George Ziets opening a new RPG studio - Digimancy Entertainment

[Tyranicon]

Gamedev is one of the quickest ways to lose all your money, alienate your friends, divorce your wife and be hated by the general populace.

 

[Viata]

Or keeping your wife while making false promises and either never releasing the game or changing the art so much the released game sucks.

 

[Butter]

Gamedev is one of the quickest ways to lose all your money, alienate your friends, divorce your wife and be hated by the general populace.

I once had the idea that if I won the lottery, I'd use part of the winnings to pay an RPG studio to make my dream game. Over time I realized money wasn't the issue holding them back.

 

[Azdul]

Gamedev is one of the quickest ways to lose all your money, alienate your friends, divorce your wife and be hated by the general populace.

I once had the idea that if I won the lottery, I'd use part of the winnings to pay an RPG studio to make my dream game. Over time I realized money wasn't the issue holding them back.

I too punish developers of the RPGs I do not approve of - by not giving them millions that I don't have.

Modern games can consume budget of arbitrary size on ever-increasing graphics quality and marketing.

However - lottery winnings would be just enough to create another 16-bit classic from the Golden Age. Team of 4-5 talented individuals, schedule of 24 months - and no chance whatsoever to recoup the costs due to 16-bit graphical presentation and old school gameplay.

 

[Galdred]

Gamedev is one of the quickest ways to lose all your money, alienate your friends, divorce your wife and be hated by the general populace.

More like despised by the general populace and hated by the fans of the genre.

 

[Bad Sector]

Is it a matter of talent? Not completely. Fortune and friends? Mainly. Can you protect yourself against this by knowing this? No.

At various points near the end (and especially after the end) of Witcher 3's development several people left to form their own gamedev studios, some managed to do it and make their own games, others largely faded out. AFAICT the main difference between the former and the latter was that the former found some investor to pump money in the business.

So i guess what matters is knowing people with money. Or having money yourself, but to have enough savings to fund a full company you'd most likely need to have a CEO-level salary, as Infinitron noticed above :-P.

 

[Yosharian]

Gamedev is one of the quickest ways to lose all your money, alienate your friends, divorce your wife and be hated by the general populace.

I mean that just sounds like life in general

 

[Viata]

Gamedev is one of the quickest ways to lose all your money, alienate your friends, divorce your wife and be hated by the general populace.

I mean that just sounds like life in general

Man, I hope your life gets better.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Is it a matter of talent? Not completely. Fortune and friends? Mainly. Can you protect yourself against this by knowing this? No.

At various points near the end (and especially after the end) of Witcher 3's development several people left to form their own gamedev studios, some managed to do it and make their own games, others largely faded out. AFAICT the main difference between the former and the latter was that the former found some investor to pump money in the business.

So i guess what matters is knowing people with money. Or having money yourself, but to have enough savings to fund a full company you'd most likely need to have a CEO-level salary, as Infinitron noticed above :-P.

Knowing the right people at the right time is the secret to a happy life.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah, the entire trope of lone wolf artist, living off the grid and perfecting his masterpiece, is the most ridiculous bullshit. There's never been the case of that working out for anybody, at best you end up doing the Van Gogh.

 

[Axioms]

A major issue is that game quality is not the most crucial factor in success. You need to have a base level of quality, sure, but beyond that it isn't super important. This is similar to how the optimal IQ on average is 115-130, not being in the IQ stratosphere at 170 or w/e.

Game quality above baseline is 10% of success, 50% luck, and then 40% connections/finances for being able to afford fancy graphics and standard marketing campaign.

You really can't overstate how important luck is for success. There's dozens to hundreds of broadly comparable games in most genres/markets and which one breaks through therefore depends on marketing and luck.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

It is five years after opening the studio. Any games announcment?

 

[SixDead]

It is five years after opening the studio. Any games announcment?

Paradox canceled their game, since then they do only off-source work.

