== For me, money just destroys civilization. I just don't like the way companies and individual (like you) treat them like Gods. ==
And I presume, you count myself such yellow-devil-worshipping kind of person as well. Am I right? However, I completely agree with you - I also believe that money destroys civilization and I like those money rascals no more than you.
I also strongly object the notion that it was ME who started this thread. Well, technically speaking it was me, but as OldCoder absolutely correctly pointed out, if not me, it was bound to be started by somebody else. That's because in the essence it was started by no else but Mr. Mnemonic himself with his now infamous "will cost you $$$".
As a matter of fact, I HATE talking about money and I'd prefer not talking about them at all, but did have I chance? All I was trying to do, was to finish with that highly unfortunate topic as soon as possible BEFORE it became REALLY ugly. Could I avoid that? No. Could our wonderful Mr. Mnemonic prevent it? Sure as Heaven - he just had to state, plain and simple (as for virtually all other amateur engines): the stuff is FREE. Period. He might as well GPL his engine (what would be EXTREMELY good for the engine quality and capabilities) and do lots of other good things but instead he decided from the very beginning to aim for the big money. And I do mean BIG. (What. of course, does not imply he will ever succeed - I'd rather bet on the opposite.)
Let's examine one of the leading arguments of this thread: the alternatives "free for non-commercial, extremely expensive for (quasi) commercial" and "cheap for everybody". But WHY a those the ONLY alternatives? Why can't we talk about "free for non-commercial, cheap for everybody else?" I'll tell you why: because this last one promises only SMALL money (also in reality it COULD bring BIG). And that false alternative was set by Mr. Mnemonic himself: "Of course, I can understand this scheme [fixed price] - many people start their games, not many finish them." In other words he's just musing on different ways of making the SAME money - either collect them from everybody or from the few most successful, but he doesn't even consider a possibility of making LESS money. ("The price is 100 bucks but you don't have to pay it until you make that 100 bucks because otherwise it wouldn't be fair.") But not just that, a little later he adds: "The problem is those products are way too expensive for this approach [fixed price for tools] to work. Yep, VC++ is far from cheap, so is Photoshop, 3DS Max, etc. Also, and more importantly, they sell many more units than any game engine ever will." Sorry, man, but why should I appreciate your aspirations to become the next Bill Gates? Yes, those products are way to expensive and, yes, they sell much broader than yours ever will. And that's precisely WHY their owners are "filthy rich" while you will never be. But you know what? It's completely OK with me. I'm not wishing you to become filthy (or even just) rich and I'm not gonna apologize for that. (As a matter of fact, I'd rather prefer nobody was rich.)
Now, that we cleared out the nouveau riche stuff, let's talk about "fairness" business. That's how Mr. Mnemonic sees it: "We share the risk, we share the gain. You can think about it as of the engine developer being a part of your development team." Sounds nice but only until the engine developer IS a member of the team so his work (along with work of other team members) belong to the TEAM. But that's not what Mr. Mnemonic proposes, He wants to share in other people's work, but he insists on his exclusive rights for his own piece which he could sell again and again by becoming "a member" of other teams. Or you can look at it from the different perspective: what would be the ultimate result of this development if everything goes OK and luck will be on Mr. Mnemonic's side? I'll tell you: he will get a commercial-grade engine that he might indeed license for hundreds of thousands (millions, combined) of bucks. Well, good for him. But the question remains: would he be ever there without help of this community of amateur developers? We (I assume a hypothetical case I joined the community and am developing my games using WME) helped him debug his crap, we gave him ideas, how to improve it, we advertised his product, etc, etc, etc. There would be NO product without us, so where is OUR share? Will Mr. Mnemonic to fly to everybody of us to hand a fat suitcase full of money? I seriously doubt that. We will, most likely, remain a bunch of amateurs who in the best case made a couple of grands all together and actually PAID Mr. Mnemonic for the dubious privilege of helping him to become filthy rich. So why should Mr. Mnemonic share in our (hypothetical) personal success that he helped to achieve if he refuses to share with us in his personal success in which we helped him? I see nothing "fair" about it. Nothing at all.
Let's put it strait, folks: we ARE amateurs here, all of us. Including Mr. Mnemonic. If we (game developers) were professionals, developing real (i.e. not quasi) commercial games we wouldn't even consider going with WME, we would go with PROVEN commercial-grade engines that were used in TLJ, Siberia and games like that - we would have money to pay for them upfront and we wouldn't have time to struggle with not fully debugged, lacking functionality engine. Or we would hire a few programmers to develop an engine to our precise specs that would give us en edge over competitors. Likewise, if Mr. Mnemonic was a professional, he wouldn't bother with us, he'd sell his engine to respectable companies that are able to pay a hundred grands up front. But, you know, I kinda like it that way. I do prefer that we create games for GAMES, for the people that would play them, not for the money they might or might not to bring us. And I welcome Mr. Mnemonic to do just the same: to develop his engine for the sake of it, for the people that would use it (i.e. for us), not for the money it might or might not bring him.
You said that money destroy civilization. That's true. At least, they sure destroying this community - well, you might consider OldCoder and myself unworthy potential members, but still, we might become part of it but money matters are preventing that. And I regret that. So I have a practical proposal how we can BE a community and not allow money to interfere into our relations: let's remain AMATEURS, let's not squabble over the monies that most likely will never materialize. In particular, let's agree on this terms:
1. Whatever we're doing here it's not for money but for the enjoyment of doing it. We already have all the gratification we are seeking so we do NOT need any additional "gratification" measured in dollars and cents. Thus:
2. We grant Mr. Mnemonic (and each other) an unlimited rights to play all of our current and future games. For FREE.
3. Mr. Mnemonic grants us an unlimited rights to create games with the current and all future versions of his engine. For FREE.
4. If somebody do become filthy rich - like selling a million copies of the game or finding a company that'd like to license an engine for million bucks, he or she brings us all together (Prague sounds good and appropriate) and serves Champaign with caviar. For FREE.
5. That's it.