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FPSC Classic Product Chat / Thinking about FPSC game distribution and selling games

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Defy
FPSC BOTB Developer
VBOTB Developer '09
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Posted: 18th Sep 2009 14:14 Edited at: 18th Sep 2009 14:21
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chidem - All the best.

Bugsy - true, all the best also.



A boxed edition can be done without out sourcing, if you can find the cases for sale.
The best solution I found was DVD cases (thin black ones, like PS2), I'm sure they were for CD when I first found them for sale in qty of 5.
Plus a printer, some heavy paper or photo gloss inkjet paper and your pc. Oh and some scissors...

Making a double sided cover can be set up fast.
1. First use normal printer paper and load up a Paint program.
2. Often the printer will be set to have a margin, this is often ok.
3. Make a mark at the top left corner.
4. Have a guess where the cover would drop to, and make another mark.
5. then repeat the process on the right top and bottm corners.
6. Then find the centre of the two top marks and make 2 new marks to allow for the spin. (this could be left off I guess)
7. Print the image.
8. Use a ruler or fold the paper on the marks and cut it out.
9. Check what needs to be adjusted and then save as a blueprint.
10. you then can get correct sizes for headers, back cover text etc, and the cases fit a DVD/CD great and often have a insert for a booklet or info slip.

"in videogames you try to get the best graphics with the least amount of processing." -Ingolme
"The more skill you acquire, the less you have to use it." SS
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chidem
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Posted: 18th Sep 2009 15:43
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Hey Defy, thanks for the advice But, I actually found these guys http://kunaki.com/Home.asp?cc= who will manufacture your CD/DVD with case on a pro rata basis - and at a very reasonable rate - what do you guys think?

Pioneering: Explore the Early American West - Website: http://www.thehistoryforge.com
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Metal Devil123
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Posted: 18th Sep 2009 16:05
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Looks like a good thing! I would totally go for that!


PS: -.- ,,|,
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xplosys
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Posted: 18th Sep 2009 21:47
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Quote: "what do you guys think?"


Outsourcing - def the way to go. You couldn't do it for that price. There are a few more companies like that, but that one does have good prices. Better than when I looked at it just a year ago.

Brian.

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Bugsy
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Posted: 18th Sep 2009 21:57
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looks great- another thing I think would make games sell better is the assurance that it's a polished game- one person works on an FPS game and It's "INDIE" but if the same FPSC users teamed up together and made a collaborative game- It'd no longer be an "INDIE" game and therefore, less people would be skeptical of it's quality and buy it.
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Talairina
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Posted: 18th Sep 2009 22:09 Edited at: 18th Sep 2009 22:10
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I quite like the look of that Kunaki manufacturing service. If your selling your game at say $6, then losing $1.75 to the DVD printing is nothing especially since they will ship the disc out for you to your buyer! Saves your postage costs.

Brian could you name some of those cheaper alternatives you know off, or point us in the right direction. Could come in handy to make a list known for those of us that wish to pursue this further.

Great find, and I like reading the replies to this thread. =)

Tal
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chidem
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Posted: 18th Sep 2009 22:11
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Quote: "Outsourcing - def the way to go. You couldn't do it for that price. There are a few more companies like that, but that one does have good prices. Better than when I looked at it just a year ago."


I agree - I've had a good read of the site and it seems to be a fantastic price - especially if it gets you into Amazon, et al.

Quote: "another thing I think would make games sell better is the assurance that it's a polished game- one person works on an FPS game and It's "INDIE" but if the same FPSC users teamed up together and made a collaborative game- It'd no longer be an "INDIE" game and therefore, less people would be skeptical of it's quality and buy it. "


It's hard to say - in the last few months I've seen alot of people in the press attempting to define "indie" strictly in terms of high quality, often esoteric titles such as Braid and World of Goo. In fairness, this pompous definition of indie is generally represented in fairly high brow rags, such as Edge and Games TM but there is an undercurrent that seems to suggest that unless your game makes a bold artistic statement, graphical or otherwise, your game is merely amatuer (or not worth mentioning, more likely). In my press material I make absolutely no mention of team size - and even if I did I would refer to it as having a "team" behind it - afterall, I didn't create the assets - they were made by a multitude of others (some model packs, TGC store items, and even a few custom entities - thanks SamHH and Errant!!).

I don't think team size will do much for sales - people would rather let the game, or at least the demo, do the talking for them. No matter what ambitious statements you make in your press releases as soon as a demo of your game hits it will be judged on its own merrits. Thus far noone outside of this community has noticed or commented on the engine used to make the game - probably because it doesn't matter that much I dare say. Though I think you are right in that a great team of FPSC folk could probably make a truly kick ass commercial game

Pioneering: Explore the Early American West - Website: http://www.thehistoryforge.com
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chidem
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Posted: 18th Sep 2009 22:13
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Quote: "I quite like the look of that Kunaki manufacturing service. If your selling your game at say $6, then losing $1.75 to the DVD printing is nothing especially since they will ship the disc out for you to your buyer! Saves your postage costs."


I agree though I would probably sell for more than $6 for the disc based version - maybe throw in some extras and make a gold edition to justify maintaining my margin. Oh no, my secret past as a salesman is coming back to haunt me!!!

