Finances?

[Bradylama]

Just curious about how this game was financed, exactly. Did you guys all pay for this out of pocket?

 

[whatusername]

Most probably.

 

[ad hominem]

I heard a Nigerian prince fronted them the money...

 

[Vault Dweller]

I'm glad you asked. The most wonderful and amazing story happened to me. One day I received a letter from a relative of a late Nigerian minister. The evil government has frozen his family vast assets and the nice and friendly gentleman needed my help to transfer USD 45,500,000.00. Once I helped reuniting him with his family money he paid me 10%, so this money and his blessing (he gave me some "fundraising" tips) are how I got into the gaming business.

True story.

 

[whatusername]

I wish I had gotten those emails...

 

[Nedrah]

Seriously, I haven't received any nigerian S...Suggestions to get more money, yet. Not even on my "so yeah some redarded forum needs my email to register me so I'll give them the random spam adress" mail. I guess only wealthy people get them. fuck.

 

[Jasede]

Maybe it was a non-Germany scam only?

By the way, VD: How can one donate? I want to help you buy your wife a diamond ring, thus indirectly giving you more time to work on Age of Decadence - she will be busy looking at that lump of coal++, instead of asking for attention, time or... or time.

Meaningless Discworld quote:
"This place we're going to... it's decadent."... Granny Weatherwax... wasn't at all certain about the meaning of the word 'decadent'. She'd dismissed the possibility that it meant 'having ten teeth' in the same sense that Nanny Ogg, for example, was unident.

 

[Vault Dweller]

By the way, VD: How can one donate?

One can't.

I truly appreciate the gesture, but I'd prefer to offer you a product, give you a good opportunity to try this product and see if it's something you like, and then and only then ask you to make a purchase decision.

 

[Nutcracker]

Alternatively, he could just buy 50 copies.

 

[RGE]

I truly appreciate the gesture, but I'd prefer to offer you a product, give you a good opportunity to try this product and see if it's something you like, and then and only then ask you to make a purchase decision.

Clearly you need to learn how to appreciate public funding for projects that lack mass appeal, yet are beneficial to culture. Artists get away with it all the time, don't they? :wink:

Oh, you don't want to be considered an 'artist', and instead be able to beat your big, hairy capitalist chest? I see. :twisted:

 

[whatusername]

By the way, VD: How can one donate?

One can't.

I truly appreciate the gesture, but I'd prefer to offer you a product, give you a good opportunity to try this product and see if it's something you like, and then and only then ask you to make a purchase decision.

Stop being so humble.

 

[merry andrew]

Hey man, your game is ill man, how 'bout a free t-shirt?

 

[Vault Dweller]

By the way, VD: How can one donate?

One can't.

I truly appreciate the gesture, but I'd prefer to offer you a product, give you a good opportunity to try this product and see if it's something you like, and then and only then ask you to make a purchase decision.

Stop being so humble.

It's not about being humble, as I'm anything but. It's about doing what you believe in. Well, I believe in a lot of things. I believe that the gaming industry is fucking sick, I believe that nowadays' practices of lying about game's qualities and then selling a shitty game without demos are fucking appalling. Last, but not the least, I believe that my game is good, and people who like that kind of games (choices, lotsa text, turn-based, etc) will like AoD. Can you really blame me for having some fucking standards and trying not to do what the industry does?

Now, let's say I start taking pre-orders. So far, 14 people offered to donate/pre-order. God fucking bless each and every one of them. That's $300 bucks. Does it solve anything? No. Then why even bother?

I've been offered several publishing deals. The sweetest deal pays me $45,000 advance against royalties, but I give away the rights and accept some creative "guidance". At this point I don't owe shit to nobody. I do what I want. If I want to delay the game for 3 months and polish the writing, I can. I like it that way. Whether I accept publishers' money or a diehard rpg fan's money, the transaction would bind me, legally or morally.

Those are the reasons. If the game is as good as I think it is, the money would come. So far things are pretty good. The site gets 150-200,000 hits a month. There is a strong interest from gaming sites. Another interview is coming, btw. Previews and developer's diaries have been requested. Let's hope that the game does well and leave it at that.

 

[Mantiis]

By the way, VD: How can one donate?

One can't.

I truly appreciate the gesture, but I'd prefer to offer you a product, give you a good opportunity to try this product and see if it's something you like, and then and only then ask you to make a purchase decision.

Stop being so humble.

