Game News Bad News: Chaos Chronicles development on hold due to legal trouble with bitComposer

[Darth Roxor]

Guys, don't be hatin', I'm sure Chaos Chronicles is just facing a minor inconvenience, and will soon return to development as a superior RTWP 3rd person action-RPG

 

[Metro]

Signed but only 96 signatures so far. Isn't there someone on the Codex that knows how to use a proxy to sign something a thousand times?

If the game is 95% finished, I wouldn't be surprised if the publisher wants them to change the combat to something like Diablo 3 or RTWP.

Online petitions don't do dick.

 

[Infinitron]

was the game really mostly done? never saw any videos posted

Click that petition link.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Online petitions don't do dick.

Well they certainly don't have a direct impact on decisions. But I think that under certain circumstances they may be rethinking their decision. Especially in a close call like in this case. It's certain that they already invested x million into this project, and don't know if they invest another x+n million to get it finished? i.e. if that would be throwing good money after bad or not, or squandering an investment?? It may be just a 51 to 49 decision right now.

Of course petitions are stupid. But unlike forum discussions, they are at least something tangible. I think in this particular case it should be tried. A petition on the front page that the community of RPGCodex stands behind Chaos Chronicle. (It should have at least a 1000 votes lest we get laughed at). CC will probably be cancelled anyway, but they will know that they have incurred the scorn of the mighty KKKodex! And what do we know there may be other petitions going on.

Of course, for now this game is dead and will probably remain so. Hopefully Coreplay can go kickstarter now, before the team falls apart or is allocated to making shit games.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

This sucks.

 

[J_C]

I don't know what's the problem guys. As others wrote in the Broken Age thread, publishers are good guys, because developers don't know how to handle money. They need publishers meddling in development. Right?

 

[Haba]

In the end all will be resolved by lowering Coreplay salary. Game probably will come out but with sour taste in mouth.

Presuming that they still have any staff left at this point.

 

[m_s0]

Online petitions don't do dick.

Wel, this one supposedly pesters bitComposer with a generic email each time it gets signed, so there's that.

 

[mondblut]

because developers don't know how to handle deadlines. They need publishers meddling in development. Right?

Fixed for unfortunate truth.

You see, a developer is interested in procrastinating for as long as possible. You are getting funded for as long as you work on the game; once the game is out, the prospects get much bleaker, from a stress of having to tread the new uncharted territory to plain old layoffs of excess staff. For a grunt in the field, it is the process which makes his living, not the result. And while few (if any) employers are as nefarious as to procrastinate intentionally in order to cheat the publisher out of more checks, everyone has a subconscious desire to delay and prolong the development, which impacts productivity and indeed causes delays.

Meanwhile, every project eventually comes to a point where any further expenses go beyond even the most optimistic sales estimations. That is the point where a publisher usually pulls the plug.

This is not exclusive to publisher-funded model. An owner of independent studio might be desperate to have the game finally out and recoup his expenses, but still his staff wants the monthly checks keep coming in more so than finishing the game. Ditto with kickstarter, we have already seen the first "dear kickstarter, thank you for backing, but we have already run out of your money, so kindly fund us the second time" campaigns, and I predict nearly every KS project will eventually end up like that.

tl;dr: monthly salaries and release-oriented economics are a troublesome match.

 

[Haba]

Which is why I root for smaller companies where everyone is a shareholder with equal interest in the company actually making profit.

 

[Rivmusique]

Hope they get their shit sorted and get this game out there. Was quite excited for this one.

 

[Commissar Draco]

They must kidding me; So they funded 95% of game and they're going to scrap it now? Allah damned Joos; I blame tax system when corporations can make their fuck ups as loses and pay lower taxes... Sometimes such tax free ''loss'' is better than small profit. And I wonder who has the rights to the game now if Shitcomposer than say goodbye to Kickstarter.

 

[GamesInquirer]

I predict nearly every KS project will eventually end up like that

Did you only discover Kickstarter recently? It's been going for quite a while and nearly every project most certainly hasn't ended up that way while there's no reason to think trends will reverse in the future. There have been scams, troubled projects, failed ones, there have been plenty successful too however, whether they happened to be something you were interested in and therefor were checking on or not.

It should also be noted that it's not necessarily worse than what happens behind the scenes with publishers, it's just more transparent. There are tons of canned publisher backed projects that one never hears about and tons of shit products. Also to claim publishers are good for enforcing pressure is a bit weird, surely they know that they can't milk Kickstarter forever and they better have damn good excuses for a second one or it won't go through and they'll have neither more funds nor a game they can release and profit from. There is pressure on them even if they don't have a publisher to enforce it with lawyers.

 

[DwarvenFood]

Maybe they will be able to gather some funds by enabling pre-orders, but that can only be done if we can be sure of the game's release. So sad, I remember HobGoblin being proud of the face that they did not use Kickstarter, I really do hope this game gets done it looks too gorgeous to die.

 

[Overboard]

So, I'd like to hear what commie has to say about all this...

 

[Roguey]

Adding fuel to this fire

We are preparing the game for being modded in future (by massively using LUA scripting), but the editor will not be part of the first release.

The idea was born back in 2008. The pre-production started January 2010 but after 6 months we ran out of cash and that's why we had to start another commercial project. Earlier this year we went on with Chaos Chronicles. So, in total we already spent about 14 months development on this project.

By the way, HobGoblin42: How are you funding this?

Beside self-funding with money from commercial projects we did, we've got funded by a german film funding called FFFBayern. To successfully complete the project we also receive payments from our publisher bitcomposer who is going to distribute the game worldwide.

The project is funded by Bavaria, us developers (Coreplay) and a publisher (bitcomposer). And before the success of Grimrock, you wouldn't have any chance to pitch that kind of game to any publisher out there (not at this budget).

 

[Shadenuat]

b-but
my wizards with hats ... my turn based.....

 

[mondblut]

I predict nearly every KS project will eventually end up like that

Did you only discover Kickstarter recently? It's been going for quite a while and nearly every project most certainly hasn't ended up that way while there's no reason to think trends will reverse in the future. There have been scams, troubled projects, failed ones, there have been plenty successful too however, whether they happened to be something you were interested in and therefor were checking on or not.

It only takes a few projects to begin the trend. Back in 1980, I guess missing publisher deadlines and extending contracts time and again wasn't in vogue either. Then someone did, then someone else did, fast forward 30 years, and the new development terms are "X thousands over Y months plus whatever we can grab later on once it is obvious the original agreement isn't going to be met".

 

[Irxy]

Online petitions don't do dick.

Hasn't a pc version of Dark Souls been released thanks to a petition?

 

[evdk]

IMHO They would do the PC version anyway and it was just a PR move ("It's all thanks to you, our costumers!!! Now have some GfWL").

 

[Grimlorn]

Signed but only 96 signatures so far. Isn't there someone on the Codex that knows how to use a proxy to sign something a thousand times?

If the game is 95% finished, I wouldn't be surprised if the publisher wants them to change the combat to something like Diablo 3 or RTWP.

Yeah or maybe they did it because they are pure evil and enjoy our suffering but judging from the planned release date earlier this year, Coreplay seem to be several months behind schedule and now the usual thing might be happening: the publisher gets pissed and wants the game out, while the developer try their best to convince the publisher to keep paying the bills until finally they had enough of the bullshit. A niche game without a juicy franchise that promises good sales and a smallish bottom feeder publisher; that probably doesn't leave much wiggling room when it comes to the budget.

If that's the case then why would the game not see the light of day which has been implied due to this dispute? If the publisher wants the game out now instead of later, wouldn't it get released regardless?
Maybe the game isn't as finished as someone said.

Online petitions don't do dick.

They got Dark Souls a PC port, but that was over 100k. Maybe 10k would give the publisher a reason to invest more into the game.

 

[Vival]

Signed but only 96 signatures so far. Isn't there someone on the Codex that knows how to use a proxy to sign something a thousand times?

If the game is 95% finished, I wouldn't be surprised if the publisher wants them to change the combat to something like Diablo 3 or RTWP.

Yeah or maybe they did it because they are pure evil and enjoy our suffering but judging from the planned release date earlier this year, Coreplay seem to be several months behind schedule and now the usual thing might be happening: the publisher gets pissed and wants the game out, while the developer try their best to convince the publisher to keep paying the bills until finally they had enough of the bullshit. A niche game without a juicy franchise that promises good sales and a smallish bottom feeder publisher; that probably doesn't leave much wiggling room when it comes to the budget.

If that's the case then why would the game not see the light of day which has been implied due to this dispute? If the publisher wants the game out now instead of later, wouldn't it get released regardless?

Maybe the game is in a much worse state than we think it is or maybe Bitcomposer has lost faith in Coreplay to get it finished and would rather put it on hold than risk turning it into a money sink they can't afford. It's also quite possible that Coreplay has more control than the developer slave of a completely publisher funded game.

 

[DraQ]

Also, it's bitcomposter.

 

[wergle]

fuck

shit

god damn

fuck

 

[Dickie]

Where is everybody getting the info that the game is/was 95% complete? The last thing I saw was a video that showed people running around empty maps and somebody casting the fireball spell about five times. I'd like to see more, so I can get mad about it being cancelled or postponed indefinitely.