Quote: "Great find, and I like reading the replies to this thread. =)"


Me too, some great discussions and debates!

Pioneering: Explore the Early American West - Website: http://www.thehistoryforge.com
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xplosys
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Posted: 18th Sep 2009 22:51
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Quote: "Brian could you name some of those cheaper alternatives you know off, or point us in the right direction."


Yeah, it's been a year or more since I looked into it, but I just Googled until I found the right words. Search CD or DVD publishing.

Brian.

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Metal Devil123
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Posted: 18th Sep 2009 23:06
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60th post! And I'm getting a lot of great info here! It's always nice to check this thread!


PS: -.- ,,|,
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Bugsy
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Posted: 19th Sep 2009 05:36
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I noticed we talk a lot here about how FPSC could make a commercial quality game, and that teams could make games VS how single people could make games- i propose we start 2 games- one that a team works on, and tries to sell in stores and stuff, and one that a single person works on, and tries to sell in any way he/she can. that'd be a worthwhile expiriment- it'd be like this


team 1: a team of perhaps 5 would create a pre-agreed on 5 level game, doing whatever possible to make sure it's not regarded as an "INDIE" game, and rather as another big commercial release. in a pre- agreed on location. be this websites, billboards, or even TV commercials- It doesnt matter.

1 level designer
1 gameplay/story designer
1 modeler
1 scripter
1 advertising/marketing director

team 2: at the same time, in a different location, a team of one person works on a 5 level game, and let everyone know that it was, in fact, "INDIE" he himself would do whatever HE could to make sure that game sold.


to shake things up, the team would only be given FPSC v109 with s4/air mod- to make their game at least BEARABLE.

the INDIE designer would have project blue UM.


this would be to see who would actually have a better/better selling game: the indie designer with the best quality game, or the team with the most selling/media resources

whose up for THAT?

I thought not.
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Metal Devil123
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Posted: 19th Sep 2009 11:50
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Sounds like an interesting thing. I am thinking of selling Occulo. I just need to ask promise from wolf to use his segments commercial. If not, then I can find something else.


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chidem
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Posted: 19th Sep 2009 12:52
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It's an interesting idea but my concern would be that both projects had equal skill/resources when it comes to marketing/distribution - the experiement wouldn't make much sense if one title sold based off the back of a clever marketing strategy or a wider distribution network

Pioneering: Explore the Early American West - Website: http://www.thehistoryforge.com
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Bugsy
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Posted: 19th Sep 2009 19:32
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well then both teams would have only s4/airmod.
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chidem
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Posted: 19th Sep 2009 20:44
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Quote: "well then both teams would have only s4/airmod. "


It's not the mods or performance that would give one an unfair advantage - I think different mods, or none, are fine. Rather, what would corrupt the results of such an experiment would be the post-game marketing strategy. And by that I mean one game might sell more soley based upon the marketing approach taken by one team - if this was the case the final sales wouldn't reflect the development enivonment in which the game was created but the marketing effort. For instance, one team might spend £2000 marketing their game, selling a whole number of copies whilst the other might spen £10 and sell nothing - if this happened all we would learn is that games with a larger marketing budget/more canny marketing will likely sell more copies than those without such resources - such a situation would tell us nothing about how a game's development (i.e. by a team or individual)affects final sales. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just pointing out that there are other variables that need to be considered and accounted for.

Pioneering: Explore the Early American West - Website: http://www.thehistoryforge.com
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Bugsy
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Posted: 19th Sep 2009 22:29
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well, then perhaps each team would use a pre-agreed on strategy- money allowed to be spent would be limited.
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chidem
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Posted: 19th Sep 2009 23:31
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Quote: "well, then perhaps each team would use a pre-agreed on strategy- money allowed to be spent would be limited. "


In theory that would work but will two teams be willing to come forward to work under these conditions? Personally, if I developed a game I intended to release I would handle the launch on my own terms to maximise sales - making the game is alot of work I think you'd have a hard time finding groups to follow the strict rules a (worthwhile) experiment would require for no reward or compensation. I don't think it is a bad idea, per se, but I don't think it is particularly practical

Pioneering: Explore the Early American West - Website: http://www.thehistoryforge.com
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chidem
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Posted: 20th Sep 2009 15:02
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Ok, here is a quick update on marketing, etc of my game - hopefully should expose some early mistakes I've made lest you make the same ones.

Successes:
First, I've just inked a deal with a reasonably big digital distributor (booya) so hopefully I will have an additional distribution channel open to me in the next six weeks or so. Once things move forward with that I'll share details of the distributor but the important thing is that these guys approached me which I daresay happened as a result of a series of press releases I sent out. If you google "Pioneering: Explore the Early American West" you'll find plenty of new stories about the game (most sites simply copy the press release you send out so its important that it makes sense and gives over all the information you wish to impart). This, however, does have a downside (see: failures). So the moral of this story, is press releases do work - they will drive some consumer traffic to your site (and some is the operative word) but if well written and structured over a period of time, from pre-release to release date announcement can drive in industry traffic, and that is important.

