with millions of players / subscribers are going to be targeted as a free revenue stream for these companies. EA decided to back away from the fight and just pony up which is unfortunate as they probably had a pretty good case. They obviously decided that it was cheaper, quicker and less risky for them to just enter into a licensing agreement with Textron than fight on first amendment or fair use grounds.

Movies, books, music, etc. have always been able to use these trademarks without infringement as they have artistic relevance. Court cases have recently granted the same rights to video games. If a company that produces games can get the court to agree that the use of these trademarks / designs in their games had some level of artistic relevance then the likes of Textron and Grumman can't claim infringement. Even if there was no artistic relevance developers could still use the trademarks without infringement provided that the user would not infer endorsement by the holder. This is where highly realistic simulators might have some issues and a blanket text statement might not be sufficient and a definitive ruling would be needed.

Having said that the courts are very sympathetic generally to the defendants in these sort of cases - the bar for artistic relevance is set extremely low (basically anything over completely zero relevance) so maybe in the near future we'll get some positive changes. A developer could say something along the lines of "we're telling the story of the Falklands War and the pilots who fought in the air war during that time" and could argue artistic relevance in that they want to give the users of the game the most realistic game experience possible. Personally I think a court would look favourably on that argument but some company would have to be ready to risk it and go through all the hassle which the likes of VEAO / ED won’t.

Combat Wombat
Oct-27-2014, 22:07
thanks for the information Foul Ole Ron It's eye opening and interesting but also sad when it comes to small business .

Foul Ole Ron
Oct-28-2014, 06:35
It is sad alright - the model toy industry which had a lot of small cottage industry businesses operating in it was decimated when these large multinationals suddenly started to enforce their IP when they hadn't for decades. Usually when a company doesn't enforce it's IP for a long time it becomes difficult for them to start doing it however I guess the relatively small model toy industry didn't have the deep pockets to properly challenge them.

Even flight sims as detailed as DCS are still games at the end of the day - they're not professional simulators. As such they should be granted artistic relevance and probably would be if they were able to go to court and fight off these money grubbers. Last year EA went and told gun manufacturers that they weren't paying them licence fees anymore citing artistic relevance so hopefully this will get expanded so relatively minor game manufacturers won't have to worry about some multinational company looking to take an undeserved percentage for themselves.