Why doesn't Maxis release the Edith Editor?

[dizzy]

I've been hunting all over the net for Edith, and it seems that EA has been "generous" enough to let a few people play with their toys. The general public, however, have been left on the sidelines to watch.

http://www.pabit.org/usc/
http://interactive.usc.edu/CTIN489/
http://interactive.usc.edu/projects/games/20050815-sims_2_spo.php
http://interactive.usc.edu/courses/2005_fall/ctin-489-intermedia.php

[J. M. Pescado]

My guess is that those people have incriminating evidence and can manage to blackmail Maxians into coughing it up. Go get some incriminating evidence!

[Oddysey]

If Maxis lets people use Edith, then they are theoretically responsible for what said people make with it, in the sense that they can be sued. At least, that's the official line: the lawyers made us do it. Personally, I think it's a case of EA being twitchy about "proprietary formats."

Edit: Looks to me like these classes are basically an employment advertisement to try to convince the best computer students to work for EA.

[dizzy]

Here a wiki if you're interested (and can actually manage to get a hold of Edith).

http://489.pabit.org/guide/HomePage.html

[crammyboy]

from the wiki

To get Edith running:

Make sure that the USB key is plugged into the same port it was in when you first installed Edith.

More than just software then?

[dizzy]

Edith is dongle-protected. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongle

[crammyboy]

Even without edith, the wiki is... interesting.

[PlaidSquirrel]

Death by lawn clutter sounds pretty cool.

[Sagana]

Did ya'll notice the line about reviewing the objects for use in expansion packs? Know if anything made in the class ended up in the EP or if any of the people got hired on? I did notice that the Sims Entrepreneur was one of the powerpoint presentation concept proposals and Sims Karaoke was in the miniEP suggestions - not that their that original or anything, but just curious. Seems like it'd be a pretty interesting class to take, but I wouldn't wanna work for EA games myself.

[noname]

Take a peek at this:

http://www.alphavilleherald.com/archives/000312.html

[dizzy]

Interesting article. This is a good quote, here:

Patrick Barrett banged out the expansion packs using Edith (he had a team of object programmers, number unknown). He was efficient, but he was very proprietary about the use of Edith - he didn't want that to get out, and in effect he established a kind of fiefdom within EA/Maxis. He controlled the development tool, so he controlled the development of the expansion packs. Arguably that policy was reinforced by the scarce resources.

I assume "scarce resources" basically means lack of time (due to EA's infamous deadline idiocy).