Wasteland Sales, player stats and other business things

[Infinitron]

Sounds about right. D:OS's was in the ballpark as well (most of D:OS's development happened prior to Kickstarter, I believe.) I doubt either game's expenditures came close to either budget.

Larian had to take out loans, man. The banks were on Swen's ass.

I'll say this as clearly as possible. Those indies that make great games with budgets in the tens of thousands of dollars? Unpaid labor. They're coasting on savings, they're working from home, they have spouses or other relatives who support them.

Did you know that a company the size of Obsidian (140 employees) burns through over a million dollars PER MONTH? In comparison, Larian has about 40 and inXile 30. So, do the math.

 

[Cazzeris]

Lots of people had the game before it actually came out since they were backers, so the Kickstarter campaign lowered the sale numbers. That's what I was talking about.

And I can't say where did the money go, but probably inXile spent it on making the game longer (it's much longer than I expected as a backer), improving the game's general presentation since it looked soulless, paying the Kickstarter's rewards, writing, remaking the UI's art over and over, animations, voice-acting...

And how would you improve WL2? Maybe you should tell your ideas to Fargo directly.

Right. If it's sales #'s then yeah. Really can't count those outta Kickstarter. Maybe by tiers but that's not going to be accurate. They definitely used the money to extend the game, I'd imagine, since that's what they said they would do and I don't really have any reason to disbelieve that. But from what I can tell they A) Used a cheap engine with purchasable resources (instead of needing in-house development) and B) Didn't appear to blow money on anything stupid. No way $5m of budget gets eaten there. So I think it just got rolled into future projects. (Which again, no issue there.)

I'd love to talk to Fargo.

In my opinion, they used the money fairly well compared to other projects because inXile never looked like they had budget problems. Still delivered a pretty solid and long game and they keep offering nice patch support.

And good luck trying to talk to Fargo. He spends a lot of time on twitter, but it probably isn't a good way to discuss WL2's design and post-development suggestions.

 

[tuluse]

Don't forget that LogicArtists had another source of funding. Remember the butthurt on release?

 

[sser]

Sounds about right. D:OS's was in the ballpark as well (most of D:OS's development happened prior to Kickstarter, I believe.) I doubt either game's expenditures came close to either budget.

Larian had to take out loans, man. The banks were on Swen's ass.

I'll say this as clearly as possible. Those indies that make great games with budgets in the tens of thousands of dollars? Unpaid labor. They're coasting on savings, they're working from home, they have spouses or other relatives who support them.

Did you know that a company the size of Obsidian (140 employees) burns through over a million dollars PER MONTH? In comparison, Larian has about 40 and inXile 30. So, do the math.

Yes, a large company burns through cash. Businesses take loans. Indie developers do a lot with very little. No, I don't think it's worth comparing companies and "doing the math" because a company with hundreds of people is going to have far more money sunk into management while one with just dozens will not. Other factors would include where is the game being developed (geographically), are they developing their own engine (D:OS), are they purchasing assets for the engine (W2), are they spending cash on celebrities (Amalur, DoubleFine), etc. As I said, it wouldn't surprise me if Swen was getting squeezed because they had developed their engine in-house and apparently had gone to Kickstarter with the game already developed, indicating a need for funding in a literal sense. (Not the need for 'we'll figure out the planning later' avenue that many Kickstarters seem to take.)

As far as I know, games like Shadowrun and Wasteland 2 were mostly built upon the funding received before they ever started development (or possibly even production). Does Shadowrun look like a $1m RPG? Does Wasteland 2 look like a $3m RPG? I dunno. But if a bunch of dudes who are essentially working two-jobs can produce something of a similar ilk, it's really hard to say, well, this one was a business, so they just burnt through cash. What you're really saying is that a bunch of really dedicated fans could've made Wasteland 2, much like they made Expeditions or even Xenonauts, and that an entire 'real' business/development team was never necessary in the first place. Obviously that's quite the fucking tangent if I say so myself, but you know my views of Kickstarter well, so you probably know why I have those thoughts in mind and why I'm extremely skeptical of the vast majority of "Look at this concept that we'll build into a real, tactile product at an unforeseen, future date, millions please, opens hand" type of Kickstarters.