Google Ads are now also starting to send some business my way but making the most of this is a very tricky business - I had very few hits initially from them, and one day had none! So it takes alot of fiddling with key words and then constant adjustments to your site to convert viewers into buyers. Hopefully as I get more experience from this I can share these lessons with you. But, at the moment, I think I am starting to hit some reasonable keywords bringing in good, focused consumers. The lesson here, know your audience (much, much easier said than done!)


Failures:
Google Ads - As I said, this took a few days to get going as initial key words did not bring in the correct traffic and attempts to fix this meant days without any direct traffic coming whatsoever!!! The end result is wasted money and no sales but I think I have now found at least a few good terms. The issue as I said earlier is know your audience, but who are you really marketing too? In my case I am obviously looking for fans of RPGs and possibly FPS games - but then my game is competing with Fable and Halo - which it simply cannot. Saying I am looking for people interested in American West is not enough either - afterall, most of those will want to watch a documentary or read a book - so I needed to find a group who fell between these two completely unrelated extremes. I am still in the process of doing this but I am starting to get there now though there is a waaaays to go yet.

Search Engine Placement - this has been a real pain. After putting out my first press release my website fell out of the first page searches...for my own game!!! Because many of the sites who covered the game are huge and have great google ratings their pages about my game were deemed more important than my own site which, at one point, appeared on page four of google (on searches for Pioneering: Explore the Early American West) - and even then it was the faq page that was listed, not even the homepage. What a situation! If people read about the game and tried googling it later they would struggle to find it!! A horrid situation that is only now being recitified with some website modifications and heavy marketing (thehistoryforge.com is now on the first page of google which is a vast improvement but not where it needs to be!!). So, whilst the press release campaign gave me some publicity and brand recognition it also had the effect of banishing my own website to the depths of google, though things are starting to turn around now.

That's all I've got for now but I'll keep y'all informed

Pioneering: Explore the Early American West - Website: http://www.thehistoryforge.com
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Wraith Staff
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Posted: 22nd Sep 2009 11:07
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Well, here's my two cents:

I know for a fact that FPSC is a viable conduit for developers to make money. My most recent project, Physix (insert obligatory plug here) actually found a niche in the commercial publishing bracket (still waiting for anyone to actually care ). It's slated for full online distribution with a strong possibility for in-store retail (according to our publisher).

Yes, FPSC is pretty limited in comparison to say... Unreal, but the advances are out there. Heck, just look at all of the leaps and bounds that the BOTBs have made... Or the awesome modelers like Bond1, Errant AI, Jon Fletcher, just to name a brief few! I see all of the great mods out there: Airmod, Ply's Mod, even Wizmod and especially EFX. There are great bits of other media too: like 2Real Blood pack, just off the top of my head! Let's also not forget CoZ's shaders and FPSC IP!!!

Now that's not just to say that there aren't others and especially not that to make a great game you must leech off the work of others (that actually gets pretty messy in integration... yikes!) but the talent is out there! These guys and many, many more of you as well have gone above and beyond what FPSC was originally designed to do. WE push the engine to the limits! We drive FPSC! Many a night, especially lately, I've stayed up thinking about the limitless possibilities of FPSC development...

Thinking about all of the great new mod features out there, what it would be like to put them together. Adding all of the best media... No stocks needed! Custom scripting every aspect of development (Which Physix has done... I love FPI!). I've seen the future. It could be just as good as Unreal; in some aspects, BETTER!

Many of you have probably have thought about a unified mod project... Really messy, I know but I almost think that it'd be worth it.... Heck, if vanilla FPSC (or close enough) could produce Physix or E.L.E (gasp!) then think of what we can do... TOGETHER!

I guess I've gotten off track... sorry I'm not trying to say that we need a major reform to be viable (many of us have proven that... me included) that's kinda against what this thread is about, anyway. I just got off on a little rant.

Sorry that my two cents became a buck fifty... But if ANYONE agrees, let me know. I'm up for the challenge. Anything worth doing is worth doing right!

- Wraith (Sorry about being sooo random )

My cubes keep getting caught in the vents!!!
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chidem
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Posted: 22nd Sep 2009 12:23
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Totally agree, Wraith and congrats on your publishing deal! Sounds fantastic!

Pioneering: Explore the Early American West - Website: http://www.thehistoryforge.com
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Wraith Staff
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2009 06:17 Edited at: 23rd Sep 2009 06:39
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Quote: "Totally agree, Wraith and congrats on your publishing deal! Sounds fantastic!"
Thanks! We've been trying pretty hard since our Zion days (Yikes!)

