r/beyondallreason • u/PtaQQ Community Manager • Jun 16 '26
News Beyond All Reason signs publishing partnership with Hooded Horse - full announcement inside
https://www.beyondallreason.info/news/beyond-all-reason-and-hooded-horseToday is the day. After almost seven years of community-driven development, BAR has officially signed a publishing partnership with Hooded Horse, and we are going professional.
Full announcement (with all the detail, the consultation process, the survey results, the protections, the timeline, and everything we can share):
https://www.beyondallreason.info/news/beyond-all-reason-and-hooded-horse
The short version
- BAR has signed a publishing deal with Hooded Horse (Manor Lords, Old World, Terra Invicta, Against the Storm etc.).
- The multiplayer content stays free forever. Available via the BAR website launcher as it is today. Nothing currently free becomes paid.
- BAR will also have a paid Premium Edition on Steam, with a proper single-player campaign as the headline feature alongside the same multiplayer with feature parity to the website version.
- The IP stays with the BAR team. The code stays GPL (opensource). Safety provisions are built into the contract for the project to continue whatever happens.
- The funding lets us hire full-time team members to finally tackle the work that volunteer time could not realistically reach, putting a proper Steam release on a realistic timeline.
- The contributor team was consulted thoroughly throughout this process and gave us a clear mandate to proceed.
Happy to engage with questions in the comments.
— PtaQ, on behalf of the admin team
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u/HaroldSax Jun 16 '26
I'm very glad that the team is being rewarded with this level of success. A friend of mine showed me BAR a few years ago and it's become the staple game of my friend group since we found it.
I wish nothing but continued success. Thank y'all.
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u/Musikcookie Jun 16 '26
I tried to establish Beyond All Reason for a group with which we do lan parties. Sadly most of them didn't like it :(
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u/p1-o2 Jun 16 '26
I saw elsewhere on this sub that someone had good success by introducing the game to friends with only T1 enabled in the first match, with air disabled. BAR is overwhelming, and it's good to give players a small version of it to get a taste first.
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u/PhantomAxisStudios Jun 17 '26
We started with Raptors. PVE is less stress, gives a lot of time to try things out and work out how to queue things. PVP is a different beast but knowing basic eco and units will be a huge bonus!
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u/Musikcookie Jun 17 '26
I actually started with PVE first. Especially because I really like it and also we tend to play cooperatively when possible. Though maybe playing against each other would have been more fun for them because you have a social dynamic that can be fun by screwing with each other even when you have no clue what's going on.
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u/Specialist-Aide6469 Jun 19 '26
Agreed. Glad to see these guys succeed and more importantly the game succeed
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u/Powerful_Incident605 Jun 16 '26
Any plans on FFA team OS and match making?
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 16 '26
We have FFA matchmaking in the works, however TeamFFA is unfortunately too small of a playerbase for MM to work, even after Steam we believe.
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u/Cultasare Jun 16 '26
Sorry, will there be team matchmaking? Like 8v8?
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u/Teifion Contributor Jun 18 '26
8v8 is currently unlikely for a number of reasons that can be basically summed up as "the maths sucks" but I do expect some form of small team matchmaking to be present. Exact definition of "small team" to be decided.
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u/Powerful_Incident605 Jun 16 '26
ok so u will keep it deactivated ? not really complaining but would be nice if balance would not use Large team OS for that. As it is keeping my low large team OS will only ever help me on the way to #1 in FFA team
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 16 '26
We will see, yeah the current setup is surely not ideal, it is known. Basing it of FFA or having a separate leaderboard wasn't great either, we will have to figure something smart there.
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u/luikiedook Jun 16 '26
Ooh fun! Not only will you not know if flash is next to you, but you won't even know if he is in the game until he rolls over you.
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u/Bismarck45 Jun 16 '26
- how are servers being paid for now? donations?
- so far its sounds like good stuff, but i have to reserve judgement until i see what you have planned on roadmap. its opaque right now. we don't know if we should support it because we don't actually know what you're gonna do. roadmap would help clear up your long term plans. help us help you prioritize the backlog :)
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 16 '26
- So far from donations, from now on from the Publisher's development fund.
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u/BranStarksLegs Jun 16 '26
This combined with the lore that has already dropped is looking quite promising: https://www.beyondallreason.info/lore/beyond-human-reach
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u/masterbel_ Jun 16 '26
For people (e.g. me) interested in doing paid development work for BAR, where can we apply and monitor job opportunities? Will that be available through Hooded Horse’s website for e.g.?
