Product images, avatars & company logos in image format

[City Builder]

Hi,
I think it could help a lot with refreshing the look of Cap Labs if you were to put all image files out in the open instead of having them inaccessible by the players.

For example, put all of the product images stored in the data folders as regular jpg, png, gif, tiff or whatever image format the game could possibly be programmed to use. Maybe also put all images of the AI players portraits and the company logos as images files as well.

In this way the game could get a free refresh by the players themselves, those that are interested in updating product images or portraits or company logos could easily create them and distribute them to other players of the game, this could be an instant refresh look of the game.

Please vote in the poll whether you would like to see the images put into a standard format where you could easily just replace them as you desire with new images. Even if you don't create images yourself, you could still use other peoples images that they make available to you to to do this, in other words you don't need to be somebody that is going to mod the images yourself to vote yes above, you can vote yes above if you have an interest in being able to change product, avatar or company logo images too.

[mwyeoh]

Although I can see the benefits of this, it is possible that enlight could run into copyright issues for those images, particularly if they were originally sourced from a third party who still holds copyright of the original images

[City Builder]

I'm not sure I understand. They're using them in the game now, so how would it be different if they used them in a normal standard image format? Worse case they might have to put them into a zip file and have the game access them from the zip file and the users can simply change what they want and zip them back up to use in their game.

Many games do this, I don't think it's too unusual.

However, I don't know what the license is that Enlight has with the images it used, whether they were in the public domain (quite possibly) or if they actually licensed them from somebody to use in their game, in which case they'd still be using them in their game and nothing would change other than how the game reads them.

The other possibility would be that they give us a list of image names that if the game finds an image that has the same name in let's say the "images" folder then it uses that image instead of the ones that are in the proprietary image formats that they're currently using, again, many games do this too.

[Hyronymus]

Although I can see the benefits of this, it is possible that enlight could run into copyright issues for those images, particularly if they were originally sourced from a third party who still holds copyright of the original images

You can prevent this by leaving the decision to use them by Enlight. I assume Enlight has enough resources to judge the open sourceness of proposed images.

[City Builder]

Although I can see the benefits of this, it is possible that enlight could run into copyright issues for those images, particularly if they were originally sourced from a third party who still holds copyright of the original images

You can prevent this by leaving the decision to use them by Enlight. I assume Enlight has enough resources to judge the open sourceness of proposed images.

Why would Enlight need to get involved at all in what the users decide to use? They don't need to host the images that the users decide to use in their game, the users could simply upload the images they want to share with others to someplace like mediafire and other users that want to use them could simply download and place them in the right location, Enlight would not even need (nor should they) get involved in what images any particular user is using in their game. Just my opinion and I'm obviously not a solicitor as everybody can see.

[Hyronymus]

Why would Enlight need to get involved at all in what the users decide to use? They don't need to host the images that the users decide to use in their game, the users could simply upload the images they want to share with others to someplace like mediafire and other users that want to use them could simply download and place them in the right location, Enlight would not even need (nor should they) get involved in what images any particular user is using in their game. Just my opinion and I'm obviously not a solicitor as everybody can see.

Maybe I'm missing out something important but I think Enlight needs to be involved as they produce the game? Or am I saying something really silly now?

[mwyeoh]

I'm not sure I understand. They're using them in the game now, so how would it be different if they used them in a normal standard image format? Worse case they might have to put them into a zip file and have the game access them from the zip file and the users can simply change what they want and zip them back up to use in their game.

If the images are made open in standard format, it gives people the opportunity to use the images already in the game for their own personal uses.
The would breach any copyright and/or royalty contracts that may exist.

However, if we were allowed to add/mod extra images or override the original ones, without directly giving us access to the originals, I would fully support this idea