Game News Cyclopean Canceled

[Lumpy]

VD had a different opinion

let's assume 50.000$ per year per person for such a project to be worth your while, and let's assume they have 5 full team members (nick, vd, oscar and some more bros I don't remember who contributed a bit like portraits, music etc)

Does not compute. The latter indicates VD has a team working professionally for money, not modders pretending to do something for KKKs.

Are you thick? That was hypothetical.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I'd put the numbers more around 8-10 thousand.

Even IF they could pull 10.000 sales (which is wishful thinking imo but let's hope for the best though), they would have to release a game at least once a year to make a living from it for 4-5 persons. How likely is that? Not very.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Yet, I don't know of any professional game project that folded due to unability to find employees.

Finding people who'd take your money is always easy. Finding good people who know what they are doing and can actually get shit done is a different story.

Worst case scenario is that project ends up less than stellar due to subpar execution, or eats up more investments than it could possibly recoup.

Worst case? Ever heard of Aliens? LotR: The White Council (do click on the link - it's comedy gold)? TORN? Tiberium?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:C ... dows_games

Perhaps that's because "online projects" are a failure by nature?

The nature of people, you mean?

If you don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend, you have no other choice, other than learning all three skills and then turning out something that is mediocre at best.

If you don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend and don't possess "all three skills" yourself, you shouldn't waste the people's time with "hai forum let's make the bestest RPG evar I have lotsa great ideas somebody pls code for me".

Generalization. Not every indie project is a story of a guy looking for someone to code a game for him.

Needless to say, an average indie developer doesn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest into his game, but that doesn't mean that people should just give up or try to learn how to do everything themselves.

I think that our experience shows that it's quite possible to build a good and dedicated online team and make a game.

 

[Davaris]

I don't get it - what purpose would that serve?
First, it could mean a fuckton of wasted work for the designer, if nobody picks up the project. Second, design requirements and limitations could arise from the programming, meaning that a lot of design docs could become obsolete. And finally, it'd be a lot harder for the designer to stay involved in the project, without tangible results.

The purpose it serves is:

Not wasting a lot of peoples time, if one critical person craps out.

Stops people on the team who have no business designing, trying to influence the design. Stops designers interfering with implementors.

Stops feature creep and the loss of work, through inevitable chopping and changing, when people make things up as they go along.

Allows milestones to be accurately planned, estimated, costed and enforced.

People can determine if a project is worth working on, if the design is complete. If no one likes your project, then it should not be made. Making it all at once or incrementally, won't turn a bad designer into a good one.

It keeps a professional distance between designers and implementors, so no personality clashes.

Designers can complete their work and move on to the next job. So it is a more efficient use of their time and everyone elses.



In big Hollywood studios, every line is written, every shot is carefully planned, all staff and materials are fully costed, before anything is filmed and yet game makers want to wing it.

 

[Davaris]

Not to mention that there are a lot of things other than salary that a small indie developer simply can't offer,

One thing they can offer is part ownership through sweat equity and the opportunity to do work you actually enjoy. I can't imagine there are many game houses on the planet, that are making games the Iron Tower people would enjoy and even if there was, the chance of getting a job in a particular studio in the AAA industry, would be virtually nil.

 

[Archibald]

Nobody would program shit if it wasn`t clear on how game should work.

 

[mondblut]

Finding people who'd take your money is always easy. Finding good people who know what they are doing and can actually get shit done is a different story.

Yes. Add having zero control over said people and no paychecks incoming for them, and you have something doomed from the start.

Worst case? Ever heard of Aliens? LotR: The White Council (do click on the link - it's comedy gold)? TORN? Tiberium?

"eats up more investments than it could possibly recoup", I said. Which naturally leads to project cancellation.

The nature of people, you mean?

The nature of people, the nature of the means of their organization, this all adds up.

Generalization. Not every indie project is a story of a guy looking for someone to code a game for him.

Yes, some are stories of a determined guy who sits down and does everything by himself. Or of a shrewd guy who manages to find financing or scrap the bottom of his own pocket* to outsource what he cannot do to professionals.

Those are the stories of successful indie projects who survived to the release.

