OpenHarrier

If you are a DCS (Digital Combat Simulator) player, chances are you aware of the current “spat” between Eagle Dynamics (game developer responsible for DCS) and Razbam Simulations, the modular developer responsible for Mig-15, Mig-19P, Mirage 2000C, F-15E Strike Eagle, and of course the AV-8B N/A Harrier. Yes, there’s also the South Atlantic map, but’s actually developed by another team and published under the Razbam name.

For those of you unaware, here’s what happened at a high-level. On April 4th, 2024, Razbam Simulations made the following public announcement on their Discord server:

Dear Customers and Community,

You may have noticed that the that the latest RAZBAM announcements does not include a changelog or any updates for our products. We would like to inform you that, until further notice, all support for RAZBAM-developed aircraft modules is on hold. This suspension encompasses, but is not limited to, bug fixes and updates.

We want to reaffirm our unwavering commitment to this exceptional community, our current customers, and prospective clients. Unfortunately, due to circumstances completely beyond our control, we are temporarily unable to continue our work at this time. Our team, a group of highly skilled and professional developers, is first and foremost made up of dedicated individuals. They invest not only their expertise but also their personal dedication and sacrifice into crafting our products. For many, this work provides essential supplementary income or even constitutes their primary livelihood.

We are hopeful for a swift resolution so that we can resume our normal operations. However, until these issues are resolved, we will not be issuing any updates about our products. We ask for your understanding during this challenging period, a situation that RAZBAM Simulations did not seek and which has previously seriously affected other parties, for example Heatblur Simulations. We have been patient, perhaps too patient, waiting for a resolution from the responsible parties. Now, we find it necessary to take a stand and await a practical solution to this deadlock.

I also want to extend my heartfelt thanks to my fellow third-party developers. Their support, once aware of the relevant facts, has been overwhelming. Thank you for elevating DCS to new heights; it truly wouldn’t be the remarkable experience it is without your contributions.

The suspension will remain in effect until the significant issues between Eagle Dynamics and RAZBAM Simulations LLC are resolved to our mutual satisfaction. Once these issues have been addressed, we will resume our standard practices of bug fixing, updates, and upgrades, just as we have since our inception as developers for DCS. We hope this resolution results in a more stable and optimistic future for DCS and all 3rd Party Developers.

Best regards,

Ron Zambrano, CEO, RAZBAM Simulations, LLC (posted by RAZBAM_prowler on the RAZBAM Discord)

This was followed by an announcement from Eagle Dynamics CEO, Nick Grey:

Following the message published by Ron Zambrano of Razbam Simulations, we believe that it is necessary to rectify some of the unfounded allegations and to reassure the Community that everything is being done to resolve the current situation promptly and for the benefit of all concerned.

Without entering into the details of matters that are confidential to the parties, we firmly reject the allegations that the current disagreement between Eagle Dynamics and Razbam Simulations would be as stated by Razbam “due to circumstances completely beyond our control” and that it is “a situation that Razbam Simulations did not seek”.

On the contrary, the current disagreement is the result of improper actions that have been taken by Razbam Simulations, in breach of its contractual obligations towards our company and of our legally protected IP rights, and for which we are seeking a reasonable and forward-looking commercial outcome rather than entertaining legal claims.

We very much regret that Ron Zambrano has decided, without even pre-advising us, to make these disparaging public statements and, more importantly, to take the customers of the Razbam developed aircraft as leverage in the discussions with us.

Please rest assured, we are addressing the situation with the utmost attention and constructiveness.

Many thanks and kind regards,Nick Grey (shared by ED Community Manager on the DCS by Eagle Dynamics Discord)

Ever since, all forums, Discord servers, Subreddits, and etc., have been discussing this continuously. Individuals who have worked for Razbam as subcontractors have spoken out about the situation in various channels. As always, there are 2 sides of the story, and your viewpoint may be different dependent on who’s side you believe.

According to people who have worked with and for Razbam, Razbam has not been paid for F-15E Strike Eagle they developed since it was released (November of 2023). Supposedly Razbam’s contract with ED requires ED to share quarterly sales data so that Razbam knows how much they are supposed to be paid, but ED has also not shared this data since 2023. Just to be clear, Razbam has not been paid for ANY of their modules since 2023. So if you bought the Harrier or one of the Razbam modules in 2024, Razbam hasn’t received any of that money. ED has withheld all of it.

ED claims that Razbam violated their IP and terms of agreement. Razbam says this is entirely untrue, and says this claim was never ever mentioned by ED to Razbam until this all went public. Razbam believes that ED is using the claim of IP infringement as a scapegoat for what’s really happening.