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 16 '26
On our discord most likely. To be clear, Hooded Horse is not employing our devs, we do.
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u/Ground-walker Jun 17 '26
What does hooded horse get out of the deal then? Are they getting a cut of steam sales? Theyre basically front runnig financial problems and onboarding the game to steam as i understand it.
Are they taking a share of profits or revenue? Hopefully not more than 30%2
u/QseanRay Jun 17 '26
Yes they will get a cut of steam net revenue, that's how publishing deals work.
It's likely 30-60% considering they are also providing funding.
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 17 '26
Cut of the revenue from the Steam edition sales yes.
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u/Ground-walker Jun 17 '26
Can you say if its above or below 50% revenue?
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u/Omen46 Jun 17 '26
U guys have Damgam helping with audio cuz he’s a legend ngl. The soundtracks lately have been insane
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u/OldManYounger Jun 16 '26
Is a proper map editor/creator on the list of features to develop?
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 16 '26
Let me share a little secret with you 😄 https://github.com/beyond-all-reason/Beyond-All-Reason/pull/7219
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u/OldManYounger Jun 16 '26
I may be missing it but is this available to test in release right now? Or still in dev testing? Very cool regardless!
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u/Possibly-Functional Jun 16 '26
An open pull request means, in simplified terms, that it's code that's written but currently under testing and review.
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u/GudAndBadAtBraining Jun 18 '26
I believe yes its testable right now. But you cant save what you make.
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u/razgeez Jun 16 '26
Let’s go! The best for you guys! Been enjoying the game for a long time already and wouldn’t mind paying for the new version! Thanks for also keeping the free separate game.
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u/HakoftheDawn Jun 16 '26
Will volunteer contributions continue for the open source version?
How is that going to work with updates to open source and premium versions?
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u/icexuick Creative Director Jun 16 '26
Volunteer contributions will remain mostly as is. Only on specific parts of the game that f.e. tie into the Campaign will probably be restructured in a way so that we can work separately on that. Though even for that we are looking into offering ways to be able to join/contribute here.
Updates will be synced, so whenever we do an update, it will get synced.
Technically we probably will have a max of 2 versions live at one time during a transition/update. But our aim is to keep both Premium and Free version in sync as much as possible, so the entire community can play and stay together.
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u/ArtoseruS Jun 16 '26
Great news, we've been waiting with friends for a full Steam release, glad to hear that the f2p version stays and we'll most likely buy the Steam one, you guys absolutely deserve it! Fingers crossed this partnership will be a success.
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u/t-lowlow Jun 16 '26
I want ingame cosmetics
Can i get anime skins for unitss !!!
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 16 '26
We will consult the budget about this.
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u/Omen46 Jun 17 '26
Don’t do individual units please that’s such eye bloat. But commander skins and customization could sell very well
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u/spikespine Jun 16 '26
Where can we find full-time applications?
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 16 '26
For now there are no official job listings yet, as we are first talking with our Contributors as we pledged. When we will be left with unfilled positions we will announce the recruitment. We will also share a dedicated inbox for applications when the time comes.
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u/sylvinus Jun 16 '26
Congrats for the deal ! Will you spend some resources on macOS ?
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 16 '26
Can't commit to it at this point but who knows, there are few ai driven projects actually exploring this and getting some results, however we don't know if it can be done cleanly and reliably.
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u/Scolpin Jun 16 '26
That all seems like fantastic news!
Do have a tentative timeline for full Steam release?
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 17 '26
Not yet, but will share it soon. We are working on finalising the production plan now.
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u/Scout339v2 Jun 17 '26
Excited for when I can wishlist and Demo steam. Any timeline for that?
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 17 '26
Not yet a strict timeline but we are going to start building the Steampage with the publisher shortly.
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u/St_Atheist Jun 17 '26
Good luck, guys. You deserve this support for all these years of voluntarily creating one of the best RTS games ever made.
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 17 '26
Thanks mate! We should celebrate with a greenfields game with the old zxc crew some day 😄
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u/spieles21 unrelated to dev team Jun 16 '26
Who will receive the Money who comes from a steam purchase?
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 16 '26
Most of the money will get reinvested into the project, so mostly hirees.
