I have a copy of HCE and can keep it up to date with the latest beta .exes. Other than having a complete collection of all the various versions of Harpoon, what is the benefit for a HCE player?

 

And from something I read in one of the threads, did I correctly understand that purchase of HUE from Matrix benefits you guys not at all? This seems weird as aren't you the guys who provided all the update work?

If you don't mind using the betas there is no reason to upgrade to HUE (with that assumption that you don't care about the digitalmilitaryart.com images and the old versions of HC). At some point Matrix may place an artificial limitation on us so that the betas only work with HUE but until then we'll continue as we have been.

 

You did read such a post on Matrix but it is not as purely true as it once was. We had to beg and plead to be able to work on HC(E). It was a multi-year process convincing AGSI to let us continue improving the game. Finally they relented and here we are. The idea was that we would get token royalties ($0.25-$0.50 per copy that we split 3-ways) and the rest of the money would fund H3/ANW development. We didn't ask for any royalties at all but AGSI likes to do that.

 

I think AGSI has paid us higher royalties than that token amount expected. It isn't enough to make the time expenditure monetarily worthwhile but it is enough to pay for most of the programming tools/add-ins this year.

 

So yes, this is definitely a hobby for us and the way to fund HCE development is to pay us directly, not buy the game (and yes, that is strange as you note!). What buying the game from Matrix does do is show that there is still some commercial interest that may let us keep working on the game longer. We did successfully negotiate one pay for feature agreement with AGSI's approval so that is also an option. Unfortunately in that particular case the patron did not pay up, grrr.

Thank you for explaining. Given that as far as I know, you guys are what is keeping HCE alive, I just didn't understand how you would be receiving no compensation for your many efforts to keep improving Harpoon. Fortunately, you guys are involved for reasons other than making money.

 

I will eventually be buying HUE, I seem to buy whatever version of Harpoon is currently available sooner or later so there will be another stroke to the stroke tally of the interested. I still have some old 5.25" install disks for Harpoon.

Why? I (we) get asked that question plenty. I still have difficulty putting it into words. Tony's account will suffice.