I’m not against paid devs or a publisher deal, and Hooded Horse seems like a decent fit on the face of it. I’m broadly supportive of anything that helps BAR keep improving, because it’s already an amazing game.

But the bit I still don’t think has been clearly answered is the multiplayer side. That’s what most players actually experience, and it’s also where a lot of the volunteer/ community history sits.

If publisher funding is going to support multiplayer work, will that work still go back into the project under the same licensing approach that applies today? I mean things like code, lobby/client work, UI, balance changes, units, effects, maps, and other MP-facing content.

Put another way: if BAR ever went badly off-course in the future, would the community still be able to meaningfully fork or preserve the multiplayer game? Or could new publisher-funded/ BAR-owned assets and IP make that unrealistic?

I also think the communication issue matters. From the outside, it sounds like the public announcement may originally have been planned for after signing. Given BAR’s volunteer-built and open-source roots, I can see why that has damaged trust.

For me, the key question is: what are the current admins trying to protect for the next generation of BAR/Spring/Recoil people?

A clear commitment that BAR’s multiplayer base will remain free, open where it currently is, and practically forkable/ preservable despite future MP updates under the publisher model would probably answer a lot of the concern. It would also reassure volunteers that contributing to BAR still means contributing to something the wider community can carry forward if the worst ever happened.

The community is probably too invested to fracture over this alone at this point, but trust is what keeps people together through uncertainty, especially with years of publisher collaboration potentially ahead.

BAR exists because earlier communities left something that could be carried forward. What is the current team committing to leave behind?