FPSC is just a canvas.... That's all it is. I've seen some unique things being made. Gorgeous textures, quality models, deep shaders/effects and unique scripts are all more than doable! Just look at what's out there... I have noticed a couple things, though:

There isn't enough sharing of knowledge. Yeah, we have the community guide, but I personally don't think that it's enough! You have many people who make great, professional quality media... but many (not all, by any means. Most of you are great ) don't want to share the love.... Or worse: don't want to enlighten the rest of the community with in-depth tutorials. I think that we definitely need a Wiki of some sort. Just an idea

Another thing that I think would be beneficial (and I don't think that it'll ever happen) is mod unity. No, not all the modders getting together and making a "super mod", no! (That could get ugly!) I think that (and it may happen with the migration) should be REQUIRED to post their source code for the mods they build (not just Airmod)... that way, other people can take ALL the awesome ideas from previous mods (or just scrap the best), add their own stuff, give credit and pass it along. Wash, rinse, repeat... but that seems too much like burning money (just kidding )

Oh yeah, sorry. I just have to get this off my chest: Segments are horrible! It's not that you can't do a lot with them, but flat walls went out with Doom 3. There IS a fix (sorry if I'm getting off topic )... Daarboven had an awesome tutorial a while back for making levels out of entities using SketchUp. I found out that you can do that with almost any other modeling program as well. On top of that, since they ARE entities (static as they may be); shaders (hmm... CoZ) and HQ-ish textures would be more than doable! Just throw it in an invisible box to prevent lag, place some invisible walls as well and viola! (On top of that, change the ambiance of the level to 0 all around, use nice rich shadows and change the resolution settings in setup.ini, too) Instant Hi-Def city! That may sound like a lag nightmare, but if you have a PC that can run FarCry (which most PC game buyers do, anyway) it looks just as good as the industry-standard stuff! (Note: If mods WERE open, then one could have even better graphics and time-based logic to prevent said lag )

Yeah.... Didn't mean to go all psycho I just have too many ideas and this topic gets me excited... sorry.

Tell me what you think... Just don't call the loony bin


Physix Coming Soon...
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Kravenwolf
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2009 07:18
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Quote: "but many don't want to enlighten the rest of the community with in-depth tutorials."


There is an infinite number of modeling tutorials already out there for almost every modeling program available to the community. It's not really a matter of the modelers not wanting to share their knowledge, so much as it is everyone elses lack of determination (or interest) to find those tutorials and attempt to learn for themselves.

Quote: "You have many people who make great, professional quality media... but many (not all, by any means. Most of you are great ) don't want to share the love"


As you said, many people do already contribute their media to the community, and TGC store; some even start model request threads here on the forums to give the members want they need. I myself, am more than willing to offer my modeling talents to anyone willing to spend a few extra dollars toward their game. I do agree with your wiki idea, and even think posting a sticky where all freelance artists around here (including myself) can let everyone know they are available for hire. Weather it be for models, animations, scripts, music...anything.

But you can't be expecting every custom model that appears in a WIP thread to be given away or sold to others. Many modelers/developers here chose to keep some of their models exclusive to their games to make them stand out from the other WIPS. It makes their games more unique, which is a factor when trying to go commerical.


Quote: "Another thing that I think would be beneficial (and I don't think that it'll ever happen) is mod unity. No, not all the modders getting together and making a "super mod", no! (That could get ugly!) I think that (and it may happen with the migration) should be REQUIRED to post their source code for the mods they build (not just Airmod)... that way, other people can take ALL the awesome ideas from previous mods (or just scrap the best), add their own stuff, give credit and pass it along."


Again, it would be nice if everything shown on the forums were made available to everyone else free, but it would never happen Commercial mods such as Project Blue and Horror mod, obviously cost money to purchase so their developers can get something in return for all of their time and hard work. Requiring them to give away their source code so other programmers could use it freely and make their own mod in a fraction of the time and sweat, would mean no more profits for the original developers; which would mean no further reason for them to keep working them.

Even free mods being required to go open source would disourage the developers to continue working on them, knowing someone else can come along, take all of their hard work and release it as their own.



Kravenwolf

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Wraith Staff
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2009 08:45
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@Kravenwolf

I totally agree with your first two paragraphs... You make a great point! When I make textures (you can find them via TurboSquid), I can only do so because of the accessibility of great tutorials; the same goes for my brother/colleague and his models. There IS a severe lack of willpower AND interest when it comes to custom media! People seem to want EVERYTHING for NOTHING... and that's not how art works (Three years at OAA/Fitton Center for Creative Arts taught me that ). There are learning tools out there; my beef is more accessibility (sorry to be a n00b sympathizer). I personally have no problem with the search bar, but sometimes that just doesn't cut it. I've noticed that search parameters on TGC are horrid to say the least and drudging through Google can be a pain. I know that it's pretty stupid to complain about something as pitiful as searching, but that does unfortunately turn a lot of people off. We're too used to instant gratification, pure and simple.

Also, I in no way meant to say that every artist (to any degree) needs to distribute something/anything. That causes too many problems in itself... Every FPSC game would then be a cookie-cutter amalgam of the last, and no one wants that. There's barely enough creativity in the industry as is !

I guess I went a little overboard with the first parts of my rant... oops but at risk of sounding like a communist, I will have to disagree with this:

Quote: "Again, it would be nice if everything shown on the forums were made available to everyone else free, but it would never happen Commercial mods such as Project Blue and Horror mod, obviously cost money to purchase so their developers can get something in return for all of their time and hard work. Requiring them to give away their source code so other programmers could use it freely and make their own mod in a fraction of the time and sweat, would mean no more profits for the original developers; which would mean no further reason for them to keep working them."