You end up with triple-A developers making triple-A looking games on their own budgets, and then you got this lower sub-set of developers making games that look exactly like what the independents are doing, except they cost a few million more. Of course some people are going to question what the purpose is. Hell, maybe Wasteland 2 is really what a $3m game looks like. I dunno. But then again, most of my issues with W2 are mechanical, and I honestly don't care how much money is going where. It's an interesting discussion, but little more. If W2 had awesome combat that utilized the squad and turn-based aspects they could've made this game with Indonesian child labor and I would've turned a blind eye like every time I look at my Apple iPhone™.

 

[Telengard]

Yeah, if you want to know where the money goes, just throw down some wage numbers. So, if you wanna be a cheap-ass cunt of a CEO, you can pay out a salary of $40,000 a year. Of course, your people will be poorly skilled accordingly. And then, that's not a flat number for you, because you don't just pay $40,000, because you have to pay stuff like worker's comp. So, get a dozen people even on the cheap, and you're already shelling out way over $500,000 a year. And that's not even including any of the other various employee sundries. You know, like health insurance. Realistically, if you want a real team working in an office, you're looking at low baseline of 1 mil a year, depending on where you're located. And then rent, computers, maintenance, and power to run all those computers. Support staff. Advertising.

All that is why $5,000,000 was the list price for a low-budget game near a decade ago.

Of, course, if two friends do all the programming work out of the garage on their home computers, you don't have to pay out on any of those costs.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

You seem to think that RPG = shit combat.

Admitting that tactical simulations such as JA2 have better combat then RPGs which tried to simulate it does not equal to RPGs having shit combat. If you actually learned to read when you went to elementary school you would notice that I have been constantly arguing that W2 combat is pretty good, but not as good as JA2 or X-Com. Do you notice the difference between what you wrote and what I am actually arguing?

JA2 is a cRPG, deal with it. It just has implemented some stuff that is in almost every PnP RPG manual has but almost no cRPG has implemented and doesn't have shit combat which confuses people. Also, X-Com combat isn't exactly a pinnacle of mechanics design. JA2 has much more sophisticated mechanics than X-Com (despite JA2 being a cRPG and X-Com being a "strategy" game) and X-Com combat is already between the good and shit territory.

Limited resources aren't any justification as combat mechanics of X-Com are probably less complex than in WL2.

Resources are everything if you are running a company. This may surprise you, but people expect to get payed for work they are doing. It affects how many people you can hire, how much testing you are willing to put into it, how many game-play elements you want to have, etc. When you are making a game that is 90% combat like JA2 or X-Com, it is obvious where the majority of your resources should go, and it shows.

Except that "JA2 or X-Com" is already a fallacy as you're lumping together two very different systems. X-Com is what you go for with low amount of resources to put into combat. It has simpler combat mechanics than many cRPGs.

As for Fallout and JA2. It's funny that you mention it because Fallout originally had GURPS advanced combat which in some aspect even more realistic than JA2, though more abstracted and with less arcane calculation stuff like precise tracing of projectile path and ricochets. Fallout's combat system is a result of having to cut out the whole game game mechanics and invent and implement new ones 9 months before the release.

And with loss of GURPS not only combat has declined but also locations.

Are you seriously suggesting that Brian Fargo would dump this "advanced" combat if it actually worked as intended and if he actually had the resources to make it happen?

It's not just combat that was more advanced. All game mechanics were more advanced.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/gurps-fallout-trailer.29181/
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/gurps-fo1-features.86528/
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...vault-15-design-document-the-other-day.47288/

They already had a demo with GURPS combat and a video and screens of it.

