Chip's Challenge 2 Slight Progress

[haichodansemo]

Hello CC Zone Community. Some of you are probably aware that Chuck Sommerville has moved on from CC2 and is working on Chuck's Challenge. I am unsure if the people of CC Zone have moved on from the anticipation of CC2, but to those who still have hope, I need your help.

The rights to Chip's Challenge and CC2 belong to Bridgestone Multimedia Group and Alpha Omega Productions. For the past two weeks, I have sent a few emails to them and received a response from Beth TeGrotenhuis, the president of AOP (I asked for them to forward my messages to her). This is her reponse:

Date: 06/06/12

David,

I received a forwarded email asking me to contact you.

It is apparent from your email that you are extremely frustrated and are passionate about Chips Challenge. I would entertain a formal written business proposal from you or Chuck for Chips Challenge 2, but please understand that I will make no promises.

I am sorry that you are frustrated and that you feel I have been ignoring the issue. If you submit a proposal, I will review it with our board and you will get a final decision.

Thank you.

Beth

After reading multiple posts on various other forums, many people never received a response from AOP or Bridgestone, so I was shocked to see this. I understand Chuck has been under a lot of stress about CC2, but I decided to message him about this the next day. He directed me to his buisness manager, Barn Cleave, who sent me this:

Date: 08/06/12

Hello David

Good to meet you. Now as you know Chuck has already create CC2 and as you also know Chuck tried to get permission from Alpha Omega Productions to release the game but that never happened.

What you don't know is the why. Now to save you finding out by spending month talking to Alpha Omega Productions, I'll explain what Beth means by a 'formal written business proposal'. What Alpha Omega Productions wants are three things:

<ol style="list-style-type:decimal;">[*]To be paid about $1,000,000 upfront

[*]A big cut of any games sold

[*]To keep the rights to the game and all future games

</ol>

Yes, I know it is hard to believe but yes they want a lot of money and in return Alpha Omega Productions still get to keep everything. So even if Alpha Omega Productions received $1m and the game was produced, after a period of time Alpha Omega Productions would want more money and if Alpha Omega Productions did not get it the game would be removed from all the shops/websites.

So I hope this explains why we have started Chuck's Challenge.

What you could do is reply to Beth and say would Alpha Omega Productions accept a revenue share model with no minimum guarantees to see what her response is. As they may have changed there views.

Thanks

Barn

I had a feeling there was a catch, and I was unaware they wanted $1,000,000, which I originally thought was $100,000. However, in my messages to Beth, I told her that $100,000 was unreasonable and if there was another way Chuck could release the game, and from her reply in the first quote, it seems she might be willing to cooperate...

[Please note I have no knowledge on writing a business proposal and need help with it!]


I was hoping the community of CC Zone can give me their insight on this. What would you suggest I can add to the business proposal to convince AOP to release CC2? If they are willing to cooperate with us,this can be our chance for CC2 to finally be publically released! It is either now or never, so please leave me your insight. It may be highly unlikely AOP will agree, but it doesn't hurt to try.

Thanks guys.

[ManipulatorGeneral]

I honestly don't have much sway on how to arrange the business proposal, but should a non-monetary postscript be needed to persuade AOP to accept that business proposal, then there is much for me to contribute. Chuck knows to a degree (when I wished him happy birthday) how much the presence of Chip's Challenge in my life affected my human development, not just learning life skills from solving and optimizing the puzzles, but also priceless social skills many autism spectrum individuals have difficulty learning from interacting with this community; perhaps my destructive optimization obsession served as the catalyst for recent positive changes in my life. The unitive power of the CC community and the blood, sweat and tears we have poured into it, and our CC Wiki, boards, and ChipWiki and its annotations, are additional evidence that CC has non-material benefits to the world as well. It is also possible, perhaps even the coup de grace, to appeal to AOP's Christianity, emphasizing the above aspects to prove such an inherently educational game can transform the world in hidden but radical ways, which is at the heart of their mission; I consider myself the ideal vanguard of this facet of this enterprise.