I have always been a big fan of Open-Source software; I even contribute on a few projects myself. The problem with the standard developer mentality (not just FPSC by any means... Devs all over the world do this) is that the goal is again (in my mind, at least... many of you might disagree), instant gratification! From where I'm standing, which may sound harsh, many developers tend to want (or need... I'm broke right now too) money up front. I have no beef with that, honestly! A person has a right to profit off of their intellectual property... It's how one makes money without becoming a corporate slave (my mom was a hippie...sorry)... Though from my perspective, being "Open" isn't about "Free", far from it actually!

Bear with me for a bit: If all mods were open, people would find it easier to mod, right? If people find it easier to mod, more features are made, right? If more features were made, better games would get made, right? Now... if people (like me) are already making money off of vanilla FPSC, think about all of the great games that would be made with nearly limitless mod features... Games with particle effects, timer-based movement, duel wielding, smooth shaders, open environments.... All the features of say... Valve's Source Engine! (I've done the math... Combining the best features of every major mod, and many minor ones WILL stack up to similar results). Yeah, people stop making money off of mods, BUT instead make money off GAMES! FPSC needs to be more commercially viable; if that means losing a bit to gain so much more... Then let it be, that's TRUE capitalism! You can't make money without losing a bit... and Lord knows that none of us (well, not many) are making anything worth selling in "the big time" (again, overboard, sorry)! What I mean is: What's better? Making $20 here or there, or making thousands a week (probably an exaggeration) and being part of the "serious" industry or just being the standard "hard working" (most of us...) yet under appreciated "indie" with less money making potential than a street performer....

Umm.... Really didn't mean to sound that harsh!

Anyway, I could be wrong, but to me, that's what it's all about: being more than just an indie (though there's nothing wrong with being an indie by choice... I just see so much talent that could be put into bigger, better projects, and that really makes me sad).

Heck, modders wouldn't even have to give away the source... as long as it's available, who cares if they charge for it (well, that may be going a bit far... ) Honestly, to me, when something I've made gets improved on, I don't think, "Hey, they're taking my hard work and not giving me a cent!" It's more like "It's nice to be making someone's development experience better." If we all just worked together (in some small way) everyone would be more productive and eventually (sometime in the near future) we would all be making better quality, more original games... faster, more efficiently and less frustratingly! Don't we all want that? If we want a better (more profitable) future (which if you didn't want to make money, why read this topic?), we need change (no pun intended). FPSC has unlimited potential, but it almost seems to be rotting under us. To make a better experience, we need to stop thinking about "me" (for now... ) and start thinking about how we can pool effort into something bigger... Hey, we might all just find ourselves rich someday... lol

I'd like to apologize... AGAIN I just sit at my keyboard and let it flow, I'm probably way off mark (but apparently not way off Marx ) Well, like I said, it's just a rant. It will NEVER happen anyway, so why sweat it, right? Though I still say that a Wiki would be nice.... Though I don't think that me posting here is very productive (it just gets too much blood pressure stirred up ) If you guys don't find my responses "charmingly progressive", just tell me and I'll stop...

Peace!

- Wraith (The cause without a rebel... sorry joke!)


Physix Coming Soon...
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Kravenwolf
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2009 09:52 Edited at: 23rd Sep 2009 09:52
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Quote: "From where I'm standing, which may sound harsh, many developers tend to want (or need... I'm broke right now too) money up front."


It's always nice to have some sort of motivation to continue working on your project, and dedicating hours of your life to it. That up front compensation may help pay the electricity that powers the computer that is used to create that very mod

Quote: "Yeah, people stop making money off of mods, BUT instead make money off GAMES!"


Quote: "Heck, modders wouldn't even have to give away the source... as long as it's available, who cares if they charge for it "


The only problem with that is that not all of the programmers here have any desire whatsoever to use FPS creator to actually make their own commericial game, rather make themselves a little spare income on the side of their other projects. And it wouldn't be very motivational (or business smart) for these select few to spend all of their time on their mod, only to give away or sell their entire source code for $20.00, and then see it a month later in "Jim X Mod", which sells at $30.00 a copy, makes Jim X $1,000.00 in a week, and leaves the original developer with $20.00, a thank you, and no one else left to buy his obsolete mod.

Quote: "I'd like to apologize... AGAIN I just sit at my keyboard and let it flow, I'm probably way off mark "


Can't be wrong with an opinion. And I'm not trying to bash you, I'm not posting out of anger or anything like that. I'm just also sharing my two cents.


Kravenwolf

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Plystire
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@Wraith Staff:

So, let me get this straight...
You want everyone to be more productive by pooling their work together into a single, viable product?

What you're talking about is teamwork. The way you've described it, with the end result being money, you're more closely refering to a business or company.

What's the standing of the forum on this "behavior"? Well, you first need to show "ample progress" with your idea before asking for help with it. The exception here is if you straight up give your work out to the community for them to look at and play around with. This is where the "open source" comes into play. What's wrong with that? Well, nothing up front, but here's the line:
- When everything is said and done with and 50+ people have altered your source... who's going to bring it all together? I hate merging TWO sources together let alone a community's worth of source changes.
- At what point are you going to draw the line for "code cleanliness"? I hate to point it out, but not everyone can write clean code.
- Whose code are you going to dump and whose are you going to keep? You can't keep it all, I can tell you that much.

