Larry Bond and Chris Carlson, the creators of the Harpoon 4 wargame, and Don Gilman of Advanced Gaming Systems Inc. , also a participant in the Harpoon 4 project, are disappointed by Ubisoft’s decision to cancel Harpoon 4, but respect Ubisoft’s judgment, their desire to sell quality games, and their need to make a profit while they do so. The just-ended project has been underway since 1997, when we signed an agreement with Strategic Simulations Inter- national to create a computer adaptation of the Harpoon 4 miniatures wargame. Unfortunately, the development effort became hampered by a series of corporate buyouts, each one causing delays and simultaneously reducing the size of the development budget. While each successive publisher has made their best effort, each buyout (and there were four) reduced the chance of a successful product reaching the store shelf. Our intention is to start a new development effort that will produce a computerized version of Harpoon 4 at the earliest opportunity. Ubisoft has graciously offered to transfer the partially-completed code to a third party for further development. We will examine the code to see if that is feasible, and if appropriate, will transfer of the code to a third party. Since the code contains copyrighted material, that third party would have to enter into a contract with the rights holders, just as SSI did six years ago. And that is only one approach to producing a new Harpoon 4 game. Other options include starting development fresh with a new publisher, or upgrading existing programs to H 4 standard. None of these will produce a game quickly, and even choosing which option to follow will take several months. It is important to acknowledge not only the patience and support of the computer Harpoon community, but also the efforts of the many developers who have worked on the commercial product, and the beta testers who did their best to make it a quality game. They all made substantial contributions to Harpoon, and we will work hard to make sure that they have not labored in vain. BT Back to The Naval Sitrep # 26 Table of Contents Back to Naval Sitrep List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by Larry Bond and Clash of Arms. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history and related articles are available at http://www.magweb.com