I ran across a story today regarding Halogen, a mod Killed by M$.

I at first didn't know what Halogen was, so I figured I will explain it here. Halogen is a mod for Command & Conquer generals. It turns the game's components (people, vehicles, buildings) into components from the game Halo, essentially chaning the atmosphere of the game.

Microsoft does hold the rights to the components from Halo, and therefore can request it stop, but the story isn't that simple. Mod makers generally do the work, and it's very hard & very skilled work, for absoltuly nothing other than the satisfaction of doing & completing the work. In relation to other Halo mods for other games, Microsoft has directly stated that mods are fine as long as the mods are not used to generate a profit...

The Halogen mod is no different. It contains hours - days - months - years worth of work. The makers literally get nothing for there work other than what there work itself brings them. So what's the difference between this mod & the mods M$ said were okay? The only real difference is the level of work. Apparently this mod was done a little too well, and had a little too much work put into it.

So what does this move mean for everybody involved? Well, for the mod makers it means the years of work they invested in something that will never bring them any money will now never bring them satisfaciton of completion and a wide user base - the only two things I really get out of stuff I post to BobbyWare (my own freeware site). Microsoft is pretty much in the same position financially that they would have been had they left it alone. Unless M$ is planning to either sell their own symiler mod, or release a game symiler to what the mod provides to CnC Generals.

But in the end there is one sure fire thing it does bring Microsoft. That being the dislike of the company by people like me to even more people out there. They seemingly enjoy squashing the little guy, even when the little guy isn't trying to make money...