Pirates to Remain Docked for now

According to the latest blog entry from Rusty, Pirates of the Burning Sea will not be shipping in June. This sounds largely to be business and legal related.

Part of what has taken so long is that I’m 100% dedicated to maintaining control of the game. That’s a very unique position in this industry, and honestly, I don’t think a contract like this has ever been done, so there’s a lot of education that has to occur. And while I know that the length of time is frustrating to our fans, Pirates is a long-term project for us. We have a lot of long-range plans for the game after we launch and we intend to be working on it for quite a few years. So I’m not going to rush a contract in order to “get it done” – it has to be done right.

I am glad they are taking their time to hash out the contract. As anyone, in any industry, that deals with any legal and business development departments can tell you, this kind of things take absolutely forever. Some people want to keep some stuff to the letter and concrete, and some other people would want to keep some other stuff to be as vague as possible. Contract negotiations are really painful to everyone that’s involved.

You might think it’s hard for you as a player to wait for news, but it’s even harder within the company. I remember when we were negotiating the contract with Vivendi about The Lord of the Rings Online (and the whole name changing thing), we had to keep our mouths shut and pretty much blacked out communication to everyone outside the company, so not to jeopardize any ongoing negotiations. It certainly wasn’t fun, and I am not even directly involved with the game itself. Nonetheless, you get concern as an employee when nothing’s been released about your company’s game for months.

In the end, it will all work out. I wish the folks at Flying Lab all the best. I know I will be checking PotBS out