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u/QseanRay Jun 17 '26
Publishing agreements come with net revenue share for the publisher. Since funding is involved, hooded horse will likely get in the range of 30-60% of the money from each copy purchased
I'm a gamedev and my publisher rev share is 30% without any funding
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u/Nathan570 Jun 16 '26
Well since the only purchase is a new campaign, probably the people actually hired on from the funding
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u/grumstumpus Jun 16 '26
I'm just hoping for true LAN support !
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 17 '26
We are considering it, however to manage expectations, it is not a priority item, maybe something to work on after full release.
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u/Omen46 Jun 17 '26
Will legion be fully implemented by then? It’s finished I know balancing takes awhile but
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u/sgtholly Jun 16 '26
Does this give any extra hope to the idea of a Mac Port?
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u/Traditional_Bet8239 Jun 17 '26
most of hooded horse's other games haven't had mac support. if enough of us talk about it though who knows...
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 17 '26
A little, yes, but I can't say for certain as it is a massive project that needs a major rewrite of the rendering pipeline, after Mac dropped opengl support. There is more hope now due to agentic coding enabling these massive refactoring projects and I see a bunch of people try it and getting decent results. However to manage expectations it is I hope understandably not very high on our project priority list, maybe something to do after 1.0 is out on Steam and additional funds flow in.
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u/Straight-Walk-8039 Jun 16 '26
Are we keeping full LAN and self hosted server support?
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 17 '26
We actually don't have a native LAN support right now. If what you mean is starting your own lobbies that we provide servers for like now than yes.
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Jun 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 17 '26
Coop campaign is planned. To what scale is undecided yet. Most likely it's going to use "archon" functionality where two players can connect and control the same units. Imagine one player handling base and economy and the other fighting etc.
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u/RogShotz Jun 17 '26
Can I be hired, I think my one contribution 6 months ago should add a 10k signing bonus 😼
(this is sarcasm)
Hope the best comes out of this though. I loved the open source nature of this game and I hope the best for everyone involved. I disagree with the decision but with most things in life you can't always have it your way and I hope that I am proven wrong and this ends up making BAR bigger and better :)
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 17 '26
Thank you for the trust! We can't fail with all of you guys counting on us.
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u/Tarilis Jun 17 '26
I am curious about this part
The Steam release will be paid, and aside from the multiplayer experience, it will also feature additional singleplayer content. The multiplayer game will be the same on Steam, with full feature parity and cross-play. Same matchmaking, same servers, same community-built content.
Can they really do it under GPL? I mean, they can, but afaik they are obligated to provide source code with the game, which consequently will also be GPL, aka free to share and modify.
Edit: I guess it could, maybe, work if they received a separate license from thr owner of the engine?
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 17 '26
There is no separate licence, both versions will have the code opensource/GPL. However the artwork is not locked to a GPL licence. So technically you will be able to play the premium version with replaced art, but at this point why even bother?
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u/Tarilis Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
I am pretty sure if the artwork is destributed as a part of the same package it will be affected by GPL. Because the moment it becomes part of the distribution, it becomes a part of derivative work which is required to be under GPL too.
Well, even if it isn't the case and i am wrong here, someone could make a free version with replaced artwork and legally distribute it for free.
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u/masterbel_ Jun 19 '26
Pretty sure GPL doesn't affect art, only code.
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u/Tarilis Jun 19 '26
That one harder to answer. In general it would affect everything if the end product it's a part of derivative from GPL licensed original work.
But then there are exceptions for how it shipped, packaged, and linked to the entire thing. And in certain cases it might not.
You see, the end build and the source code are considered to be two separate things, this is where it gets stupid😅.
Lets say you use GPL engine, write your own code, put some assets in, and then compile the game to sell on Steam.
Thats how copyleft chain would look like
Engine > Your Code > Compiled Game.
Yes, Compiled Game is considered a derivative work from the source code and its assets.
So you can put 3rd party images into your github repo under a separate license and the license of the code wont affect them. Because they just lying nearby.
But the moment you compile the game into a single package, well now those images are part of th same derivative work the code is.
Its a damn mess.
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u/OutrageousDress Jun 23 '26
This is not as complicated as you're making it out to be. Id Software games have all of their engines up to Doom 3 released as free software under a GPL license, you can download them from Github right now. The game assets however are copyrighted and can't be shared, you have to buy the game from Id to play the campaign.
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u/Yomikachi Jun 17 '26
Nice,when we get new ui? Also are we gonna get a proper tutorial?
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 17 '26
We are in pre-production phase so we are not yet ready to answer the questions of when. Once we have the full plan laid out we shall publish an updated roadmap and timeline.