It's a great thought that with everyones' minds at work, a lot can get done, but you're missing the bigger picture here. Allow me to paint it for you:

Imagine a string, wound tight and very strong. This wil be our "Mod" for the analogy. Let's say that this string was given to everyone for alterations. Well, not everyone can have the string at one time, so it must be seperated into several smaller strings. Thus we unwind the string into it's most basic strands and hand them out to people. Now each of these strands are very small and frail, not to mention there's about 100+ of them. Everyone takes their strand home and fiddles with them, dying them different colors, pulling on them, some tying knots in them, etc. Now a few months later when all the strands have lost their original quality and all have become different, they no longer wind together as smoothly as they once did. All of the colors and all of the tiny knots are clashing with each other and the string becomes ugly and falls apart easily. This is mainly because, after all of the changes have been made, no one knows how to put the string back together.

Take AirMod v0.6 for example... that's just one alteration tot he original source... yet how many people were able to merge it with the new v1.15 source? Very few. Now imagine having 18 different renditions of AirMod v0.6.... how many do you think will be able to merge those TOGETHER and then into newer sources?


Like I said, the idea itself is great, but without the organization of a full blown business, having guidelines to adhere to to ensure things go smoothly, you're just going to run into roadblock after roadblock.


[Small Note]

And for the record, when someone asks me if they can purchase my Mod's source, I tell them they most certainly can... but doing so would be the equivalent of purchasing the Mod 15-20 times. Nobody wants to pay that, yet it still wouldn't cover a year's work at below minimum wage.

[/Small Note]



The one and only,


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Wraith Staff
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2009 10:30 Edited at: 23rd Sep 2009 11:05
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@Kravenwolf

Well needless to say, no one's making millions off their mods (at least I hope not... or I'd be doing it ) As for modders who don't make games themselves, from what I've seen that doesn't happen much (if at all). What seems to make workless arms races (tee hee) moot is that if no one makes money off of mods, then no one loses money off of mods either. Yeah, maybe they lose free time, but I'm pretty sure that this isn't anyone's full time job (as of yet). Many open-source licenses allow for commercial "final build" distribution, but not for commercial source distribution. Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems that most big, commercial, open-source engines (and their developers) do just fine without anyone charging for mods. I don't know... Maybe FPSC is different. All I DO know is that it seems that "free flowing" knowledge is better in the long run for making more money and better quality... Just in different ways than before....

To me it just seems that if we, as developers, combine MY 2 cents with YOUR 2 cents, and pass the tray along... we ALL make more money in the long run (bad analogy, I know... )!

I know you're not mad... I actually enjoy theoretical debates. More ideas come up if a topic is talked about by differing views... Nothing ever improves if everyone ALWAYS agrees, you know? Debates spark change, and I'm pretty sure we all need a little of that!

En garde!

[EDIT]

Oh yeah, I just saw Plystire's post...

@Plystire

Hmm... I've never really though of it quite like that... Though I might have somewhat of a solution:

I think it would be relatively simple (at least I hope)... There are several existing mods out now, I know... but still, in itself, not many people who use DBP also use FPSC. I'd estimate that the amount of actual programmers using FPSC is around 3% (you'd probably know better...). When a new mod comes out the full selection of both unique/useful features are both pretty slim, mod to mod from what I've seen. In that case, I believe that instead of full "Open" functionality, we'd almost need a way to share what we deem the best features without the jumble of identical (or even horribly different) mods in whole. Most people can agree what the best features are anyway, once they have a list. They could pick and choose the best for THEIR project and release a "full" mod if they'd like. If everyone had access to the best "snippets"; it might make mod-making easier AND quality better. We need something almost like the script board, but with DBP lines... But ONLY for FPSC. I know it sounds pretty lame right now, but it might work (if it doesn't already exist... I'm not very observant!)

I know what you're probably thinking: "But YOU don't know DBP, you had to buy that Physmod-thing off of me!" or something like that (I hope not... ). That is true, but I DO program... C++, regular BASIC, Javascript, HTML, and I'm learning C#... Just in case it's relevant

To me, at least, the majority of the community would be happy with "mod-#-whatever" or just a new EFX but for those interested in engine improvements, it'd be nice to have some way to integrate the best features together. You've got to admit, a mod that had the ease of access, graphics, features AND performance of the best mods would be wicked. Some have tried... Wizmod (really awesome graphics and cool features) came the closest with the announcement of BlueUM integration (which had almost all the best features anyway!)... So it's not IMPOSSIBLE just really hard...

Maybe I'm just missing something......

Like I said, It's probably not gonna happen anyway, right?


Physix Coming Soon...
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Plystire
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2009 10:38
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Quote: "Nothing ever improves if everyone ALWAYS agrees, you know?"


Unless everyone ALWAYS agreed that what they have isn't good enough and needs to be improved upon.... thus we now have constant propoganda for improvement and a single leader who works his fingers to the bone to bring it forth. Gee, that sounds kinda like a community I know.


