LittleBear
says: Measure once, cut twice.
29.06.07
Of Rumours and Tumiki Fighters
Oddbob has an excellent comment in this post, with some well-thought words on the recent Tumiki Fighters announcement.
He’s quite right, that while Mr. Cho is very well known to “us”, he may be relatively unknown to the general gaming community. Given that there is only one press release so far, it does seem silly to prematurely pass judgement on what might or might not have happened. It certainly seems likely that Majesco will credit him properly, in the proper manner.
But, more importantly, this is really Mr. Cho‘s business and none of ours. Hopefully he’s not been embarrassed by the attention. I apologize for helping to contribute to that.
So let’s just wait and see, and cross our fingers that the game isn’t completely messed up in the conversion.
Update: Mr. Cho has a post up on his blog now, here. Google translates:
Blast Works
* Majesco Entertainment Announces `Blast Works’ for the Wii Console link
It is like press release comes out of Majesco. Before the port it is possible to Wii to do TUMIKI Fighters applying from Majesco, and Budcat there being the inquiry which you say, because it is the BSD license, but the reason which is the details which how the [te] answer freely scared, the [tsu] [po] where the goal which release is done at last is in sight it is.
There’s some nuance here I’m sure I’m missing due to the translation. Here’s some info on the BSD license for those not familiar with it. It’s a very open license.
Update: pizelizr provides a better translation in the comments. Thanks!
pixelizr said,
June 29, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Mr. Cho’s blog entry:
“Looks like Majesco’s press release is out. Earlier, Majesco and Budcat asked whether it was okay to port Tumiki Fighters to the Wii, and since there should be something in the BSD License about replying ‘feel free to do as you please’, it looks like they’re really going to push through with it…”
It’s easy to translate words, but it is 10 times harder to capture the feelings of the writer. The second half of the translation is only 50 percent accurate at best, in terms of the tone of the writer (I did my best, though), so do take it with a grain of salt. One of the things I noticed was that Mr. Cho did not say the exact words, “I said yes to them”, but instead said something like “since the BSD License states that…”.
Anyway, here are the first two comments:
Mr. Omedetai (“Congrats”) says: “Does the BSD License require you to let them see the source code? (not really sure)”
Mr. Cho says: “GPL is the one that requires you to reveal the source, and BSD is the one where it’s okay not to.”
pixelizr said,
June 29, 2007 at 6:17 pm
To add to what I just wrote, I think it’s probably better to wait a bit for further details from both parties, since just a handful of words really do give the readers the freedom to interpret as they please. I’m sure that Majesco will be smart enough to do the right thing and put something like “From the original work of Kenta Cho” in the game.
the2bears said,
June 29, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Thanks for the translation sir, it is really appreciated. And you’re correct to wait and see what happens.
I’m thinking about starting a controversy involving myself for once
Bill
Shawn said,
June 29, 2007 at 9:13 pm
So they asked him, he said yes, they (appear to have) butchered it, and he’s staying far away from it.
Is that basically it?