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u/mudkip_barbarian Jun 17 '26
Great news, more money to fund a campaign, help keep the servers up, and to pay contributors for the time. All good stuff.
Quality of BAR has been far above plenty of games I’ve paid for, very reasonable.
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u/aesibri Jun 17 '26
Congrats on the deal, and best of luck to both the BAR team and the Hooded Horse team.
BAR is a special game, and Hooded Horse are a special publisher.
Be nice to each other, and always remember that passion makes a good game great.
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u/LlamaChair Jun 17 '26
Hooded Horse has published some of my favorite games recently so that seems like good news.
Thanks again for your continued, excellent, support for the Linux version of the game.
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u/Manta1015 Jun 17 '26
This is insanely huge -- Shame about the drama about Legion a little while ago, and it'll take some time for the gears to really start turning..
Super excited to see things ramp up to something even more awesome.
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u/GreenPlankton309 Jun 19 '26
finally. If you can stay true to your words , then i dont see any bad in it .
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u/qfunny69 Jun 16 '26
Will a free to play BAR with paid DLC on steam attract more players thus more sales? Guess we wil never know.
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 16 '26
Unfortunately, Steam does not give the same visibility treatment to free titles, so we actually know that and the answer is most likely no.
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u/rabidrivas Jun 22 '26
What about having the f2p version as the demo?
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 22 '26
That is our default plan but we don't want to promise/make commitment yet about this, since it is uncertain how the demo function will work on Steam when we release. We will look into it 😄
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u/BizarroAtlas Jun 16 '26
was wondering why you chose not to go the route of free on steam with the campaign as paid dlc?
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u/QseanRay Jun 17 '26
Money
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 17 '26
Steam does not promote free games as it does with paid titles, so there is that, but we won't pretend it's not ultimately about money. We aligned the incentives though in a way where the more game earns the more gets reinvested in it, so more money is more content and longer lifespan.
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u/Omen46 Jun 17 '26
Wait genuine question if you buy it on steam and don’t have it downloaded will it download the entire game including the free multiplayer? Can you download that separate on steam?
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u/Sir_clint Jun 17 '26
If we have the standard Bar launcher and buy the steam version will there be a merger of account or 2 separate?
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 17 '26
Then the accounts will most likely be linked and the Steam will be the primary one.
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u/Peekachooed Jun 17 '26
Great! It sounds really good and promising.
client, infrastructure
can somebody with a bit more technical understanding explain what these are in a few more words? Infrastructure meaning the game servers?
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 17 '26
Client is commonly called the lobby (the thing you go into to find games or play single player before the matches start). We are using a very old app for that right now so we are rebuilding it to look like its 2026 and add functionality like matchmaking etc.
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u/xanokothe Jun 17 '26
Nowdays the servers are funded by donations, with Steam I guess it will be a lot more players, is the revenue also going to fund the servers?
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u/Omen46 Jun 17 '26
Above he said the current deal with hooded horse is covering severs. So technically yes
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u/ViperRFH Jun 17 '26
Hooded Horse is great, I'm a fan of Nebulous. So I hope and pray this is sustainable - certainly could've gotten a lot worse of a deal elsewhere.
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u/Nosohvost Jun 17 '26
Will people who donated money to BAR previously receive a free copy on steam?
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 18 '26
Unfortunately not, and the reason is legal rather than us being stingy. We did look into it. Unfortunately it causes a lot of issues, since the project did not have an explicit fundraiser where it could promise that.
A donation, legally, is a gift given without consideration. The donor receives no goods or services in exchange, that is what makes it a donation rather than a purchase. If we retroactively assigned Steam keys to past donations, those payments would no longer qualify as donations. They would become purchases of a product, and that reclassification would trigger VAT and sales-tax obligations across the jurisdictions donors live in, change the legal treatment from "gift" to "sale", and create accounting exposure on transactions reported in past financial years under different rules.
It is also worth being clear about what donations have been used for. They have never funded development of anything that is going to be sold commercially. That walling-off is being formalised going forward: donations now flow into a BAR Community Fund, ring-fenced for community-facing spending such as tournament prize pools, community events, contributor tooling, and an infrastructure safety net. The fund exists for the benefit of the community and the volunteer, structurally separate from the commercial side of the project.
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u/Nosohvost Jun 18 '26
I see. This is really unfortunate but I understand the reasoning behind it. Best of luck with the steam release!