The one and only,


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Kravenwolf
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2009 10:53 Edited at: 23rd Sep 2009 10:59
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Quote: "Well needless to say, no one's making millions off their mods (at least I hope not... or I'd be doing it ) As for modders who don't make games themselves, from what I've seen that doesn't happen much (if at all). What seems to make workless arms races (tee hee) moot is that if no one makes money off of mods, then no one loses money off of mods either. "


I don't make a lot of money from my GC store sales, but I would still much rather have that extra $100 every two months than nothing at all. Or to give the rights to those models to someone else who would sell them and make that $100 and leave me with...again...nothing but a thank you. That's all I was getting at.


I'm not saying it's a bad idea at all, and it would be great if it actually happened. But as Ply mentioned, it would be a lot of work to combine so much source code into one mod, and I can't think of anyone that would be willing to sacrifice all of their time to actually make that happen for little or no profit whatsoever.

If I remember correctly, Wizmod encountered a similar dilema. A group of people tried to merge several sources into one mod, there was disagreement in wages, and the mod fell apart


Quote: " "Nothing ever improves if everyone ALWAYS agrees, you know?""


And in that case, I don't agree with that, good sir!


Kravenwolf

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Wraith Staff
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2009 11:08
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Wow... That was fast! I just made an edit after seeing Ply's post and BOOM! Two more posts... DUDE!

Quote: "And in that case, I don't agree with that, good sir!"


Very nice! Anyway, I'm going to bed...


Physix Coming Soon...
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Plystire
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2009 11:18
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Well, here's another bit of information for you to munch on.

This is something I fight everytime i add something to PBUM (which sadly hasn't happened in a while).

Whenever you add something, the performance drops. It may not be noticeable, but it does drop. Sometimes, with poor code structure, it drops a LOT. I had to redesign my lighting enhancements about 3-4 times before it was performance savvy... the performance still went down, but not nearly as much as before.

Now, how much of a performance hit do you suppose compiling all of the Mods together would be? If your answer is less than "a lot", you're wrong.

EFX in itself has performance issues. Everyone knows that. Now, what if we slapped PBUM and EFX together? Would we SUDDENLY have EFX graphics with PBUM performance? Heck no, we'd just have a really low framerate with a boat-load of features...... but at least the resulting SLIDESHOW would look nice.


The one and only,


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meteorite
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Posted: 23rd Sep 2009 13:03
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Hmm, if you're looking for a way to get your game out there, I believe gamestop's (if you have one near you) have a program where you can submit a game, and they may put it on sale for you. Not entirely sure how it works, you'd have to ask.


I'm the exception to every rule, that rule withstanding
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chidem
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Posted: 8th Oct 2009 23:22
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Quick update: GamersGate have just added Pioneering to their digital distribution platform which is pretty cool. I am in America at the moment on a research trip (actually, I'm sitting in the airport waiting to fly home) so they've had to make their own cover, etc, but I'll get on to making new assets for them when I get home. Other than that it should be interesting to see what, if any, extra interest this distibutor brings to the title. You can check it out here: http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-PION/pioneering-explore-the-early-american-west

Pioneering: Explore the Early American West - Website: http://www.thehistoryforge.com
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KeithC
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Posted: 9th Oct 2009 00:13
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Congratulations!

-Keith

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Talairina
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Posted: 9th Oct 2009 19:58
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Awesome! Congrats! Just curious though, who decided on the price of the software? =)
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djmaster
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Posted: 9th Oct 2009 20:03
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Congrats!

[href]http://sites.google.com/site/chargedstudios/home[href]
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chidem
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Quote: "Awesome! Congrats! Just curious though, who decided on the price of the software? =) "


I priced the game at $6 thrugh my website as an introductory offer though I am going to experiment with different price points (as always, the results will be posted here) - I think I am going to settle on $8.95 for the gajme on my site - GamersGate decided on their own pricing structure

Pioneering: Explore the Early American West - Website: http://www.thehistoryforge.com
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Bugsy
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Posted: 9th Oct 2009 21:35
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I figure selling games to people who dont know anything about game development will net me more for people who just want some bloody, gory action- friends from school, you know- people who are just enamored that someone they know actually made a game. price will be 5 dollars.
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Bigsnake
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Posted: 9th Oct 2009 21:42
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ok , this is totally off topic but ive just read this thread , took me ages and now Ive got a headache :S


Windows Vista,ATI Readon HD 4870,AMD Athlon 7750 64 Dual Core,4GB ram
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Bugsy
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Posted: 9th Oct 2009 21:58
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lol keep in here- it is one of my favorite threads
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chidem
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Posted: 9th Oct 2009 22:39
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Quote: "I figure selling games to people who dont know anything about game development will net me more for people who just want some bloody, gory action- friends from school, you know- people who are just enamored that someone they know actually made a game. price will be 5 dollars. "


That was my thinking with my original price point - the reason I increased it from $6 to $8.95 is that the original price point did not return advertising investment (although in fairness I had some coupons so I didn't lose anything - but I have to adjust the pricing if I intend to market the game). I think it is also possible to price your product too low - there are alot of discussions on this issue in various gamasutra articles and I think that I *may* have done that - but only time and some experimentation will tell - I could, afterall, be totally wrong! That said I don't think I should sell my product for 30% less than the price a fairly large online distributor has chosen.