You seem to think that RPG = shit combat.

Limited resources aren't any justification as combat mechanics of X-Com are probably less complex than in WL2. It's just that X-Com mechanics are vaguely simulationist which gives it a massive edge of being able to observe movies or reality for cool and simple mechanics instead of developers having to pull gamist mechanics out of their asses which usually turn out to be abominations.
In reality, it's inventing and balancing gamist mechanics that takes more time and effort and brings much more risk.

As for Fallout and JA2. It's funny that you mention it because Fallout originally had GURPS advanced combat which in some aspect even more realistic than JA2, though more abstracted and with less arcane calculation stuff like precise tracing of projectile path and ricochets. Fallout's combat system is a result of having to cut out the whole game game mechanics and invent and implement new ones 9 months before the release.

Is there any source that actually states they designed a functioining GURPS-based combat system that they were then forced to scrap?

Yes. They already had a functioning demo, as I have shown above.

We are talking about a game where they forgot to put in an AP cost for using items in combat and where they saddled you with AI-controlled companions rather than simply let you control them in combat. The designers of Fallout had different priorities than those of JA2, to put it mildly.

You're assuming that just because Tim Cain liked GURPS, he's suddenly a great and monocle grognard system designer. We're talking about a guy that also liked D&D, liked Fallout 3, Oblivion, whose favourite cRPGs are Ultima III, Ultima Underworld. Think about it. Ultima III. Favourite cRPG.

Most of people who worked on Fallout have pretty eclectic tastes, so it's no surprise that they have lost focus when left to their own devices. Not to mention the horrible conditions under which the replacement occurred: "GURPS torn out, skills and combat redesigned and recoded in 2 weeks"

The same people that made ToEE which is the most accurate adaptation of D&D so far, made Arcanum which has pretty horrible mechanics, especially combat mechanics. So, clearly they have some serious problems with inventing their own gaming mechanics while at the same time being great at adapting pre-existing systems.

 

[Morkar Left]

The same people that made ToEE which is the most accurate adaptation of D&D so far, made Arcanum which has pretty horrible mechanics, especially combat mechanics. So, clearly they have some serious problems with inventing their own gaming mechanics while at the same time being great at adapting pre-existing systems.

You totally forgot that these pre-existing systems already had a decade (sometimes more) of playtesting under its belt before they got adapted for computers. That's one of the two reasons you choose a pre-existing rulesystem; you know it generally works.

 

[Mareus]

If you're talking about strict product movement, sure. If you're talking money, no. Kickstarter cash is just a pre-preorder and frequently gets pocketed as profit, I guaran-fucking-tee it.

We are talking about units sold, therefore product movement which does not include Kickstarter units. People were pretty clear as to what they meant. As for how much Kikcstarter money gets pocketed as profit, I think there is no way of proving it. Does it happen, probably. Did it happen in this particular case, I don't think so. Unless Brian Fargo is lying, he had to invest additional money to make W2. I am actually interested if there is any objective way to confirm how much did W2 cost?

Tell me something. How does a game like Expedition: Conquistador gets made with the very same tools as Wasteland 2, yet arguably looks even better?

Again, you are comparing games with a completely different design. Expedition: Conquistador does not have detailed town areas with bunch of sub-areas and NPCs and interactive objects. Expedition: Conquistador has a world map which you can explore, and then it adds written events. To put it quite bluntly, Expedition: Conquistador is just cheaper to make.

This title gets: front page news, it gets into magazines the world over as multi-page previews and reviews, it has a banner on sales sites, it has turn-based action which is in the midst of a renaissance, it's post-apoc, a setting shared by two mega-popular hits (BLands, Fallout 3D), and it landed $3m in Kickstarter money + the help of a major studio which, by the way, helped create one of those other megahits.