If Beth and the board are shown convincing evidence that Chip's Challenge and related titles are games which benefit their financial, ideological, and other goals, numbering A] firsthand testimony from each of our members to B] our loyal fanbase and the surprising numbers of PC users who miss playing MS CC (of which I have discovered many) and C] the extensive CC resource libraries we have built, and that we are thusly committed to maintaining CC and our collective promotional tools are powerful allies for their business, they will have all possible incentives to release CC2. Even if they will not receive immediate benefits from releasing the game now and it appears a losing operation, which could be their stumbling block now and even for many past years, we can provide very strong indications that, with our cooperation and support if necessary, that will change and flashing the green light is a wise decision in the foreseeable, feasible long run. I do not know how much information James has relayed to AOP in his e-mails, but I sense they have not witnessed the whole picture yet. I furthermore believe that, if we can launch this operation, I am fit to stand as one of its leaders; I have largely drawn what I have needed from Chip's Challenge, though I still reap the lessons it taught me every day, and am more concerned nowadays with preserving the legacy of this classic and creating a better world through it. In some manner, we are all united in this mission, and here is our best chance to band together and strike now. David, although we have the requisite ammunition, we need your help in order to shoot the moon.

[James]

After reading multiple posts on various other forums, many people never received a response from AOP or Bridgestone, so I was shocked to see this.

I've been emailing Beth back and forth over the last couple years. Most of the time my emails were ignored, but occasionally she emailed me back some filler content to get me to go away. Nice job getting something actually useful in response, although I unfortunately doubt it will lead anywhere. I'll post back if I come up with some ideas.

[haichodansemo]

I should note, which I will edit into my first post, that I have absolutely no knowledge on writing a business proposal whatsoever, so this strikes as a problem...

[Nickcc]

I would be happy to help in any way I could. I too have never written a business proposal, but I would be willing to try my hand at it.

[pillowpc2001]

Interesting... I've never written a "real" proposal, but I have worked on some "hypothetical" business proposals in college classes...

[geodave]

I've worked on many business contracts and proposals over the years, but never been in charge of anything significant. I am doubtful that I will have any time to devote to this, however. We might propose that they release CC2 to the open source community, which would theoretically increase their stature in the programming community, who are a significant portion of their audience for this game, and it just might encourage people to make a great future game out of CC.

[geodave]

I've worked on many business contracts and proposals over the years, but never been in charge of anything significant. I am doubtful that I will have any time to devote to this, however. We might propose that they release CC2 to the open source community, which would theoretically increase their stature in the programming community, who are a significant portion of their audience for this game, and it just might encourage people to make a great future game out of CC.

[Allack]

[i’ve written this several times. It’s something I could explain face to face in minutes, with you all asking questions in person; however, I can only communicate to you all in one direction via text].

As much as I'd like to think AOP have changed their minds, I don't think they have. (I’d love to be proven wrong on this). AOP still believe that they should be paid twice. First they should be paid to let the game be released. Secondly they should be given a large cut of all games sold.

Now I know that not even EA would think that a game is released by a developer paying them money, but unfortunately we are dealing with a company that does NOT make games. AOP have got it in their heads that the game is worth millions of dollars, so asking for $1,000,000 upfront is not ‘asking too much’.

So I see we have the following options:

1. Raise $1,000,000 to give AOP

2. Try and lower AOP expectations

3. Change the game name

Option 1 – That’s a huge amount of money and AOP are likely to just want more.

Option 2 – This could result in several potential scenarios:

A. AOP lets Chuck release CC2

B. AOP decide it’s not worth their time, as they can make more money doing other things

C. AOP release CC2 but they decide to make a cheap clone that’s not made by Chuck

Result B has been AOP stance for the last 20 years.

Options 3 – Create a new game that has all the features of CC2 and call it Chuck’s Challenge.

Personally I can’t begin to explain how tiring, frustration, stressful & upsetting it has been dealing with AOP. (And I only tried it for a year) Now I hope this explains why we choose Option 3. We wanted to be able to build something, without having to be beholden to some one who A. does not care as much as we do about the game B. wanted to put a gun to our heads.

Having said that I believe Option 2 is worth trying once in a while, but I don’t think we should get our hope up. The business proposal is simple. AOP don’t have to pay any costs and AOP get a share of the money made from game sells.

Thanks

Barn

[IceyLava108]

Chuck knows to a degree (when I wished him happy birthday)

Anyway, I'm not sure if CC2 will get released or not. To be honest, that video of the somewhat "CC2 gameplay" looks very different from the original CC1. I still don't know if there will ever be a negotiation or some sort of way to get the game released, but as far as I know it's not happening if the cost stays that high. I'm only one person though, just sharing my thoughts on this.. but there is still hope in me (: