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A Financial report to all 11,656 Registered players


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Hello this is your Dusty Old Bookkeeper again!
I sincerely apologize to all players for not posting a financial report sooner!
I Will be doing this annually from now on !

[i]Here we go .. [/i]

First, let's say that this financial report is overdue. There have been several changes and problems that had to be dealt with on the hardware level before we could make a comprehensive accounting to you all, and explain what has been going on, and what is ahead.

As most players know we have switched servers as our contract(s) ran out on the other ones and costs were going through the roof, so we upgraded to newer servers to try to control costs. We also added a web server to the package for redundancy and to prevent services from becoming unavailable if we have technical problems with one of the other machines and it also increases overall reliability and performance with the newer technology.


[b]Basic cost breakdowns are as follows :[/b]

Server OS Software cost: $115.80 USD /mth
Web Server cost: $191.08 USD /mth
Play & Development server machine cost: $767.90 USD /mth
Microsoft Sharepoint Development Collaboration system: $ 30.00 USD /mth
DevExpress Development Package cost: $ 67.00 USD /mth


So monthly project costs without any NEW Software cost : $1171.78 USD per month

We only have the Donations goal currently set at $750.00 per month. While we had a reserve coming into the year, attempting to maintain the monthly costs on the current servers and required expenses, this has caused us to evacuate a large portion of the balance.

Given the above information to prevent the project's failure or to avoid any cutting back in the development progress being made, we need to raise the donations immediately to a functional level to account for price hikes and changes in the respective economies of both the US and the UK. We're thinking that a new goal of $1225.00 USD per month allows us to maintain current services and reserve a little for any newer development issues that may arise.

In a perfect world, with 11,656 registered accounts (while we are pretty sure that many aren't active) at this time, or assuming multiple accounts from the same individual or family (no more than 3 in general) so we'll divide that number to get: 3885.33 estimated unique players accounts. If everyone were to donate, costs would be covered by an amount of 0.32 cents per person. Not everyone can afford to donate and we understand that, we just wanted to break it down for all to see.

With all that said, thank you to those who do donate to these goals. We are very appreciative of your contributions and want to give E&B back to you in all of its former glory (and then some!).

Your Dusty old Bookkeeper,
Satanicexhile / Rich J

THANK YOU TO THE DONATORS! AS YOU MAKE THIS PROJECT POSSIBLE FOR ALL!!!
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Well paid my 2% or so it says...to the monthly fee...or so it says...i see......on the little bar thingy.

on another point

you should prob PIN this yearly report someplace (if you have not done so already) maybe
as a small tag next to the donations for a guick view of where the $$$$ are going for as an FYI kinda
thing...people can see what bang they are getting for their $$$$


anyway keep up the good work satan (urg...accounts yech)

my 2c worth

Searing
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SharePoint?

Eeeek. I do SP development... not the most fun thing either. I hope you are able to use service that offers SharePoint Foundation Server/2010 as opposed to MOSS 2007. As a (more or less) 3rd iteration, Microsoft seems to be following typical form in that the third release of a product is usually much, much improved (in terms of it being ready for public consumption).

Anyway, good to see where the money is being spent :o
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[quote name='dufke' timestamp='1301886416' post='38177']
how to donate without paypal (needs visa)? i dont have visacard
[/quote]

What are the major payment systems in Belgium? (I'm not familiar with them offhand, but we can work with our providers to see if there's a way we can accommodate you.)
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  • 2 weeks later...
Could add more payment options...these are the most common used for gaming.

[b]PayPal[/b] - Which you already have, don't much care for them, an will never use them since a friend got his account hacked though them loosing money.

[url="https://www.alertpay.com/en/Default.aspx"][b]AlertPay[/b][/url] - Almost like paypal but much better Coverage and payment solutions, alertpay is also supported in those countries where paypal is not.

[b][url="http://www.moneybookers.com/app/"]MoneyBookers[/url][/b] - Moneybookers charges $2.45 USD per withdrawal plus a 1.99% to their wholesale exchange rates while Paypal charges $5.00 USD plus an exchange rate of a 2.5% plus a 3.4% + $0.30 USD each time you get paid, also it's useful for people with foreign banks.