* - hey, if you don't yourself believe in the success of your game enough to invest your life's savings into it, why anyone else would?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Finding people who'd take your money is always easy. Finding good people who know what they are doing and can actually get shit done is a different story.

Yes. Add having zero control over said people and no paychecks incoming for them, and you have something doomed from the start.

http://www.irontowerstudio.com

While AoD is yet to be released, I hope that the demo shows that we did manage to make something out of nothing.

"eats up more investments than it could possibly recoup", I said. Which naturally leads to project cancellation.

I'm sure you're aware that many games were canceled because people who worked on them have failed to put them together and had nothing or very little to show.

hey, if you don't yourself believe in the success of your game enough to invest your life's savings into it, why anyone else would?

Would what? Invest? Nobody's asking for that. We're talking about investing your time and efforts, nothing else.

 

[asper]

Yeah, and Tarn Adams makes around $1500 each month just by voluntary donations.

Reading this thread one may get the impression that there are no successful indie games. I think that's a bit pessimistic; there is Wesnoth, Mount & Blade, Cortex Command, Dwarf Fortress, platformers like VVVVVV (cool game btw), puzzle games, and adventure games, which are often made by very small studios and do well.

Admittedly the only RPG's are Eschalon and Vogel's games.

 

[Forest Dweller]

I'd put the numbers more around 8-10 thousand.

Even IF they could pull 10.000 sales (which is wishful thinking imo but let's hope for the best though), they would have to release a game at least once a year to make a living from it for 4-5 persons. How likely is that? Not very.

Vince has already said that 10K is overly optimistic. And they're not trying to make a living off of this. They're doing this part-time; they all have jobs that supply them money. Vince himself is vice president of a marketing firm, so he's probably sitting on it quite nicely.

They're doing this because it's a passion. Like, for example, a first-time author. They do that part-time while getting paid with some sort of full time job. If they happen to sell big, then they might transition to writing full time. But then and only then.

 

[denizsi]

They're doing this because it's a passion. Like, for example, the tolling of some great bells.

 

[asper]

There are a shit load of English speaking forums dedicated to the 98-02 era of RPG's. I can name at least ten.

I'm listening.

 

[winterraptor]

The quality and play of the game also breeds word of mouth suffusion to other habitats of humanity, even to those who've not directly had contact. I for one have already spread the initial microbes of this organism to others, where they are slowly gestating and awaiting the catalytic activation from the heavier concentrated invasion that most anticipate as inevitable, though some have some sort of previous banal infection that attacks and prevents the microbes from taking hold - it is presumed these are prior infections that never ran their course correctly. In any case, I believe the complete arrival will overwhelm even this annoying resistance and run the full course of symbiotic joy, though slightly colored from the previous encounters, perhaps manifested as cynicism and sarcastic retort on internet forums.

 

[Sceptic]

Realists, all of you.

Fixed.

Let's face it, you're on the Codex, which is as close to a target demographic for this game as you can get. You're making the assumption that most people here will buy it. Except... this is the Codex. The place where pirates are quite vocal about being pirates, where some people consider it a badge of honor. Where some people are happy to pirate an indie game, play it for 60 hours, post how much they like pretty much everything about it, then say they really wish the developers would go down under.

Allow me to be sceptic when it comes to potential sales.

Now I don't want to be all doom and gloom; the game may very well sell past expectations, and I certainly hope it does. But it won't be because everyone on the Codex bought it.

(go on Codex, prove me wrong)

 

[Forest Dweller]

Most pirates pirate games they think aren't worth the price, not just everything they can get their hands on.

 

[Wang Lo]

The chance someone who's never made a game and never even made a large piece of software of any kind could make a design document that was worth even a dime is about a trillion to one.

Game designers are the game industry equivalent of an IT analyst. What is an analyst? Analysts are there because programmers' time is too expensive to waste on details that can be taken care of by an analyst. Usually it's someone who has some tech skills but not good enough to be the alpha coder, or knowledgable enough to be sys admin, hopefully with some domain knowledge but the reason they exist is not because they are so awesome at anything, it's just there's a million details to take care of in making software and if you waste your only good coder on deciding all these details you won't be done for 100 years.

