New Hammer and Source Licensing

Quote:

Hi Matthew,

Please see my comments/answers below.

Thanks,
Rick Ellis
Valve
-@valvesoftware.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Fairfax [mailto:matt@rustycode.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 7:49 AM
To: Gabe Newell
Subject: New Hammer Licensing

Couple of questions:

Is the new Hammer still going to support exporting to a text file (.map)?
If it is .map, will it support exporting in the new version as well as the old version? In other words, would it be possible to use the new version of Hammer to create content for HL1 (to finish up a mod say)?

*** You can use the new version to create/modify existing or older maps.
Hammer will read in .rmf files just like it used to.

What are the plans on commercial licensing for the new Hammer? With the current Hammer, Valve supposedly gave Garage Games
(http://www.garagegames.com) and Torque Game Engine licensees permission to use Hammer in commercial projects. Are there any plans to extend this permission for the new Hammer?

*** Undecided at this time.

What sort of pricing/range are you considering for commercial licensing of Hammer? Would it have to be licensed as a part of licensing Source?

*** Right now it is included in Source engine licenses and will shortly be available in a downloadable SDK for HL2 development use.


I have seen allusions to a potential licensing solution for idie or low- budget studios. Is this something definitely in the works? Can you give any more details? Ballpark price ranges?

*** I can't give you price ranges quite yet, but yes there are some VERY attractive offers for developers/mod makers that want to distribute their games via our Steam content delivery system.

As an active member of the indie comunity, I know there would be a lot of interest in a well-done, low-cost level editing packages with a nice import/export SDK and a reasonable license (similar to MilkShape for
modelling) especially if it were cross-platform capable. Is this something you would ever consider for Hammer? id Software's $5000 commercial pricetag for Radiant is a bit steep and Epic is very opposed to the idea of letting UnrealEd be used for any other engine so I think there is definitly room and potentially an excellent market.

*** We have not decided how much support for other games we will provide in Hammer, either ourselves or through a third party.




Thank you for your time!
Matthew Fairfax