[b][url="http://www.playspan.com/"]PlaySpan[/url] [/b]-[b] [/b]More an more people seem to be using this method, since people use it for [size="2"]for online games, mobile apps, social networks, and online videos[/size]...though if you added this feature you would likely have to have pay for extra's in the game. Edited by Drifter
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I know to some this may sound like sacrilege, but you may be able to better save the game if you considered micro transactions to buy boosters or some ingame items for donations. I play on a Classic World of Warcraft server thats great fun that sells ingame items to pay for their server.

Before the I get put up on the cross for mentioning it, have a look at their operation here.
http://vanillagaming.org/

Take some time to see how they run donations if your interested.

Even voting for the server to gain it publicity on another site can land members a few ingame gold.

I will start donating next payday no matter what. I don't want to lose E&B again. I played the original from phase 4 beta to the day the servers were turned off. To the very last minute. This game is to good to let slip away forever.

Just trying to help.
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[quote name='Spotlore' timestamp='1303137011' post='39319']
I know to some this may sound like sacrilege, but you may be able to better save the game if you considered micro transactions to buy boosters or some ingame items for donations. I play on a Classic World of Warcraft server thats great fun that sells ingame items to pay for their server.

Before the I get put up on the cross for mentioning it, have a look at their operation here.
http://vanillagaming.org/

Take some time to see how they run donations if your interested.

Even voting for the server to gain it publicity on another site can land members a few ingame gold.

I will start donating next payday no matter what. I don't want to lose E&B again. I played the original from phase 4 beta to the day the servers were turned off. To the very last minute. This game is to good to let slip away forever.

Just trying to help.
[/quote]


well the emulator to its credit follows ALL THE RULES on how emulators are supposed to function...ie
we keep kudo's to EA on the startup logo etc on them orig developing the game...we are non-profit ie all $$ go for equip/inet services etc for keeping the abandonware game up for us hobby type users all the dots are there and t's are crossed so we are legit (you can imagine we really really want to be legit under the law in how we run this for fun abandonware non profit project (not that it has anything to do with EA being a giant corp or anywthing ....er anyway)

so i very likely COULD be wrong here but such things as making travel mugs and t-shirts and models and micro transactions in game for rank etc features....well imho i think that prob would be pushing it ...

right now all is transparent and all $$ go for things to keep the game up or get the game where it was or hardware etc....so no fat in the system for minimal needed to actually do the goal of an emulator...ie keep the game up and playable when abandoned...thus the kudo's to EA for their part in dev of game on logon screen and the rest of how it is setup here

now by all means if i'm incorrect and others can explain this more fully feel free i'd really like to be incorrect and get a t-shirt...but i think that is where it stands right now we are really really spot on the rules for such endeavors as an emulator don't want to push it too far

but hey things change maybe i'm wrong those more informed then myself (practially anyone) can chime in

my 2c worth

Searing
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[quote name='Wikipedia']
[b]Abandonware[/b] are discontinued products for which no product support is available, or whose copyright ownership may be unclear for various reasons. Abandonware may be computer software or physical devices which are usually computerised in some fashion, such as personal computer games, productivity applications, utility software, or mobile phones.Definitions of "abandoned" vary; generally it refers to a product that is no longer available for legal purchase, over the age where the product creator feels an obligation to continue to support it, or where Operating Systems or [color="#ba0000"]hardware platforms[/color] have evolved to such a degree that the creator feels continued support cannot be financially justified. Software companies and manufacturers may change their names, go bankrupt, enter into mergers, or cease to exist for a variety of reasons. When this happens, product rights are usually transferred to another company that may elect not to sell or support products acquired.

In most cases, software classed as abandonware is not in the public domain, as it has never had its original copyright revoked and some company or individual still owns exclusive rights. Therefore, downloading such software is usually considered copyright infringement, though in practice copyright holders rarely enforce their abandonware copyrights.
[/quote]

Please stop with the Abandonware thing, its not real in most respects except where a copyright is unclear, this is not Abandonware. EA may no longer support it, but there is a very clear copyright in effect that has never waivered. You'd have a hard time proving it in court. This invalidates the term 'Abandonware' being applied to it.

