Universal Combat Goes Free

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Universal Combat Goes Free


Battlecruiser [http://www.3000ad.com]series of games, has been released as freeware.

According to a Battlecruiser Millennium Gold [http://www.3000ad.com/site/news/], expired in December 2007, at which time 3000AD asked the publisher to destroy all remaining inventory of the games currently still in the field. In a statement on the site, Smart said that while the games were still generating income, his earnings for the past two years had gone unpaid and would be written off as a bad debt loss.

"That said, in keeping with the tradition of releasing my legacy games for free, I have repackaged the single player Universal Combat game and released it into the wild as freeware," Smart wrote on the site. "Once again, our freeware game is released with no advertising, no nag screens, no expiration date, nothing. Just the full (and patched) single player game as was commercially released in Feb 2004, but with fewer music tracks (the game FAQ shows how players can add their own MP3 tracks) and no multiplayer."

"The only condition under which our freeware games are released is that they not be sold under any circumstances, nor bundled as part of any commercial media (e.g. magazine cover discs) without my expressed written permission."

Also in keeping with Derek Smart tradition, the announcement of the release sparked an immediate and lengthy download section [http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=83832].


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MichaelAB

New member
Nov 21, 2007
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Wow! I had never really heard of Derek Smart before. After doing some poking around and reviewing history of the various controversies, including the latest flame war referenced above, I have to to believe that this guy is insane. I can't see any other reason for an adult to behave the way this guy appears to behave.
 

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
45,698
1
0
He's a bit of a paradox. On the one hand, he doesn't even pretend that he's not one of the most overbearing egomaniacs to ever write code, and he's always got his finger on the hair-trigger of an asshole gun. But on the other, his habit of releasing his games into the public domain after a certain number of years is laudable, and earns the guy some pretty serious props from where I sit. Regardless of what you think about him, his dedication to gaming is unquestionable, so I think it balances the scales pretty well.
 

MichaelAB

New member
Nov 21, 2007
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I agree that his market ideals are good. I don't care for the game interfaces, but like the concepts and styles of them. But, to quote Rodney Dangerfield, "He really seems to care. About what, I have no idea."