If everything what you say here is true (can somebody verify?), I agree that W2 has been advertised sufficiently at least in comparison with DOS. However, PR is not everything. It is just one part of the whole puzzle and you still have to get the right timing, the graphics will still play a role, and believe it or not Metacritic scores do affect sales.

 

[Mareus]

JA2 is a cRPG, deal with it.

Well, if you don't believe me, take it from the box itself:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33924107@N05/3248262425/

Please notice the Hot strategy pick of 1999 and the roleplaying strategy game on top of the box. It is not just a cRPG. It does have some RPG elements, but the game revolves 90% around tactical strategy combat, and it is a game completely different from Fallout 1&2.

Except that "JA2 or X-Com" is already a fallacy as you're lumping together two very different systems. X-Com is what you go for with low amount of resources to put into combat. It has simpler combat mechanics than many cRPGs.

I am not lumping them together. I am addressing what people have been saying. Let me remind you that the main critique of W2 is that the combat is not as good as it is in X-Com and JA2. My response to that is that X-Com and JA2 are not of the same genre and are heavily focused on combat, while Fallout and W2 have a much wider scope, they are dialogue heavy, full of choices and consequences and skills play a huge role in how you can approach problems. Stop using strawmen arguments to prove a point.

It's not just combat that was more advanced. All game mechanics were more advanced.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/gurps-fallout-trailer.29181/
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/gurps-fo1-features.86528/
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...vault-15-design-document-the-other-day.47288/

They already had a demo with GURPS combat and a video and screens of it.

I checked your links.
1st link is just a discussion. The only interesting part were the quotations from one of the developers that talks about the decision to dump GURPS.
2nd link shows pretty much the same Fallout we all know. I seriously don't see a huge difference between the GURPS demo and the final product. I only notice that there is more body parts to aim at, but other than that its still stand, aim, shot. There is no cover mechanic, nor anything similar to what you were talking about when describing GURPS. Perhaps it was a better system than SPECIAL, but my main complaint with Fallout combat is its stationary non-tactical nature. From what you have shown, nothing suggests that this would have been addressed and on par with JA2.
3rd is just a discussion how amazing GURPS system on paper is. Needless to say, paper and game are 2 completely different things.

 

[Volourn]

"Torment, and Arcanum have better combat than Wasteland 2."


FUCK OFF.

 

[DeepOcean]

But if a bunch of dudes who are essentially working two-jobs can produce something of a similar ilk, it's really hard to say, well, this one was a business, so they just burnt through cash. What you're really saying is that a bunch of really dedicated fans could've made Wasteland 2, much like they made Expeditions or even Xenonauts, and that an entire 'real' business/development team was never necessary in the first place. Obviously that's quite the fucking tangent if I say so myself, but you know my views of Kickstarter well, so you probably know why I have those thoughts in mind and why I'm extremely skeptical of the vast majority of "Look at this concept that we'll build into a real, tactile product at an unforeseen, future date, millions please, opens hand" type of Kickstarters.

I don't know about Expeditions but Xenonauts, Dead State and Grim Dawn, three "dedicated fans" projects that I followed, shown clear signs of vaporwareitis before kickstarter rescued them. You have awesome people like Styg, Vault Dweller, Pyke , Blackthorne and others doing amazing stuff on enthusiast level but their projects took YEARS, sweat and sacrifice to develop. Imagine you saying to your wife and kids that you don't have time for them because you are working on a project that maybe ever is going to make money.

Dedicated fans projects have a huge failure rate with only the odd one seeing the light of day. The question isn't if you can make a game like Wasteland 2 for 100.000 dollars, you probably can, but for that to be possible, you have to find 30 people willing to sacrifice alot of YEARS on probably a pipe dream. It isn't easy to find people willing to work decently when they are paid, imagine if their only payment is the good feeling of releasing a game they just had a miniscule part on years ahead. You can do stupid shit like Double Fine of thinking a company is a welfare charity but you need to balance and provide people that work with you a decent wage without at same time blowing up the bank and I think InExile did very well at that.