AGS accreditation

Started by Wiggy, Mon 16/07/2018 12:50:53

Previous topic - Next topic

Wiggy

I am not a serial pest, but I have another problem with the game I have just finished and played again twice to be sure. My copy of AGS 3.4.0 has a licence agreement which requires accreditation to Chris Jones as AGS author. When I release my game I will comply with this. This particular game doesn't have that, not in the opening nor closing credits.

The opening credits are author x 6, then Kevin MacLeod, then author x 2; the closing credits are author x 6, Kevin MacLeod x 5 and then author x 4. You ladies and gentlemen have been in this a lot longer than I, but something just doesn't gel with this game, particularly when it was released initially as a commercial game, and it cannot be found in the AGS database.

I thought twice about doing this, but the game is "Yago, the coquerrestrial", just so you are not kept in the dark. The game itself is fabulous - apart from tragic translation - so I'm not being bitchy, do devs need mentoring? Or is enough info available on the site? (I think so.) Do we need greater accessibility for people who speak another language?

Thoughts?

Crimson Wizard

#1
Quote from: Wiggy on Mon 16/07/2018 12:50:53My copy of AGS 3.4.0 has a licence agreement which requires accreditation to Chris Jones as AGS author.

Is this found in the manual? Unfortunately, documentation contains multiple topics that were not updated over many years.

I have to admit that do not remember if Chris Jones mentioned anything about this when he left the project. Perhaps someone does know?
Thing is that since 2011-12 the program no longer contains only work by Chris Jones, there were about couple of dozens of contributors. Our copyright sais simply "by Chris Jones et al." (with the full list of participants in a Credits article). But I do not know if we should enforce the rule of mentioning authors in the game anymore.

EDIT: there is this page on the website that probably is more up-to-date (though even that could be a bit old) http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/ags/legal/

Snarky

#2
I can't find this clause in the Manual, and I'm pretty sure it has never been enforced. I do think it's good practice and The Right Thing To Do to mention AGS in the credits, but it's not like it hard to tell that a game is made in AGS.

Also, there is no requirement to add a game to the AGS database: that's completely optional, and some people deliberately choose not to for various reasons.

I did find one similar section in the manual that is out of date. Under Frequently Asked Questions:

QuoteAdventure Game Studio is pretty much freeware. That means you may use it freely for non-commerical games, and you don't have to send me anything in return. There is one requirement - if you want to SELL a game you make, for profit, then you must contact me beforehand as there are some licensing issues which you may need to be aware of. When you finish your game, please do post it on the Announcements Forum and the Games Database so that everyone can give it a go.

This is no longer true (there's no need to contact CJ or anyone else about commercial AGS games, and the licensing conditions are no longer relevant after the MP3 patents expired), and should be removed.

As for this game in particular, I'd suggest simply mentioning to the devs that they might want to add a credit to the credits. Whether that should mention Chris Jones or not I have no opinion on.

Snarky

I looked in the installation folder for AGS, but while it has licenses for a lot of the libraries that go into AGS, I can't find one for AGS itself. (The manual does have the license conditions; they mention nothing about accreditation.)

The only other bit I could find about accreditation is in the manual under "Other features | Distributing your game":

QuoteNOTE: Due to the licenses of code used by AGS, your documentation should acknowledge the following:

TrueType font display uses ALFont by Javier Gonzalez and the Freetype project. Distributed under the terms of the FreeType project license.

OGG player is alogg by Javier Gonzalez, using the Ogg Vorbis decoder, which is available from http://www.xiph.org/ Copyright (c) 2002-2008, Xiph.org Foundation

MP3 player is almp3, by Javier Gonzalez and the FreeAmp team. It uses the mpg123 MP3 decoder, and is distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1.

morganw

I think as long as you comply with the new licensing, you are fine:
https://opensource.org/licenses/artistic-license-2.0.php

There isn't anything in there about crediting the Copyright Holder.

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk