Interview Interview with Swen Vincke at Gamespot

[Infinitron]

10% is Kickstarter alone, the question is, how much do Steam and GOG take if you hand out keys?
If it was a lot less than 30%, developers could just start selling keys in their online stores.

They actually take 0%. But you're probably not allowed to sell them.

Err, as far as I know, you can do whatever you want. As in, if you buy a Steam key on Amazon, Valve doesn't see any money out of that sale. So it's perfectly possible for a developer to sell keys in their own Store without giving Valve a cut. I assume that's how the Larian Store works, for example.

Anyway, that's what I heart, and this seems to support the idea. I guess we could always ask Vault Dweller what his agreement with Steam forbids and allows.

Yeah, you're probably right.

Still, I would not be surprised if they have special contracts in place to prevent Bobby Kotick from selling CoD Steam keys by the millions on activision.com. Otherwise he would have done that by now, you would think.

 

[HiddenX]

Vincke is an old noble family out of Westphalia in Germany.

The name comes from the word Fink - a class of birds.

(There's even a Vincke Watchtower in my neigborhood)

So Vicke would probably be Anglo while Vincke is Dutch/German since I guess Dutch is mongrel German.

German: Fink
English: Finch
Dutch: Vink
all with the same meaning

 

[Kem0sabe]

D:OS is/was awesome the first 20 hours i put into it, but the further i got into the game, the more tedious and uninteresting the story and the combat became.

They have an awesome engine with great capabilities, but Larian really needs to work on the content side of things.

 

[Vault Dweller]

10% is Kickstarter alone, the question is, how much do Steam and GOG take if you hand out keys?
If it was a lot less than 30%, developers could just start selling keys in their online stores.

They actually take 0%. But you're probably not allowed to sell them.

Err, as far as I know, you can do whatever you want. As in, if you buy a Steam key on Amazon, Valve doesn't see any money out of that sale. So it's perfectly possible for a developer to sell keys in their own Store without giving Valve a cut. I assume that's how the Larian Store works, for example.

Anyway, that's what I heard, and this seems to support the idea. I guess we could always ask Vault Dweller what his agreement with Steam forbids and allows.

The keys cost you nothing and you're allowed to sell them. In fact that's what most portals do - they sell Steam keys provided by developers. Steam doesn't care as they benefit from attracting more people playing games on Steam and buying more games on Steam. It's a smart thing to do.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Now I just realize that the first name of "Swen" already clearly shows to be non-German. German variation would be "Sven," which actually would be rare and more common in Scandinavia.

This is rong. Both variants, Swen and Sven, occur in Germany. Comes from old norse sveinn (young boy, lad). The spelling Swen is less common though.

 

[markec]

They should go Star Citizen route with either crowdfunding or something like early access on their own site, that way they remove giving percentage of funds to anyone and still keep contact with customers.

 

[Mangoose]

Vincke is an old noble family out of Westphalia in Germany.

The name comes from the word Fink - a class of birds.

(There's even a Vincke Watchtower in my neigborhood)

So Vicke would probably be Anglo while Vincke is Dutch/German since I guess Dutch is mongrel German.

German: Fink
English: Finch
Dutch: Vink
all with the same meaning

Ffs. Obviously. I was talking about spelling variation, which definitely occurs.

 

[twincast]

They didn't meet the stretch goal. Swen said he would add them in as a favor despite that fact. They were able to put in a weather system, which is 1/3 of a stretch goal that was not met.

That's what he said during the live stream, but the next day they announced that they actually met the goal for real with Paypal.

This is rong. Both variants, Swen and Sven, occur in Germany. Comes from old norse sveinn (young boy, lad). The spelling Swen is less common though.

Moreover, the rarer Swen actually shows clear Germanisation in spelling whereas Sven is the original, foreign form.

 

[ColCol]

I think a console port would be too much of a risk.

 

[The Bishop]

The game is fiddly enough with the mouse. On consoles it'll feel like playing an FPS with a steering wheel.

 

[flabbyjack]

Uhh... no kickstarter? That's the dumbest thing he could have said.

Kickstarter was largely responsible for D:OS's success. It contributed a lot more than just money.

Read what he said. He worded it so that he's grateful for the kickstarter and feels like it would be taking an advantage of it since they now have enough money.

I did read it before I posted, I read it several times before commenting on it. He still comes off as being an ingrate despite graciously declining future kickstarter funding.

Anyone who says they have enough money is lying.

 

[Irenaeus]

Larian is now looking into doing a console port of Original Sin. Meh...I guess that's all right.

Hi Larian, about those once-promised NPC schedules and the day&night cycle...

I agree somewhat, but the game did not actually need it (nor did I miss it).

But for the Big RPG That Shall Dwarf Them All it better fucking have it.....

And where the hell is my Isle Of Serpents Expansion....?

Yeah, this!

I also want the rebalancing and super hardcore difficult mode

 

[Spectacle]

The keys cost you nothing and you're allowed to sell them. In fact that's what most portals do - they sell Steam keys provided by developers. Steam doesn't care as they benefit from attracting more people playing games on Steam and buying more games on Steam. It's a smart thing to do.

It also greatly reduces the chance of getting hit with one of those nasty antitrust lawsuits. Steam is so dominant they have to watch their steps.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I have to say though, the console port idea does not fill me with confidence. I honestly doubt the game could find an audience on consoles that would justify the expense. Especially since console game sales are still mostly physical, which is a huge pain in the arse to manage for a developer with no publisher backing.

The interface is also extremely mouse-driven, down to the game having no combat grid. They'd have to redo it completely to make it work on a controller, and it would probably still play like shit. Game also has tons of text, including IE-style conversations with 10+ dialogue options, which would be terrible on a TV. It just seems like such a pain in the arse for not much gain.

The keys cost you nothing and you're allowed to sell them. In fact that's what most portals do - they sell Steam keys provided by developers. Steam doesn't care as they benefit from attracting more people playing games on Steam and buying more games on Steam. It's a smart thing to do.

It also greatly reduces the chance of getting hit with one of those nasty antitrust lawsuits. Steam is so dominant they have to watch their steps.

The fact that they do this is yet another testament to how not having retarded shareholders breathing down a CEO's neck can significantly improve a company's long-term strategy. I dread the day GabeN dies or decides to sell Valve.

 

[Haba]

I have to say though, the console port idea does not fill me with confidence. I honestly doubt the game could find an audience on consoles that would justify the expense. Especially since console game sales are still mostly physical, which is a huge pain in the arse to manage for a developer with no publisher backing.

Probably someone would pay for that if they were to do it.

 

[Crescent Hawk]

I am very curious of their next step. If they could get a interesting license...

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Larian is now looking into doing a console port of Original Sin. Meh...I guess that's all right.

Hi Larian, about those once-promised NPC schedules and the day&night cycle...

I agree somewhat, but the game did not actually need it (nor did I miss it).

But for the Big RPG That Shall Dwarf Them All it better fucking have it.....

And where the hell is my Isle Of Serpents Expansion....?

Yeah, this!

I also want the rebalancing and super hardcore difficult mode

I just hope that mode is more than simply HP bloat or making the AI play 'prefectly'. They can shove that up their arse.

 

[Jaesun]

And someday, newfags can learn how to quote correctly.

 

[Davaris]

Uhh... no kickstarter? That's the dumbest thing he could have said.

Kickstarter was largely responsible for D:OS's success. It contributed a lot more than just money.

Read what he said. He worded it so that he's grateful for the kickstarter and feels like it would be taking an advantage of it since they now have enough money.

I did read it before I posted, I read it several times before commenting on it. He still comes off as being an ingrate despite graciously declining future kickstarter funding.

Anyone who says they have enough money is lying.

Some on the forums were calling them exploiters for using Kickstarter, when they didn't need it. No matter what they do, someone is going to bitch.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

And someday, newfags can learn how to quote correctly.

I quoted you no deeper from me to you than you did to Infinitron.

 

[mbpopolano24]

Why do I have this nagging feeling that the announcement of their next project will be a HUGE disappointment? I expected nothing from DOS and it was such a great treat, for once, to get such a gem. Now I am sure they will find a way to screw this up… Like chaos, after all, decline cannot be stopped, only delayed…

 

[Turjan]

(There's even a Vincke Watchtower in my neigborhood)

Heh, I know that one. And there's lots of Vincke streets. There was one a few hundred meters from where I grew up.

 

[Turjan]

So Vicke would probably be Anglo while Vincke is Dutch/German since I guess Dutch is mongrel German.

I guess the Dutch would be upset about that classification. While both French and Germans see Charlemagne as one of their main founders, the Dutch kept the Franconian language.

 

[Turjan]

Uhh... no kickstarter? That's the dumbest thing he could have said.

Kickstarter was largely responsible for D:OS's success. It contributed a lot more than just money.

Read what he said. He worded it so that he's grateful for the kickstarter and feels like it would be taking an advantage of it since they now have enough money.

I did read it before I posted, I read it several times before commenting on it. He still comes off as being an ingrate despite graciously declining future kickstarter funding.

Anyone who says they have enough money is lying.

I guess it's both a blessing and a curse. I'm not sure whether Swen realizes that much of the initial good scores were due to the Kickstarter fans. This might not be the case with Early Access alone, where the number of critical fans is much higher, although I guess that EA brought in more funds than the Kickstarter. The curse part comes from the sheer amount of work all that content for the backer takes. I can imagine that this is quite a strain on a small team.

 

[HiddenX]

Dutch belongs to its own West Germanic sub-group, West Low Franconian, paired with its sister language Limburgish, or East Low Franconian, both of which stand out by mixing characteristics of Low German and High German.[19] Dutch is at one end of a dialect continuum known as the Rhenish fan where German gradually turns into Dutch. There was also at one time a dialect continuum that blurred the boundary between Dutch and Low German. In some small areas, there are still dialect continua, but they are gradually becoming extinct.

I can read Dutch, because I can speak a bit "Westfälisches Platt" which is close to lower-saxon. This and English helps a lot to understand Dutch a bit.