In terms of money making, we aren't out for profit and won't be with this project seeing as the content isn't completely ours and so on, thus we try to avoid making income; however, if all else failed we would switch to advertising and hope for the best I would guess. Several members of the board would be steady against the idea of microtransactions, so we'd have to be pretty desperate for that to happen, I think. It may be a valid option someday but we're loathe to put that into the game because it tends to turn off a lot of people, particularly the ones who can't afford to pay RL money for in-game items.
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[quote name='Spotlore' timestamp='1303137011' post='39319']
I know to some this may sound like sacrilege, but you may be able to better save the game if you considered micro transactions to buy boosters or some ingame items for donations. I play on a Classic World of Warcraft server thats great fun that sells ingame items to pay for their server.

Before the I get put up on the cross for mentioning it, have a look at their operation here.
http://vanillagaming.org/

Take some time to see how they run donations if your interested.

Even voting for the server to gain it publicity on another site can land members a few ingame gold.

I will start donating next payday no matter what. I don't want to lose E&B again. I played the original from phase 4 beta to the day the servers were turned off. To the very last minute. This game is to good to let slip away forever.

Just trying to help.
[/quote]

Sorry to say but this is an impossible Idea.
There have been several Ideas that have been similar to this however it is not legal at all. Does not matter if this Vanilla gaming server is doing it or not, they are legally in the wrong and if they were ever found out for doing so they would get [b]sued big time[/b].

Most EULA's are generic in the fact that no Emulator project is allowed to make a profit in any way, nor are they allowed to sell "In Game Products" to support their server. One WoW emulator server did exactly this and was burned so bad they had to shut down and the "Owner" was charged with like 20-50 million dollar fine for selling in game items and making a profit.

We do not want this type of spot light on this project at all. In my honest opinion the advertising idea is borderline but it should not cause a big issue as long as its website only (Forum) and not directly on the launcher itself.

Not alot of people realize how serious a issue these Ideas can be, the Emulator project developers have to walk a fine line while maintaining the server. If anyone has any questions about it you should read the EULA that you accept every time you get into the game.

Dont take this as me burning you, I have been through alot of emulator projects and through alot of forums dealing in this issue and it dont matter what game you play all the EULA's are the same when it comes to this, Just repeating myself to the whole not just to you.

My 2 cents
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[quote name='dufke' timestamp='1301886416' post='38177']
how to donate without paypal (needs visa)? i dont have visacard
[/quote]
Ha Dufke...someone from the neighbourhood
For Paypal you dont need a Visa...you can deposit money on your Paypal-account using our most trustworthy Belgian postal service :P ;) :(
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  • 2 weeks later...
Here is another idea. Why not post actually receipts for the stuff that donations buy. I think if people see a full disclosure of where the money is spent it will be incentive for others to donate. Actual receipts, links to the server company so people can see cost for themselves, and an audit of the money spent by more than one person. Trust is earned but should never be taken for granted.
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[quote name='Satanicexhile HD-Gr' timestamp='1301790194' post='38106']
Server OS Software cost: $115.80 USD /mth
Web Server cost: $191.08 USD /mth
Play & Development server machine cost: $767.90 USD /mth
Microsoft Sharepoint Development Collaboration system: $ 30.00 USD /mth
DevExpress Development Package cost: $ 67.00 USD /mth


So monthly project costs without any NEW Software cost : $1171.78 USD per month
[/quote]
Weird that no one seems to be asking exactly why an emulator project would cost so much per month. I run 7 emulators (and am project leader for 2 of them, with dev teams and server resources), 12 websites, dozens of SVN repositories and file sharing resources. It costs me $100/mo for the internet service.

Exactly why does your OS Software cost, recurring monthly, $115? Linux is free. And Windows is a 1-time purchase, normally. The play/dev server hardware is $767.90 (very accurate, btw) recurring cost? You renting space? That seems rather silly. Buy a server, cost about as much, and own it.

Maybe EnB Emulator's goal is to become a profitable corporation for some. You guys pulling a paycheck for doing this work? That would explain a lot.