And so it comes down to you can't make software without programmers. It's like trying to make ice without water. You can't expect a random person to design software with good results, it will never happen. As soon as people see what they asked for they realize just how idiotic and useless it was, to the point they don't believe it's what they asked for unless you provide documentation to that effect, which is the long and short of why milestones exist. It's like a contract between the client or boss and the programmer, even when it's not part of a legal document.

And how does that help things? A lot if you have 20 programmers and a client who is suehappy. Not at all if you are making an indie game.

So even if you suspend disbelief and think somehow everyone on codex will fork over 10 bucks to make a game, and even if there's some way to ensure there's no theft of monies rendered, and even if you can all agree on who is best to run this, and even if you can all agree on what the perfect game is then it's still a giant waste of time. That is like a blueprint of how every piece of bad software ever made came into existence.

And without this money, how do you get people to do something they have no input in? Even from big name guy like brian mitsoda if I read about a "morale skill" in a design document I would start to think twice about working for him. The fact is as a hobby no one will every put out years of effort to complete a major game. As a business, it is hard to justify because anyone genuinely capable of doing this can already make a good living as a programmer anyway, far better than what even a 'pro' gamer will make. But if someone ever did do it they have all the power, because only they can make it happen.

And while not everyone is a great artist, you will become a good artist a lot faster than you'll become a good programmer. I'm sure there's an issue of talent involved in both, but I was surprised to find it easier to learn how to be an artist than I thought.

In fact I only learned in order to be good enough to know how things work for my own secret project, but it turned out to be relatively easy if somewhat time consuming. If you have gravitas, gird up your loins and really set down to work, you can learn everything about zbrush and maya in 6 months. Being an artist is more than that but books on anatomy and art are easy to come by. So are books on animation.

In fact as a programmer, it makes everything ten times easier. Sick of skinning? Make a plugin that does it in one click, like I did. Sick of how maya smooth works? Make your own smoothing for meshes like I did. You have the power to do whatever you want. For animation, it is ever more useful. It's just fucking joke to try to animate things today if you don't know how to program, you are at the mercy of someone who can make a rig for you to operate. But ultimately rigs suck anyway, if you are a programmer you can control things any way you want.

So, can one guy do everything to make a game? Well, I can. Not sure about anyone else. In fact I am 'done'. Well, not AOD done, since my software actually works and I have a game system that wasn't designed by a ten year old. not actually done, either, but all the software is working and now I am 'polishing'. By polishing of course, I mean making the actual game, its content, the art, etc. Probably I won't be done in a making monies sense for 5 years but I still feel pretty fucking smug.

 

[Jaesun]

 

[PorkaMorka]

In fact I am 'done'. Well, not AOD done, since my software actually works and I have a game system that wasn't designed by a ten year old. not actually done, either, but all the software is working and now I am 'polishing'. By polishing of course, I mean making the actual game, its content, the art, etc. Probably I won't be done in a making monies sense for 5 years but I still feel pretty fucking smug.

What's the name of your game?

 

[Wang Lo]

In fact I am 'done'. Well, not AOD done, since my software actually works and I have a game system that wasn't designed by a ten year old. not actually done, either, but all the software is working and now I am 'polishing'. By polishing of course, I mean making the actual game, its content, the art, etc. Probably I won't be done in a making monies sense for 5 years but I still feel pretty fucking smug.

What's the name of your game?

Working title of corpse crew. [/sarcasm]

I already said it's secret. Does this sound like a PR post, you fucking moron?

 

[Forest Dweller]

Oh Chirst who is this fucker?

 

[Twinkle]

In fact I am 'done'. Well, not AOD done, since my software actually works and I have a game system that wasn't designed by a ten year old. not actually done, either, but all the software is working and now I am 'polishing'. By polishing of course, I mean making the actual game, its content, the art, etc. Probably I won't be done in a making monies sense for 5 years but I still feel pretty fucking smug.

What's the name of your game?

Shadow Warrior.

 

[Kosmonaut]

 

[laclongquan]

Nice to see some devs bite back around here.

Of course, it remain to be seen how will he act when we dissect his game.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

He will react like a Sick Bum, with massiv butthurt as usual.

edit: I forgot the foaming at the mouth

 

[Jason]

What's the name of your game?

Children of Megiddo