Ben Dobyns's page

I'm really looking forward to seeing The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, but am really getting apprehensive after reading these entries about malfunctioning discs and low availibility. Last month, I bought the RBD: La Familia set and went through three bad copies before I gave up and got my money back.

Any chance of seeing this through iTunes in the future?

Ben

Is this going to be released in region 4 format for the Australians out there?

Thanks,
Ben Dobyns

I'm having problems watching it on my dvd player. In places it stops and skips, but it looks fine.

I don't want to return the disc I have because I got it signed at Gen Con. Is there a way for a replacement disc?

Joe

Our DVD duplication and distribution are handled by Anthem Entertainment. (www.anthemdvd.com) If multiple people are having playback issues, it's important that they are made aware of the problem so it can be resolved quickly.

Thanks,
Ben Dobyns

P.S. How does Region free release lock you out of "larger domestic markets" ?

"The Gamers" was sold to the hobby trade. "The Gamers: Dorkness Rising" is released by a motion picture distributor, which means that we have a good chance of seeing the movie on the shelves at places like Hollywood Video or Target. However, the movie distribution business almost always requires region encoding. For example, Amazon.com will not carry Region 0 DVDs. Neither will many other mass-market places, the very places where sales of the movie will help generate income to justify the picture's budget.

None of us at Dead Gentlemen are fans of region encoding, but until the media revolution comes, we have to play by the current rules if we want to work with production budgets that allow us to pay cast, crew, and ourselves, which of course helps us continue to make new movies!

I wish that I had a better answer for you – region encoding is something that rarely directly benefits consumers. Just like DRM, it controls access to content and assumes the the consumer is a criminal.

Now, when it comes to ways to get around region encoding, it depends entirely on what hardware you have. I suggest doing a little research. Many DVDs players, especially those sold outside of the U.S. actually have hidden region-free modes. Many websites carry lists of hardware and how to access those features. (I'm a big fan of my $99 Pioneer DVD player, which not only has a region-free mode, but automatically converts from PAL to NTSC.)

I'm sorry that the movie is not yet available in the UK – we are working hard on negotiating a good European distribution deal.

Thanks,
Ben Dobyns

"shot in high definition" and released as NTSC? Where's the Blu-Ray version? :-)"

The HD version is beautiful, but we don't yet know when our distributor will release it in that format. For what is a relatively small film, the uncertainty and size of the HD market are big considerations.

I was just wondering, if there is an answer to this yet, will the release be region free? Or something to that effect, seeing as I'm stuck far away in the "second region".

In any case, looking forwards to finally seeing it!

Hi! I just wanted to drop by and let everyone know that Dead Gentlemen will be checking in here periodically to answer questions about the upcoming Dorkness Rising release. If you have any burning queries, please don't hesitate to post them!

Thanks,

Ben Dobyns
Director of Development
Dead Gentlemen Productions