Not the EnBEmu I remember... and still looking for a playable public server for my collection ;) Haven't looked yet, but I'm guessing it's still not available for anyone but those holding the collection plate. You won't be able to rake in a profit if people like me ran a free public server... correct?
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Profit? Not even close I'm afraid. Nor do we receive any sort of pay. We don't have Linux and I believe he's made it relatively clear on costs. These are the costs we're charged on a monthly basis for renting dedicated servers through 1and1. We don't own the server box and we don't want to directly own it. It might be cheaper, but this way the game doesn't go out for a week or two while we fix hardware. If they have a hardware fault they swap it out for us, otherwise we manage it. Yes its more expensive, but in the long run, it ensures uptime on a much more efficient basis which I think everyone prefers to the idea of suddenly losing EnB again for half a month while we wait for parts. ;)

Windows 2k8R2 is the environment and they charge us monthly as indicated. We don't like that part so much ourselves, but we don't get to make the decision and we can't just install our own OS, they do that part for us via system images.
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[quote name='Maniac' timestamp='1303237922' post='39418']
Sorry to say but this is an impossible Idea.
There have been several Ideas that have been similar to this however it is not legal at all. Does not matter if this Vanilla gaming server is doing it or not, they are legally in the wrong and if they were ever found out for doing so they would get [b]sued big time[/b].

Most EULA's are generic in the fact that no Emulator project is allowed to make a profit in any way, nor are they allowed to sell "In Game Products" to support their server. One WoW emulator server did exactly this and was burned so bad they had to shut down and the "Owner" was charged with like 20-50 million dollar fine for selling in game items and making a profit.

We do not want this type of spot light on this project at all. In my honest opinion the advertising idea is borderline but it should not cause a big issue as long as its website only (Forum) and not directly on the launcher itself.

Not alot of people realize how serious a issue these Ideas can be, the Emulator project developers have to walk a fine line while maintaining the server. If anyone has any questions about it you should read the EULA that you accept every time you get into the game.

[b]Dont[/b] take this as me burning you, I have been through [b]alot[/b] of emulator projects and through [b]alot[/b] of forums dealing in this issue and it [b]dont[/b] matter what game you play all the EULA's are the same when it comes to this, Just repeating myself to the whole not just to you.
[/quote]

I think it's a ridiculous argument either way with any donation or profit, mmorpg's must be maintained. I seen a website that host millions of videos where as I can watch or view them for free no need to sign up. They still encourage you to donate. So far this site was taken to court for copyright infringement once by a foreign country named Malaysia. Malaysia lost it's case and the website won. They won due to them not making profit off of the site, but by using donations for the maintenance of it and possible the "fair use" act.

It's nice idea if they could market something that pertains to the Net-7 team and not EA's game entirely.
If a musicians can get away with changing one note in an entire song, that was already produce by another musicians. Then whats stopping the think tanks from selling merchandise that shows devotion and inspiration from the Net-7 team?
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[quote name='Orga2' timestamp='1305001566' post='40442']
I think it's a ridiculous argument either way with any donation or profit, mmorpg's must be maintained. I seen a website that host millions of videos where as I can watch or view them for free no need to sign up. They still encourage you to donate. So far this site was taken to court for copyright infringement once by a foreign country named Malaysia. Malaysia lost it's case and the website won. They won due to them not making profit off of the site, but by using donations for the maintenance of it and possible the "fair use" act.

It's nice idea if they could market something that pertains to the Net-7 team and not EA's game entirely.
If a musicians can get away with changing one note in an entire song, that was already produce by another musicians. Then whats stopping the think tanks from selling merchandise that shows devotion and inspiration from the Net-7 team?
[/quote]

It's difficult to follow just what you are saying but it appears that you are suggesting that because there's a *chance* that Net-7 could win in court against an infringement suit that it's worth it to conduct activities that might bring on such a suit. Understand - winning in court requires GOING to court. Going to court costs money - and typically the cost is directly proportional to the size of the opposing entity. EA is huge, Net-7 is small. If you follow the donation tracker you will see it's touch and go each month to make the amount required to pay all the costs - which is less than the fees any good attorney would require just to retain their services for such a case, let alone the actual billings that would later come.

