Please Read: A Personal Appeal from all BZ fans

[forgottengames]

I've noticed the issue of BZ2's lack of online availability is growing in concern. I believe that if regular methods of "voting" and "begging" for BZ2 to be available on sites like GOG are not working, I am considering posting a petition on petitionspot.com for all of us, possibly including GSH and Ultraken, to sign. It will need many suggestions and revisions, however. Anyone know what topics it might need to cover, besides distribution rights and whatnot?

[MrTwosheds]

Who were you planning on petitioning?

[General BlackDragon]

You can walk up to Activision and Atari with a petition signed by Jesus himself, they're still going to want money.

[Zax]

You can walk up to Activision and Atari with a petition signed by Jesus himself, they're still going to want money.

Maybe even God

[forgottengames]

You can walk up to Activision and Atari with a petition signed by Jesus himself, they're still going to want money.

FTLOG, I've never noticed the money issue being so in-depth. If it mattered so much to them, then perhaps we should start a fund to spur their contract revision deal. All we're asking is for Atari and Activision to read over the contract concerning BZ2 distribution rights and reach an agreement. Since Mr. Nates and Mr. Miller have practically revitalized the game with the public beta patch, the companies might be interested in redistributing the game with the patch built-in, as a way of potentially increasing sales, of course, perhaps after making a deal with GSH and the other free-time developers. Who knows, maybe consumers who previously shunned BZ2 will give it a second chance due to the prospect of its new "lease on life," and subsequent low price.

[General BlackDragon]

Except the companies will say "Will the game make up for the cost it would take to produce all those new disks, marketing licinses, and all the other jazz?"

And companies don't talk about things in the hundreds of dollars ranges, or even the thousands, or ten thousands...

To get them to do that would take a lot of money that us commoners don't have

[forgottengames]

Except the companies will say "Will the game make up for the cost it would take to produce all those new disks, marketing licinses, and all the other jazz?"

And companies don't talk about things in the hundreds of dollars ranges, or even the thousands, or ten thousands...

To get them to do that would take a lot of money that us commoners don't have

Forgive me if I sound myopic, but aren't we just aiming to just have BZ2 distributed digitally on a small-time site like GOG or Direct2Drive? We are not asking them to prepare and ship thousands of packaged disks to those wanting. Amazon and E-Bay already assumed control of that, we just need to have BZ2 readily available for purchase on the Internet to expand the community. Case in point, Dark Reign 2, another Pandemic project, is no longer available for retail purchase, yet it still lives on the world of GOG. BZ2 could follow suit.

And concerning donations, $2 a week from each member over the course of a few years could easily generate several thousand dollars, probably enough to open a small-time subject like this.

[Zax]

You are not asking them to make it available for DD, you are asking them to dig up the back archives of if they are even allowed, asking for their time to do it over anything else, and asking them to stop whatever they are doing to get it done.

[forgottengames]

Zax, it appears you're missing my point. I was asking about subjects, conditions, or thoughts to cover in the petition's text that need to be there, not how futile this plan seems to be.

Maybe if Activision was a smaller company, that would be a problem. (Atari doesn't even count anymore.) You'd think there would departments to handle this kind of miscellany, but there aren't! Because obviously, the whole idea of a petition is pointless. BZ2 should only be played by people who can afford to have it shipped to their door, not by random newcomers who could conveniently purchase it on DD sites. So screw this topic. It appears that I'm destroying hundreds of thousands of livelihoods and salaries in the video game industry just because of 1 stupid, simple, negligible request that I haven't even made yet. This was just a burgeoning idea that I mentioned as a last resort, not as a task of immediate priority.

GSH, lock this one up. There is no more hope for Battlezone.

[Nielk1]

Look, a petition, if it ever made it to the companies in control of BZ, could only possibly make things worse for us. Picture if they decided, oh look, and IP we can gut and reuses, oh look, a patch we can stomp and find a way to monetize the thing while stomping out the last of the old game.

[JuiceBox]

As much as I would love Activision to help out the BZ community by remarketing the game, the truth is it's not going to happen. As far as the companies involved are concerned, Battlezone is well and truly dead. Only forums like these and a very dedicated fan base have kept/are keeping it alive.

[MrTwosheds]

But maybe, just maybe, somewhere deep in the cold cybernetic heart of the corporation, there is someone seeking to paint a more human face onto the corporate image, someone who values its history, who could see that there is nothing really to be lost from releasing Battlezone2 from its bondage to a soon to be out of date physical format. Maybe a brave few could, against all odds, penetrate its vast cold fortress and open its eyes to a more liberated way of thinking, and that convincing a mere hundred or so potential customers into thinking that they are not all cold heartless oppressors of freedom, enslaved by an ethos of greed, could indeed make a real difference to them.
The best way to make yourself feel better about yourself, is to do something good for someone else. Maybe it really is too much trouble to just kick that kids ball back over the garden fence though.

[Red Spot]

But maybe, just maybe, somewhere deep in the cold cybernetic heart of the corporation, there is someone seeking to paint a more human face onto the corporate image, someone who values its history, who could see that there is nothing really to be lost from releasing Battlezone2 from its bondage to a soon to be out of date physical format. Maybe a brave few could, against all odds, penetrate its vast cold fortress and open its eyes to a more liberated way of thinking, and that convincing a mere hundred or so potential customers into thinking that they are not all cold heartless oppressors of freedom, enslaved by an ethos of greed, could indeed make a real difference to them.
The best way to make yourself feel better about yourself, is to do something good for someone else. Maybe it really is too much trouble to just kick that kids ball back over the garden fence though.

And then you woke up and realised that the 'sweet/kind' type of person tends to end last and so wont be in any position to actually do/steer anything ..

[MrTwosheds]

You were supposed to all give applause, like they do in the movies...

[GSH]

On Gog.com's voting page, Battlezone 1 has 582 votes, and BZ2 has 502 votes. The top 10 vote-getters are shown permanently, Battlezone has to be searched for. The top vote-getter is System Shock 2 at 17394 votes. The 10th top vote-getter is Thief at 2334 votes. Are there really going to be 1752 more people who know/care enough about Battlezone and haven't voted yet to get either of the titles on the top-10 list? Because I bet you're doing to get far fewer than 1750 on some other random online petition. Maybe even 175 for your petition would be stretching it. Seriously.

I also think that certain parts of the community like BZ2 being stolen. Certain folks will push pirated copies of BZ2 on folks, and have never once pointed people at legal sites like gog. Such people would prefer BZ2 to be done exactly their way, and going legal would get an influx of new players who probably wouldn't play like them. Go ask yourself this: why don't you get more BZ2 sites pointing at gog.com, versus aiding and abetting piracy? The answer will be informative.

-- GSH