Quote: "ok , this is totally off topic but ive just read this thread , took me ages and now Ive got a headache :S"


Haha, sorry about that - hope it's been helpfull though

Pioneering: Explore the Early American West - Website: http://www.thehistoryforge.com
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Scurvy Lobster
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Posted: 10th Oct 2009 00:01
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I have heard from some people on other developer forums that a GamersGate release doesn't convert into a reasonable amount of sales. I hope you will share your experience.

But congratulations on the release of your game btw.

Running my latest game superbly on FPSC and Project Blue Mod.
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chidem
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Posted: 10th Oct 2009 15:02
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Quote: "I have heard from some people on other developer forums that a GamersGate release doesn't convert into a reasonable amount of sales. I hope you will share your experience."


I'm not expecting anything - the way I see it is that anything from them is an unexpected bonus

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chidem
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Posted: 12th Oct 2009 00:25
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Sorry for the shameless bump but I thought I should mention my game just went live on Game Streamer and has already sold some copies on that site. Game Streamer seems like an OK distribution outlet that more or less anyone can sign up to (they are advertising heavily in magazines like Edge and Games TM)so I'll pay particuarly close attention to them as they might be a good outlet for games looking to go commercial here. Here's the link to my listing: http://games.gs1.net/games/pioneering-explore-the-early-american-west

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Bugsy
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Posted: 12th Oct 2009 02:23
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great!

update for me- releasing lots of demos promising more has really piqued peoples interest, and I will see if I will get more sales by making potential customers wait- not to the point where they lose interest, just to the point where they really want it. the point where the potential customers are thinking about it every day, and cant wait till the day when the game comes out. so needless to say, I'm taking my time. I'm just having some s4mod ambience problems.
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Wraith Staff
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Posted: 12th Oct 2009 03:54
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@chidem

Hey! Did you by any chance use my MultiTalk script? It'd be sorta neat if you did... I noticed it in Pioneer's scriptbank. Of course you could have just had it in your folder. Just curious


Physix Coming Soon...
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xplosys
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Posted: 12th Oct 2009 04:39
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chidem,

Excellent that it's on Game Streamer and very happy to hear that it's selling. You've done us proud, friend. Keep on pushing it and keep us informed.

Brian.

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General Jackson
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Posted: 12th Oct 2009 05:29
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Great!

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chidem
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Posted: 12th Oct 2009 14:45
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Quote: "update for me- releasing lots of demos promising more has really piqued peoples interest, and I will see if I will get more sales by making potential customers wait- not to the point where they lose interest, just to the point where they really want it. the point where the potential customers are thinking about it every day, and cant wait till the day when the game comes out. so needless to say, I'm taking my time. I'm just having some s4mod ambience problems. "


Ah, building hype, good move. The only thing I would say is bear in mind that a) if you release a killer demo people may want to convert (buy the full product) but will not be able to and could lose interest a bit if something that appeals to them equally or more so comes along. Am sure you will be able to judge when is the correct time to release though

Quote: "Hey! Did you by any chance use my MultiTalk script? It'd be sorta neat if you did... I noticed it in Pioneer's scriptbank. Of course you could have just had it in your folder. Just curious "


I didn't in the end though I had initially planned on doing so. When I first started building the game I had an overall plan for complex conversations but by the time I was ready to impliment the feature the game was already struggling under the weight of the scripts already running. Maybe in my next game though? When I was a bit younger and wrote and produced a graphic novel that I've never really released properly so I was thinking my next project could be based on that and that I might release the two together? Surely a comic book game would need interactive conversations? Well, maybe, it's all speculative at the moment.

Pioneering: Explore the Early American West - Website: http://www.thehistoryforge.com
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Bugsy
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Posted: 13th Oct 2009 00:09
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cool Idea- I notice that the more people play my stuff, the more they want the full version. but I was thinking of doing a commercial style advertising type deal: both literally and figuratively with multiplayer mode: If you buy this game, I will throw in multiplayer mode for FREE! (5 dollar value)
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chidem
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Posted: 13th Oct 2009 00:16
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Quote: "cool Idea- I notice that the more people play my stuff, the more they want the full version. but I was thinking of doing a commercial style advertising type deal: both literally and figuratively with multiplayer mode: If you buy this game, I will throw in multiplayer mode for FREE! (5 dollar value) "


Sounds good - I am told that offering buy one get one free style marketing (i.e. game plus free multiplayer mode) is more effective than advertising a single product but beware that many gamers might expect a game's multiplayer to be included anyway. Not saying it's a bad idea (far from it) but maybe the multiplayer feature is not the thing to advertise as a freebie? Maybe you could take one of your games and divide it into two "episodes" to be sold at a lower price - you could then offer a discount when both parts are sold together. For instance $11.95 per episode or $19.95 for the two together. That kind of offer, I am led to believe, appeals to people more so than the offer of a single title being put up for sale. But if people want to give you money (i.e. buy the full game) then you should totally get it out there, IMO - it's obviously good enough so why make people who want to buy it now (assuming it's done!) wait? I am sure you're game will do really well!

Pioneering: Explore the Early American West - Website: http://www.thehistoryforge.com
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