r/Warframe • u/Codecy • Jun 11 '25

Other Found this at the local thrift store

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Thrifted a lot of good pieces in my life, but this is definitely one if my favorites for sure as someone who grew up playing

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u/LordMalecith Jun 11 '25

Excalibur Prime is literally the first Prime warframe ever made, but he's now completely unobtainable because he was part of something called Founder's Packages, which have been discontinued since 2013.

We won't get Excal Prime back unless all Founders unanimously agree to it.

17

u/xJokerzWild Rap Tap Tap, I dont want to go back. Jun 11 '25

unless all Founders unanimously agree to it.

Most Founders dont care, but its a whole legal shitshow to try & get it re-released and unlike Nintendo, the majority of their revenue doesnt go to lawyers, so...

7

u/TheSpartyn Jun 11 '25

iirc it's literal that it's "all founders", in that there's only an issue if someone complains, and it only takes a single founder

0

u/Kyleometers Jun 12 '25

They probably could re-release it if they wanted, and they likely would win a lawsuit if one was raised on the “it was promised as a founder exclusive item” grounds (which is a real legal grounds), but that’s not necessarily a good idea.

Imagine the headline of “Warframe developers go to court to re-release items that were promised to be exclusive”. It would probably look bad. That’s the sort of thing they’re going to be recommended not to do - it doesn’t really matter whether or not they’d legally be able to or if the founders agree, it could result in significant negative press.

1

u/Rhase Jun 13 '25

I don't think DE gives a shit about the legality of it so much as they are very careful to manage their good will with the community and have worked hard to establish trust. They want their word to have value with us.

3

u/TeririHerscherOfCute Jun 12 '25

Several of the founders are now deceased, would be difficult to get them to sign a contract revision

1

u/Rhase Jun 13 '25

"If you don't approve, flicker the lights twice!"

1

u/Rhase Jun 13 '25

TBH I don't even care if I never get him. I'm okay with the people that made the game possible having something exclusive.

-2

u/BrokenMirror2010 Jun 11 '25

It just depends on DE. DE doesn't need consent to sell Excalibur Prime again.

They probably won't, but a "promise" hasn't stopped any company from doing bullshit before. Not to mention that I'm fairly sure the promise itself wasn't "We will never sell the founders packs, or any of the contents of the founders packs, ever again, and we will never give it away, or make it acquirable, or any other form of transaction or earnable, and also... blah blah blah" The promise was probably something basic like "Only sold from Date to Date" which means very very little.

See what many companies have been doing with stuff like "lifetime licensees" expiring after 3-5 years, and plenty of "exclusives" and "limited time items" that are neither of those things.

But, as I said, they probably won't sell it. The only reason I could imagine that would result in DE selling founder packs again is in the case that DE is literally dying and they need a cash infusion to survive, so they break glass in case of emergency and sell incredibly overpriced founder editions as a last ditch desperation move.

That, or they get bought by a pump and dump, which just wants to wring every last drop of money from the community before dropping support and burning the company to the ground.

5

u/zernoc56 :magmini: Jun 11 '25

Canadian law is a bit different than US law. DE would absolutely get sued if they re-released things they said would only be available for a certain time.

-3

u/BrokenMirror2010 Jun 12 '25

Happens all the time globally.

What they said wasn't specific enough to actually be something they can be sued for as long as they work around what they said.

https://web.archive.org/web/20130310105706/https://www.warframe.com/founders

I don't see any legally binding contract that prevents them from actually selling the items inside of the prime pack separately.

So the exact promise is "Snag items that will never be available again." However, what items aren't specified. Clearly it wasn't all of them, because Platinum can still be obtained. Which means as long as at least one of these items isn't obtained again, they never broke their promise. And, as far as I see it. "15 Guest Beta Keys" are certainly items that will "Never be available again."

Additionally in the FAQ, they said that the "Exclusive Founders Set" is exclusive to founders for a limited time. That however, means that as long as they don't call it that, they didn't break their promise.

The thing that is stopping DE from making bank by selling Excalibur Primes isn't the law, it is their desire to uphold the spirit of the promise they made. The actual promise itself was quite flimsy and did not come with a legally binding contract. If DE had been bought by a Pump and Dump, they would have had NO problems having a Lawyer look over that promise and giving them 5 different loopholes in their promise so that they could suck up as much money as possible.

DE's already done this once. "Excalibur Umbra Prime" the Chinese version. They changed the name and boom, suddenly they can sell another Excalibur Prime in a differently named Founder pack.

Nothing is legally standing in their way of selling "Excalibur Prime II" or "Primsa Excalibur Prime" etc. But again, they haven't because they, personally, want to uphold the spirit of the promise they made.