Whether a scraping module would be illicit (in the US at any rate) would depend on whether it is disallowed by CGDB’s terms of use.
I’m ticked that NetrunnerDB is gone. It really makes me wonder what kind of effect this will have.
Are there even other places to go for netbuilding a deck? I tried cardgamedb, but holy crap that site is terrible.
Very sad about this.
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CardgameDB works in a pinch. I think Meteor is still up, and it works fine.
The larger issue is whether FFG will continue to alienate the community. Deckbuilders are geared towards enthusiasts that buy every datapack and have made ANR the most popular LCG out there. That seems like the consumer you most want to covet, but I’m no businessperson.
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Agreed. Doomtown just hit, and this morning I was thinking, “Let me build a deck or two…”
Not a builder in site. Gamer boner deflated.
Deckbuilding sites are key, and good ones are all the sweeter.
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I love doomtown. I dread creating decks for it until a deckbuilder is created, though. Ugh.
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“Use a spreadsheet.” is the advice.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… no.
EDIT: One COULD use OCTGN.
Ugh. Fortunately, I don’t have a copy of my own yet (ANR friends have enough to go around for now). Not sure how I’m gonna deal with it when I get my copy.
I think they just don’t get what’s useful about a deckbuilder. They think it’s a way to keep the list of cards, but the actual utility is looking through them quickly, easily sorting things in various ways, and having it keep track of stuff for you while you do.
A spreadsheet’d be fine for recording a list, that’s just not what I used the DB for, at all.
I think this is what happens when you hire one guy to do the dev for the website with little or no care for the actual game and hire one lawyer who knows literally nothing about the community. The whole thing stinks of half-ass jobs poorly done.
Community members have an actual stake in making sites work well because they’re members of the community themselves. Pay a random guy to do a bunch of website work is just going to get it done. The plea for feedback seems like a way for FFG to get us to write the guys job description for them because they can’t even be bothered to do that.
It really feels to me like their priority is acquiring the rights to develop certain games rapidly and throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. It’s been a good business model for them, and they probably see no need to change the way they do things. I don’t think they’re a terrible company for what it’s worth, it just feels like the general attitude over there is to continue sticking to their gameplan rather than extending more of their resources to other areas, such as online development, organized play, or better R&D.
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Yet. I’m assuming that they will comply with the C&D.
One interesting idea would be to build a web-powered desktop app (using something like node-webkt or atom-shell). That type of app could defer to local hard-drive for card images (and would be no different than OCTGN). A hosted mobile-friendly version could be available to at least view deck-lists comfortably on the go (sans images).
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[quote=“mediohxcore, post:85, topic:1883”]It really feels to me like their priority is acquiring the rights to develop certain games rapidly and throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. It’s been a good business model for them, and they probably see no need to change the way they do things. I don’t think they’re a terrible company for what it’s worth, it just feels like the general attitude over there is to continue sticking to their gameplan rather than extending more of their resources to other areas, such as online development, organized play, or better R&D.
[/quote]
QFT. Working in the corporate world I can tell you what a pain it is to try and get a company to try new ways to connect with potential customers. Unless you can show a return on an investment in dollars it’s hard to get buy-in on a CEO/Presidential level. After all, they are answering to investors who’s main concern is how much they can make with as little investment as possible.
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I’d hope he doesn’t just take it down. It will take quite a bit of effort for FFG to actually sue, during which time netrunnerDB can negotiate with FFG and find a way to make things work.
(not legal advice) - I would suggest he remove his API, use cardgamedb’s watermarked images or the low rez images for older cards, and let FFG know he’s made those changes. Also, I would think posting all of his communication publically would be a good idea to continue to pressure FFG (in a good way) to let his site continue.
The petition has almost 2,000 supporters, which is significant for such a niche game.
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I wonder if @Alsciende’s heard from FFG about compliance. I notice some commits on the NetrunnerDB codebase that seem to look like attempts to properly credit FFG copyrights (and discourage people from replicating things like jinteki.net).
Are there any numbers to say that it is a niche game? Online it is all the rage, has been sold out at least once…
And I don’t agree, I think he should take it down, as I presume it is too big of a risk for him. The only thing that will make a dent is mailing FFG and not buying ANR; asking your FLGS to contact them with the community response and not buy the OP kits. Stuff unlikely to happen.
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I moved 14 posts to a new topic: Issues with Organized Play
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