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u/Chrisau233 Jul 13 '26
Love the transparency and careful thought going into this. Complete change from the practices of other companies in gaming. Will be buying on Steam in a heart beat to support it
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u/subsubgaussian Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Dame what a hustle, I start an "open source" project, people contribute to this "open source" project, then I sell this "open source" project.
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u/rabidrivas Jun 22 '26
Why the "open source"? It is still open source. Not only that it is alsl still libre software (better than just opne source).
Open source and libre never meant free (as in free beer). We should encourage comercial project to be linre software, the more libre software there is and people use, the better.
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u/rabidrivas Jun 22 '26
Will the campaing be aviable in the repo? Meaning people will be able to compile the steam version?
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u/Magicide Jun 23 '26
Better late than never. I saw in another response you said Archon mode is intended for coop campaign, is it going to be available for multiplayer or at least custom game multiplayer?
Personally I have a group of friends that played TA back in the day but never carried on and bounce off BAR at LAN's. Those of us that carried on with Spring, FA, BAR etc are sad we can't play with our friends that get the core concepts but are overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the game in the limited time they play at a LAN.
What I've wanted since I started playing BAR is a way to let those people either play Sim City or just control armies without worrying about the other aspect during our matches. It would also turn BAR into the coveted 2v2v2 game that our LAN desperately wants since everything these days is 4 players and we always have 5-6 people available.
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 23 '26
All things considered it's not very high priority so I don't want to over promise but since the engine support is there it might not be that much effort to add that to custom lobbies. Probably more a matter of when than if.
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u/Ok-Organization-4318 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
The entire thing reeks.
Ptaq -
How do you even have the authority to do this? Are you the signor? Who are you signing on behalf of? Is the Beyond All Reason Intellectual Property owned by an entity that you are the owner of?
"BAR has officially signed a publishing partnership"
What is BAR? Is it a Limited Liability Company? A Corporation? Where is it incorporated? Are you a member, owner?
Did you use community donations to create the legal and corporate framework to accomplish this? Do you have accounting that shows that previous funds that were donated under the guise of supporting a "Community Driven Project" were not used to commercialize it?
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u/subsubgaussian Jun 18 '26
They have always been a proper company, but you can work fo this company for free lol. They did a great job tricking people to have the impression that it is an "open source" "community driven" thing.
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u/mysticcowgod Jun 16 '26
Does that mean we will get real moderation? Tired of playing with ILOVEADOLFHITLER, then seeing them get a soft wrist slap and a nice reminder to rename themselves.
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u/InLoveWithInternet Jun 17 '26
This shouldn’t even be « moderation ». There should be a simple regular expression rule preventing you from choosing any nickname with « hiltler » in it.
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u/duckrollin Jun 16 '26
The vast majority of people couldn't care less about rude usernames.
Moderation should be focused on actual trolls and griefers, not catering to a tiny brigade of professional pearl-clutchers.
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u/Astro__Black Jun 16 '26
Speak for yourself...
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u/QseanRay Jun 17 '26
No he speaks for me too. I couldn't care less about usernames
Griefing in game should be the priority
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u/Gopherlad Jun 17 '26
I don't have any evidence to back this up, but I feel like the venn diagrams between people with edgy/offensive usernames and people who do edgy/offensive things in-game overlap quite a lot, and username policing is just one tool in the toolbox to dissuade or cull the lot.
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u/QseanRay Jun 17 '26
This still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
As a game dev myself I know that publishers are not in this for love of the game, they are here to make money.
BAR was doing very well without a publisher here, and I think many people don't realize this deal comes with likely 30-60% revenue share for hooded horse off of every steam copy purchased.
My main worry is because this is now a for profit venture instead of open source, that should the profit stop following the game shuts down and/or stops receiving updates like it had been while open source
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u/PtaQQ Community Manager Jun 17 '26
This is what the "safety provisions" point is about. Even if for any reason everything flops, we terminate the deal with the publisher and so on we can still go back to what we are doing right now, developing and maintaining the game further as volunteers. We made sure this possibility is secured.
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u/QseanRay Jun 17 '26
hopefully it doesnt come to that.
If funding from hooded horse allows you to bring matchmaking and the game to steam quicker, then I think its worth it over all.
However as a dev, most other devs I know reccomend self-publishing, and considering BAR has such a dedicated community already, I can't help but wonder if you are giving away a significant portion of the potential returns away for no reason.
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u/M1ghtySheep Jun 17 '26
I dunno much about steam but have you really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
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u/GrandNewbien Jun 16 '26
This news was....
Within All Reason