So here is what many people believe is what is really going on. ED’s business model is setup somewhat like a Ponzi scheme. They use funds from the early access of new modules to pay back the developers of modules that were released earlier. Supposedly this is exactly what happened when Heatblur released the F-14B Tomcat. I read somewhere that Heatblur was not receiving money for the F-14 for a LONG time, and it wasn’t until ED’s F-16 was released into early access that the Heatblur started getting paid what they were overdue for the F-14. I believe there was speculation that the F-16 was released way before it was ready specifically because ED was short on cash and needed to pay Heatblur something or Heatblur was going to walk away – so they put the F-16 out even though it was missing a lot of functionality because it wasn’t ready.

There are few other interesting things to discuss. Eagle Dynamics is a private company that today, is headquartered in Switzerland. It’s owner and CEO is Nick Grey, who was originally from UK. The company was co-founded between Nick Grey and Igor Tishin, and was originally headquartered in Moscow. In 2018, Igor passed away from complications due to cancer, and at that time, the headquarters moved to Switzerland and Nick Grey took full control.

Nick Grey also owns The Fighter Collection, which is a collection of mostly WWII warbirds that are kept flying. This collection was started by his father, Stephen Grey, and later passed down to Nick Grey when Stephen retired. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fighter_Collection

The collection of warbirds is extensive, and the amount of money needed to maintain and fly this collection is rather high. Here’s where things get a bit dicey. Nick Grey owns both Eagle Dynamics and The Fighter Collection. In 2023, Eagle Dynamics made an interest-free loan to The Fighter Collection of about $2.5 million dollars, and has been making interest-free loans to The Fighter Collection every year for some time now. As of 2023, ED has loaned over $12 million dollars total to The Fighter Collection in interest-free loans.

While it’s fantastic that these warbirds are able to be kept flying, it’s alarming that much of the money is coming from ED. What’s even more interesting is, according to public record, Eagle Dynamics SA has an annual revenue of < $5 million: https://www.zoominfo.com/c/eagle-dynamics-sa/356890744

That would mean that half of the revenue is being shipped to The Fighter Collection each year. As a reminder, revenue is the amount of money earned by a company, before expenses. So the remaining $2.5 million of revenue left over must be used to pay for expenses (such as salaries). It is not known how much profit is left over, if any. There is speculation that ED doesn’t have much liquidity, and this may also explain why ED isn’t paying Razbam. It is entirely possible that ED just doesn’t have the money to pay Razbam. They could be using the money from Razbam sales to literally stay afloat.

Did you noticed the sudden flurry of module announcements and released in the last couple of months, when not much was happening from ED in 2023? There is speculation that ED is hurting for cash. Now that it’s come out that they have been withholding all payments to Razbam in breach of contract, possibly for dubious reasons, other module developers are definitely watching this situation.

We are also aware that ED is not responding to ANY communications to Razbam. Let me be clear… there is absolutely zero happening behind closed doors between Razbam and ED. Razbam has been trying to talk to ED for months, and ED is refusing to even communicate to them. And that may have started before all of this went public. Why would ED not even talk to Razbam, or even acknowledge the communication? That suggests something is very wrong. There is no negotiating happening. Razbam is willing to negotiate, but ED is unwilling to even discuss it.

It is really starting to look like the issue between Razbam and ED is not going to get resolved – ever. The modules are now stuck in a moment of time and aren’t being worked on. It has been proven by Razbam that ED does not have the source code to be able to support the modules. That means the Razbam modules are likely to break over time as the ED engine continues to be developed, and there’s no way those breaks will get fixed if Razbam never fixes them, and Razbam is not willing to do that because they aren’t being paid. And I don’t blame them.

It’s already beginning to have some affects. I don’t know if you heard about this, but Razbam intentionally put in some code “time-bombs” in the DLL for the F-15E. At least one has already come to fruition. The radar no longer works on the F-15E, unless you launch and authorize the DCS client and then roll back the system time on your computer to a couple of months ago – then the radar will work for that session. But if you don’t change the system time after launch, the radar won’t work. That’s a deliberate action Razbam put into the code, which we would never know about if Razbam continued to put out updates which would reset the block on these code bombs. Who knows whether there are other code bombs may exist. Even if there are no other code bombs, eventually these modules will likely stop working properly and may stop working entirely. Or, ED may choose to even remove them entirely from the game.

As the founder of OpenHarrier, I’m obviously very concerned about this. This has a very real implication to my own Harrier cockpit that I’ve now been building for over 2 1/2 years. I’ve poured a lot of sweat and money into the project, and it’s entirely possible I won’t have a functioning module to enjoy it with in the future. I’m becoming increasingly more doubtful that Razbam is ever going to be able to resolve the situation with ED. It looks like ED has no interest in resolving the situation, and it’s possible that ED is failing financially — which could largely be a direct result of money being siphoned off by Nick Grey to fund The Fighter Collection. Nick Grey might not even care at this point if ED goes under. It’s entirely possible that ED may not survive. Hard to say, especially since there will be an influx of cash from new modules being released. But there is already a large number of boycotting going on for the new modules because of the situation.