If taking discontinued games, writing EMU's for them, and then profiting on them was such a sound business idea - why is it you don't see anyone else doing it?
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Once upon a time there was a SEGA game called 10six mmo fpsrpg that was amazing at its time. Sega started to lsoe money and figured they would sunset the project and move on to cell phone games (LOL) somehow a lead dev saw the community uproar and the game has been revived with a new name and its pretty much the exact same game minor graphics tweaks to change soemthing a lil bit

long story short he is doing what you guys do alone and manages with a subscription fee and what not a month and Sega hasn't looked at him once.


Game is called project visitor and hes theMartian
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[quote name='Celticwarrior' timestamp='1305029623' post='40467']
Once upon a time there was a SEGA game called 10six mmo fpsrpg that was amazing at its time. Sega started to lsoe money and figured they would sunset the project and move on to cell phone games (LOL) somehow a lead dev saw the community uproar and the game has been revived with a new name and its pretty much the exact same game minor graphics tweaks to change soemthing a lil bit

long story short he is doing what you guys do alone and manages with a subscription fee and what not a month and Sega hasn't looked at him once.


Game is called project visitor and hes theMartian
[/quote]

Sounds to me he bought the rights to the game if he is allowed to charge a subscription fee, this is the only way that I know of to get around such a legal issue.
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The company could just waive their rights in terms of copyright, but I don't think EA is likely to do that. If anything and we ever built enough of a player base for them to consider it profitable they might offer us a job running it again or something, but that would be about as good as it got. (And that's about as likely as me winning the lottery jackpot 3x whilst being struck by lightning 2x in the same spot.)
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[quote name='Kyp' timestamp='1305057139' post='40478']
The company could just waive their rights in terms of copyright, but I don't think EA is likely to do that. If anything and we ever built enough of a player base for them to consider it profitable they might offer us a job running it again or something, but that would be about as good as it got. (And that's about as likely as me winning the lottery jackpot 3x whilst being struck by lightning 2x in the same spot.)
[/quote]

During sunset a player had just inherited a large sum of money and contact EA's CEO and offered him ( and I can't remember correctly) between $10 to $100K for the game rights they said no. Of course this is what he told me, I wasn't there at EA.

I met this guy during the Las Vegas EvE game convention 4-5 years ago.

Bye the bye was anyone from today's EnB players base there?
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[quote name='Kyp' timestamp='1305071281' post='40485']
Of course not, they paid millions for C&C which was built on this (or a slightly modified version of this) engine. :)
[/quote]


Yup they are a greedy conglomerate of acquisitions. EA has bought several other things that the public has never even seen. Simple example like above with C&C, they've purchased company's/games/coding out from others just for the engine itself and tossed the game into their Vaults never to be seen/heard from.

Funny when I visited EA HQ and went into "The Vault" all the stuff over the years they have collected and locked away. Kinda funny in the scope of things now looking back, to them EnB was just another stepping stone/floor mat for them to wipe their feet on.

Shame as even when offered a couple million for EnB, they still refused...
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[quote name='Redd' timestamp='1305076953' post='40489']
Yup they are a greedy conglomerate of acquisitions. EA has bought several other things that the public has never even seen. Simple example like above with C&C, they've purchased company's/games/coding out from others just for the engine itself and tossed the game into their Vaults never to be seen/heard from.

Funny when I visited EA HQ and went into "The Vault" all the stuff over the years they have collected and locked away. Kinda funny in the scope of things now looking back, to them EnB was just another stepping stone/floor mat for them to wipe their feet on.

Shame as even when offered a couple million for EnB, they still refused...
[/quote]

Has anyone tried to find someone in EA to ask questions about the present possibility to buy the E&B title? What steps would one have to take? Who do I email or call in the EA company that can give informed answers about buying the game rights from the company? It would be interesting to see if they would be willing to sell it now, and if they are, how much would they be asking for it?

It would be very nice if my donation money would be put into a fund for letting the community buy the game from the company. Instead of walking on a sheet of thin ice, why not open some kind of negotiations to own the title and have the freedom to do with it as we please.

Like, release it as freeware to the community that helped buy it. :) Or some heroic thing like that.

Just pondering with optimistism.
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