It's not about being humble, as I'm anything but. It's about doing what you believe in. Well, I believe in a lot of things. I believe that the gaming industry is fucking sick, I believe that nowadays' practices of lying about game's qualities and then selling a shitty game without demos are fucking appalling. Last, but not the least, I believe that my game is good, and people who like that kind of games (choices, lotsa text, turn-based, etc) will like AoD. Can you really blame me for having some fucking standards and trying not to do what the industry does?

Now, let's say I start taking pre-orders. So far, 14 people offered to donate/pre-order. God fucking bless each and every one of them. That's $300 bucks. Does it solve anything? No. Then why even bother?

I've been offered several publishing deals. The sweetest deal pays me $45,000 advance against royalties, but I give away the rights and accept some creative "guidance". At this point I don't owe shit to nobody. I do what I want. If I want to delay the game for 3 months and polish the writing, I can. I like it that way. Whether I accept publishers' money or a diehard rpg fan's money, the transaction would bind me, legally or morally.

Those are the reasons. If the game is as good as I think it is, the money would come. So far things are pretty good. The site gets 150-200,000 hits a month. There is a strong interest from gaming sites. Another interview is coming, btw. Previews and developer's diaries have been requested. Let's hope that the game does well and leave it at that.

Awesome.

Will there be a compass with markers for quests?

 

[whatusername]

I hope so. Please make doors red, and people green. PLEASE!

 

[Greatatlantic]

Stop being so humble.

It's not about being humble, as I'm anything but. It's about doing what you believe in. Well, I believe in a lot of things. I believe that the gaming industry is fucking sick, I believe that nowadays' practices of lying about game's qualities and then selling a shitty game without demos are fucking appalling. Last, but not the least, I believe that my game is good, and people who like that kind of games (choices, lotsa text, turn-based, etc) will like AoD. Can you really blame me for having some fucking standards and trying not to do what the industry does?

Now, let's say I start taking pre-orders. So far, 14 people offered to donate/pre-order. God fucking bless each and every one of them. That's $300 bucks. Does it solve anything? No. Then why even bother?

I've been offered several publishing deals. The sweetest deal pays me $45,000 advance against royalties, but I give away the rights and accept some creative "guidance". At this point I don't owe shit to nobody. I do what I want. If I want to delay the game for 3 months and polish the writing, I can. I like it that way. Whether I accept publishers' money or a diehard rpg fan's money, the transaction would bind me, legally or morally.

Those are the reasons. If the game is as good as I think it is, the money would come. So far things are pretty good. The site gets 150-200,000 hits a month. There is a strong interest from gaming sites. Another interview is coming, btw. Previews and developer's diaries have been requested. Let's hope that the game does well and leave it at that.

That has to be the closest thing I've ever seen to an indie developer manifesto. It deserves to be in quotes a couple more times now.

That being said, how soon can we expect this next interview?

 

[Bradylama]

So I guess there'll be a demo.

 

[Vault Dweller]

That being said, how soon can we expect this next interview?

About 2 weeks from now. I don't have time to do them more often.

So I guess there'll be a demo.

It's a shareware "try then buy" game. Of course, there will be a demo giving you a chance to play a large chunk of the game.

 

[whatusername]

Regarding the demo, how large of the chunk? Will there be a time limit? Will you offer a variety of quests so we can see what kind of quests that we will experience when we buy the game?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Good question. The demo will feature one quest codenamed "Fargoth's gold" and will have a time limit to avoid abuse of our goodwill (about 10 minutes).

Nobody played shareware games before? Even Quake went shareware when it was released. Good ol' days.

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

10 minutes? Seems a tad stingy....

When quake went shareware you got the first realm if I recall correctly.

 

[Bradylama]

My pores are oozing with anticipation.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Apparently, some people take things way too literally. I've received several PMs, so the answer is "no, the demo is not 10 minutes". The demo is the first town with more than 20 quests (23 I think), although you can't get them all (stats, skills, and reputation will filter them out for you to 10-12 avg ). There is no demo time limit.

 

[Claw]

You gotta be kidding me. Some people thought you were serious? No regulars though, right?

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

Apparently, some people take things way too literally.

Welcome to TEh IntarNet11!!!

As to your finance model (if it can be called thus) it's great, but of course you realise that you can only work that way because you find a group of pretty idealistic coworkers, that are happy to work for free, with a vague hope of some payback if the game is successful - and of course because you are able to do so yourself. I wonder, will your team do a second game that way? Doing it this way might well be the key to your eventual success, but it's hardly a model for the industry. Which does not excuse the lying and the lack of creative daring, of course.
So, assuming AOD is successful - would you try to do another game in the same way, or would you try to do it fulltime, probably meaning having to accept some kind of investor money?