2015 I P

[flight50]

I have been seeing Volvo a lot lately here in North Texas since I have been playing ATS. Come to find out, there is a dealer off I-20 in South Dallas among others locations around town it think. Which brought me to think about something the other day. I want to know if some of these truck companies are holding out until the city were they actual sell these trucks is available. I know, I know, probably silly thinking but what if....... If we can get the Navistar license we get International, if we get the Daimler license we get Freightliner and Western Star, if we get Volvo USA we get Volvo and Mack. Even if we got just 2 truck models from each, I think everyone would be happy. It adds variety without mods.

[TwinShadow]

Getting something from Daimler does not automatically get a license for both Freightliner and Western Star, nor would it apply for Volvo and Mack. Each truck is a single license only, each model requires a separate license negotiation deal to obtain and use legally in the game.

Anyway, I'm sure there are Volvo dealers in the southwestern states. But Volvo are twiddling their fingers about the whole thing that it makes no sense for them to wait this long, but that is the life we live in, and there's nothing we can do about it but simply deal with it.

[Wolfi]

Just a small note from me to add to what TwinShadow said.
A quote from a discussion about licensing cars for a game, it gives a slightly better understanding how licenses work.
(just replace "car" with "truck" and you get exact SCS situation)

Code: Select all

Yes. Their names, logos, and body designs are all trademarked and cannot be used in any capacity outside those explicitly allowed by trademark law, 
which almost certainly excluded use in any game. And expect to be completely incapable of acquiring those licenses for reasonable terms, 
as the licenses are generally very expensive and come with a mile long list of stipulations.

Even though you'll be paying them, the companies will be seeing your game as another advertisement for their cars. 
They will completely reject working with you unless they believe your game will make their cars look awesome and make your players want to buy them.

There was a "car czar" for the Forza 4 team. His full time job was to make sure their car models and car performance matched the various licensing agreements they had, 
to make sure the cars were modeled accurately, and so on. You need a full time guy just to do that if you want to license cars. 
And expect weird incompatible licensing terms to happen and look forward to wasting tons of time resolving them. 
E.g., two manufacturers who want their car to be the fastest car in your game, or who refuse to allow one player selectable color to be applies to their car, 
or to refuse to allow damage to apply to their car, or to demand that the car can only be used if you model every little mechanical detail 
to a level of accuracy that your artists or your engine possivly can't handle.

[Chrodazar]

you guys ever think the current licenses have a time restriction clause before other companies are allowed in the game...just a thought

[-Raiden-]

You mean that PACCAR got an "exclusive truck deal" on ATS for "x" years?
Might be possible, but I'm not sure if it's probable... In the end we will never know anyway... because NDA-things

After all those years of playing ETS2 and then ATS, one thing is very clear to me - PACCAR and Scania seem to be the most cooperative companies when it comes to licensing.
Both manufacturers invited a team of SCS developers to their plants and testing centers, as some of you might remember from the SCS Blog posts. So they seem to have found some value in having their rigs in the games.
On the other hand, Daimler appears to be the most difficult company to deal with. Remember how long it took to get Mercedes-Benz into ETS2. It was the last brand that got licensed...

Volvo, however, gets me wondering. They really have a good and creative PR-campaign (think of the Van Damme-Split on Volvo trucks or the 650ton stunt for the iShift gearbox with crawler gears), so it's a little bit weird that Volvo (or Volvo North America) doesn't see the games as a platform for marketing...

ALWAYS REMEMBER - those are my personal thoughts and guesses

[aradeth]

In fact SCS never give a clue about what "the licensing issue" means.

It's a top secret information(!) If they can inform us and give some details, it'll be nice to know the current situation from time to time.
Just a tiny general information...

[xXCARL1992Xx]

what is there to inform ?

the manufacturer doesnt give a license

they cant just blurt out what they are doing there, or do you tell everybody if you negotiate with you boss about a pay raise ?!

[aradeth]

Who said "the manufacturer doesn't give a license" ?

It's just your guess.

And SCS informs us about almost anything. So there is nothing wrong to want information about the licensing issue too.
Not a blog post but at least a few words on the forum would be enough.

[xXCARL1992Xx]

the only issue there is that they dont get a license, if they would get it it wouldnt be an issue

and no they cant just say anything, such talks between companies about license, or other company interna, are not for the public

if the truck company sees that SCS is talking about it, and i mean more then "we are XX% sure we will get it" or "we need a little bit more time", the company will think twice to give the license

such talks are almost like NDAs where they are not allowed to give specific details out

[aradeth]

SCS has showed the screenshot of Renault T and also other American Trucks like VNL.
They already gave information and they also promoted their game like these trucks gonna be in the game.
But those trucks are not released and we still don't know nothing about them.

So the licensing issue is "public" from the beginning. That's why sharing more information would be reasonable.

They don't have to share company secrets, lol.