And this is sad since Hare(Zayats) is my second senpai after Avellone.

 

[Sweeper]

Wasteland 3.

won 2020 Codex GOTY.

A mark of quality, to be sure.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

It is five years after opening the studio. Any games announcment?

Paradox canceled their game, since then they do only off-source work.

And this is sad since Hare(Zayats) is my second senpai after Avellone.

Sounds like down spiral.

Oh well, perhaps that's better for all. If Boyarsky+Cain made The Outer Worlds, I afraid what Zeits could concept.

 

[grimace]

Praying for George Ziets.

 

[The Wall]

After FIVE years of work if you have ZERO games to show, that means you fucked up somewhere seriously. Sure Paradox, foolishly imo, canceled their game but that is not enough to be worthy explanation why you haven't even teased anything else so far. We have seen Zeits in company of dangerhairs and pronoun brigade. WOKE walks with Incompetence hand in hand. Let's hope this is just the case of George's bad organizational skills and his gamedev skills are intact since the days of Mask of Betrayer

If not....Oh, well! We'll survive yet another disappointment from havebeen Star Dev

 

[Roguey]

Avowed will definitely be released.

 

[KafkaBot]

It is five years after opening the studio. Any games announcment?

Paradox canceled their game, since then they do only off-source work.

And this is sad since Hare(Zayats) is my second senpai after Avellone.

Weren't they working on an internal RPG project? They even had some Disco Elysium writers on board.

 

[Vulpes]

After FIVE years of work if you have ZERO games to show, that means you fucked up somewhere seriously. Sure Paradox, foolishly imo, canceled their game but that is not enough to be worthy explanation why you haven't even teased anything else so far. We have seen Zeits in company of dangerhairs and pronoun brigade. WOKE walks with Incompetence hand in hand. Let's hope this is just the case of George's bad organizational skills and his gamedev skills are intact since the days of Mask of Betrayer

If not....Oh, well! We'll survive yet another disappointment from havebeen Star Dev

When you put it like that, maybe we've been too hard on Wayward Realms and its store-bought assets...

 

[santino27]

Kind of tangential to the thread, but it is Ziets...

Hail Codexers!

As many of you know, I have hit Power Word Reload and taken us back to the early 1980s and the dawn of the computer role-playing game genre with classics like Pool of Radiance, the first game in the Gold Box from SSI, set in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons ruleset.

I have clear memories of playing through the Krynn series of Gold Box games as a child and chucking dice with friends while arguing over the opaque rules of the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set. Those formative experiences helped shape my love for high fantasy, role-playing games and so many of my interests and hobbies today.

While playing through these beloved classic CRPGs, I thought it could be fresh and fun for myself and my community to invite both luminaries from the TSR and game developers who were influenced by Dungeons & Dragons and tabletop role-playing games to come by the channel and share with us memories where they discovered their own love for this genre.

And we're kicking things off this Thursday, September 5th, with celebrated CRPG developer George Ziets! His highlights include:

Wasteland 3
Torment: Tides of Numenera
Pillars of Eternity
Dungeon Siege III
Fallout: New Vegas
Neverwinter Nights 2
Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO)
Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar
Earth & Beyond

And of course, his work as the creative lead on the acclaimed expansion for Neverwinter Nights 2, the Mask of the Betrayer. Looking forward to seeing you all there for the discussion; here’s the link to the stream:

The Pool of Radiance with George Ziets

 

[Lyric Suite]

Yeah, the entire trope of lone wolf artist, living off the grid and perfecting his masterpiece, is the most ridiculous bullshit. There's never been the case of that working out for anybody, at best you end up doing the Van Gogh.

It works for art forms that don't require anything more than a single individual. Composers, writers, they can all do it.

But games where you need a shit ton of money and an office full of people? Not likely.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Pretty sure composers would spend most of their time kissing ass and sucking dicks of entire royal court of Vienna to get funding for the new opera.