http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?616928-An-Open-Letter-to-Fredrik-Wester
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?614933-Magna-Mundi-cancelled

Ubik, his forum name not his real one, was the lead developer on a mod of EU3 called Magna Mundi. The MM team got a publishing deal with Paradox to make a full game. After over a year of delays and poor management as well as a modder assuming that they are qualified to make an actual commercial game with no experience except scripting on other people's engines, we see the disaster that resulted. After totally blowing his chance to get into the game industry, this guy then tried to sue Paradox with no grounds, and also claimed he would keep the engine even though it is their property.

If he actually manages to get into court, its going to be interesting to see how much worse he makes his situation.

This is sad and will happen again and again...
people just unterestimate the effort and skills needed to create complex software...

That's a shame. I hate seeing a project fail. I think that potentially it could have been a success if they had been a bit more realistic, e.g. using the modders for level design etc rather than in control of a whole game.

Well most people involved agreed that it was the fault of "ubik". But also they had a lot of part time workers. This kind of thing is fine for indies or modders but for a commercial game its just not going to cut it. Ubik made it worse by incessant feature creep also.

Thank god that Paradox is a cool company and they didn't let this prevent them from giving other people a chance to do stuff with their engine.

http://forum.paradox...-Fredrik-Wester

This link is broken for me.

edit: I found the content of the letter at least. Spoiled below for those interested. If mods want to delete this as it was deleted from paradox's own site, I understand.

[spoiler]An Open Letter to Fredrik Wester

Fredrik Wester,

I am publicly addressing you as I feel it’s my duty to the Magna Mundi fans to do the utmost to save the game and allow them to experience the work of the very special and talented team I have the pleasure to lead.
I also feel I have the duty to the team I lead to try to save Magna Mundi. The involvement of the team on the project and how all worked together towards the single objective of delivering the game was impressive. I was still deciding things minutes before I was warned by a Spanish team member that the game had been cancelled.
After reading that you were the one coming up with the idea of turning Magna Mundi into a commercial project, I feel we stand exactly at the same level of responsibility towards the fans: I created the brand and coordinated both the amateur and the professional projects and you decided to take advantage of it by producing a commercial game and in the process take ownership of the brand.

In the first scenario everybody wins. This scenario demands leadership, charisma and ability to compromise. And those are exactly the qualities I am asking for you to show while trying to summon them myself. It’s a scenario where, to put it simply, a normal release date is set (I have no problem about a release in two or three months time to accommodate your release schedule), the game gets normally released and UV will continue to assume its responsibilities from then on. If for any reason you want UV to stop supporting Magna Mundi after the release thus allowing Paradox to take control of any future development within the scope of Magna Mundi, we can certainly talk about that.

At present the situation is clear. Your decision to cancel the game will lead to a legal battle where Universo Virtual will try its best to beat Paradox, while Paradox will be doing the same to Universo Virtual. All the while I will neither give you the Magna Mundi engine nor return to you a single euro that you spent financing the development of the game.
Courts apart, I am not one who fears the judgement of the public. I invite everyone who can come to Lisbon to check for them the game and make a judgement about it.

In my book, cancelling a game at this stage and in these conditions while demanding back the money used for funding its development for two and a half years, demanding also the engine of the game, continuing to enjoy the ownership of the brand and retaining the possibility of releasing Magna Mundi for you, has a far uglier name than “cancellation”.[/spoiler]

I don't know what Magna Mundi is, or how's the team behind it. IMO, asking the source code *and* the money back is robbery.

I don't know what Magna Mundi is, or how's the team behind it. IMO, asking the source code *and* the money back is robbery.

Of course this depends on the contract; if the contract has a clause in it which states something to the effect that cancellation (due to a failure on an earlier clause, say milestone delivery) results in the developers having to return the money and that Paradox retain rights to the IP and engine... well, if it was signed then they are going to be shit out of luck.

By the sounds of the announcement the development term were failing to deliver on milestones and/or correct work - things which were probably included in the contract - thus allowing Paradox to use any 'get out' clause they might have in there.

Frankly without knowing the terms under which the project was signed throwing around terms such as 'robbery' isn't a good idea; for one thing based on a comment quoted in here http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?611749-The-sad-state-of-affairs it would seem Paradox 'gave' them the Divine Winds engine however I personally doubt they 'gave' them anything and as such I suspect the engine code was part of a large agreement, which the developers have failed to live up to, thus the return. This makes even more sense in a 'work for hire' setup where by the code is already owned by Paradox anyway. If Paradox feel they own the IP then that could well be part of another deal ("Here is X start up cash in exchange for the IP, upon repaying us you own the IP again.") which I don't think would be uncommon.

Given the developer's website states in June 2011 that the project is 'code locked' (http://universo-virtual.com/?p=324) the fact it isn't out yet is a tad bizzare to say the least.
Apprently the game was also announced in 2010 with a 2011 release date attached - having missed that also it's a wonder the project has lasted this long.