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The downsides of putting “TTD” in the name “OpenTTD” is a certain level of vulnerability to the original creator (or a rights inheritor) deciding it’s worth the

The downsides of putting “TTD” in the name “OpenTTD” is a certain level of vulnerability to the original creator (or a rights inheritor) deciding it’s worth their time to care again someday. I suspect this will do more for the TTD community than it will harm it, though; any modern sale of TTD is targeted precisely at the folks who would take mortal offense at harm to OpenTTD, and $10 (which would have been merely $5 in 2000) is the opposite of egregious after 100% inflation pushed AAA games towards $90 these days. I paid $5 for a used copy of SimTower back then, I would happily pay the same today for TTD resources, so this is all fine. I get that Atari isn’t perhaps as loved as, say, Bullfrog or Dynamix, but better that companies respect their properties and their fans with an outcome like this, than be another boringly-common community-destroying Nintendo Lawyer Takedown Club. (It’s also now in line with the various WAD and Descent games over time that used this model, where the engine is maximum rewrite amazing but the game resources require a GOG purchase. The point of rewrites isn’t to deprive the games of revenue!)

Chaosvex 8mo ago
It's similar to Valve and Dota2. We all know what it means but officially, it isn't actually DotA and doesn't stand for anything. They will never refer to the game as Defense of the Ancients. Seems to have worked for them. Worth noting that the Atari of today is a shell corporation that has precisely zero to do with the original.
- larsiusprime 8mo ago
  IceFrog was on the Dota2 team, and valve owns the trademark
  - Chaosvex 8mo ago
    It's far more complicated than that and ended up in court. They own the commercial rights after a legal battle with Blizzard (and Riot was in the fray, somewhere), who retained some rights to the name. Valve's 'Dota' doesn't legally stand for anything because it'd be a direct reference to Warcraft 3 (Ancients), just as TTD can be said to not legally stand for Transport Tycoon Deluxe. That's the entire point that you've simultaneously acknowledged and missed. IceFrog didn't start DotA, either. He had no claim to the name. TL;DR there's complicated history behind it and much money was spent arguing over it.
    - literallywho 8mo ago
      IIRCC, Eul, the guy who made Dota originally, also works at Valve.
- chocochunks 8mo ago
  It's also worth noting that the original TTD had nothing to do with the original Atari and a lot more to do with Microprose which was purchased by Hasbro Interactive, which was later purchased by Infogrames which renamed itself Atari after buying the remnants. Oh, and the "new" Microprose has even less to do with the old Microprose than the new Atari does with the old Atari (at least they own the rights to all the old Atari titles).
int_19h 8mo ago
> It’s also now in line with the various WAD and Descent games over time that used this model, where the engine is maximum rewrite amazing but the game resources require a GOG purchase. I don't know about Descent, but this hasn't been true wrt Doom for decades: https://freedoom.github.io/about.html https://freedoom.github.io/about.html
- altairprime 8mo ago
  FreeDoom, like OpenTTD, walks a fine line between ‘artistic reimplementation’ and ‘legally vulnerable’ due precisely to reimplementing art assets, yes.
mastax 8mo ago
The modern Atari has no relation to the original Atari. They’re essentially copyright trolls. I do not believe we owe them any moral obligation for the works they bought from the original Atari via a series of many intermediaries.

Chaosvex 8mo ago

It's similar to Valve and Dota2. We all know what it means but officially, it isn't actually DotA and doesn't stand for anything. They will never refer to the game as Defense of the Ancients. Seems to have worked for them. Worth noting that the Atari of today is a shell corporation that has precisely zero to do with the original.

larsiusprime 8mo ago
IceFrog was on the Dota2 team, and valve owns the trademark
- Chaosvex 8mo ago
  It's far more complicated than that and ended up in court. They own the commercial rights after a legal battle with Blizzard (and Riot was in the fray, somewhere), who retained some rights to the name. Valve's 'Dota' doesn't legally stand for anything because it'd be a direct reference to Warcraft 3 (Ancients), just as TTD can be said to not legally stand for Transport Tycoon Deluxe. That's the entire point that you've simultaneously acknowledged and missed. IceFrog didn't start DotA, either. He had no claim to the name. TL;DR there's complicated history behind it and much money was spent arguing over it.
  - literallywho 8mo ago
    IIRCC, Eul, the guy who made Dota originally, also works at Valve.
chocochunks 8mo ago
It's also worth noting that the original TTD had nothing to do with the original Atari and a lot more to do with Microprose which was purchased by Hasbro Interactive, which was later purchased by Infogrames which renamed itself Atari after buying the remnants. Oh, and the "new" Microprose has even less to do with the old Microprose than the new Atari does with the old Atari (at least they own the rights to all the old Atari titles).

int_19h 8mo ago

> It’s also now in line with the various WAD and Descent games over time that used this model, where the engine is maximum rewrite amazing but the game resources require a GOG purchase. I don't know about Descent, but this hasn't been true wrt Doom for decades: https://freedoom.github.io/about.html https://freedoom.github.io/about.html

altairprime 8mo ago
FreeDoom, like OpenTTD, walks a fine line between ‘artistic reimplementation’ and ‘legally vulnerable’ due precisely to reimplementing art assets, yes.

mastax 8mo ago

The modern Atari has no relation to the original Atari. They’re essentially copyright trolls. I do not believe we owe them any moral obligation for the works they bought from the original Atari via a series of many intermediaries.