OMG I worked with Gene at crack.com, always wondered what happened to him. Loved his golgotha music.
38 studios Auction Nov 14th and 15th.
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Grim1
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Well RI definitely helped in the fall of 38Studios, and a big reason for that was the change in administrations. The new governor was against the loan from the beginning and was out to make a point.Clearly all RI's fault, then.
But that is the cost of doing business with the government. If you get in bed with them, you have to be prepared for regime changes and the resultant BS that always happens. Curt NEVER should have accepted the loan from RI, it had too many strings attached and was dependent on a favorable political climate.
Curt did a lot of things that any knowledgeable businessman would never have done. But Curt didn't have any experience in the business world. He thought that just because he had exceptional talent in the baseball arena, a passion for gaming, and a 100 million dollars in the bank, that that would be enough to build an empire in a land he had only visited before as a spectator.
Curt would have laughed at anyone who thought that they could just jump in and become a baseball star without paying his dues. It's too bad he didn't have the wherewithal to realize he was essentially trying to do the same thing in the business arena.
Utnayan
F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
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There is no reason to blame the government regime change when Schilling and his company blew every cent they had and couldn't control their spending/budget. It was poor management. And nothing would have happened had they made their payments on time. Regardless of who was governor.
Honestly it's hard to tell if this is genuine or not. I could just as easily see that there was very little interest, and in order to drum some up the lawyer tries to make it sound like there's so much demand that he needs more time to negotiate the sale he's had nearly18 monthsto finalize.
But anyway, we'll see. I would just like it settled, one way or another.
Utnayan
F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
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I was going to say the same thing. We actually agreed for once. The IP is basically dog shit at this point while being completely unproven anyway. Not sure what they are expecting to get here.
No, we did not say the same thing.
Last figures I received, Reckoning's sales were around 1.5 million copies. The game was recently given as a PS+ freebie, so a decently sized new audience has downloaded and played it. Feedback remains generally positive, so I would say the IP is far from unproven. The idea of taking that IP into the MMO realm--that's the unproven part, and it's easy to say that it was doomed to failure because no one can prove the notion wrong.
The most immediate value for the IP would have been for someone to buy it, keep the BHG team together, and complete Reckoning 2, which was already underway. That game could have been nearing completion by now, and it's not unreasonable to predict that it could have sold in the 2-3 million range. There was a solid plan for improving upon the first game and the pre-production phase had been really promising.
Of course the MMO tech is useless at this point--the people who could have completed it are long gone to other projects. But a potential buyer with a suitable engine/back-end could take the wealth of assets we built, plug them in, and have a great looking game. I'm talking a world's worth of zones, tons of characters and animations, and I don't even know how many hours of really great music.
If someone were to buy the IP purely for the MMO assets, it comes down to a simple matter of math. How long would it take a team of artists to generate a comparable set of assets? Or outsource them to an art house? These are numbers that can be calculated, and used to decide what a worthwhile bid would be.
My expectation is not that someone will buy the IP for the IP itself and resurrect Amalur (although stranger things have happened, I suppose). My assumption has always been that some company would look at the game assets, figure out what they think the value is, and bid some fraction of that figure. That's just business, and there's certainly value to be had if the price is right.
Siddar
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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I wonder if auctioning the completed game is even in best interests of RI at this point. The value of that game is impaired by unresolved issues still in play. RI may be better off keeping it and running it then selling it at less then its real value. MMOG assets are worth very close to 0 now because most of that game was still in employees heads. Once RI scattered them to the wind there was no chance of that game ever being finished.
Regime
LOADING, PLEASE WAIT...
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Rezz
Mr. Poopybutthole
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I'm not in the industry, but I've always wondered at the methodology behind the design process. Do they start with "fun" ideas (action movie type awesome scenes) and then try to translate them to gameplay, or do they start with spreadsheets (DnD style math) and then try to extrapolate fun from there? Is there a unified process/ideology that every company uses that happens to fail at certain points for the TORs/WARs of the world? Also note that I understand TOR is making a profit at this point, just that it really could have been bigger than it ended up. Just idle curiosity, more than anything.
I've always been curious at how a successful company goes at the task list when producing an mmorpg, and how it would compare to the design process for other similar yet less successful companies.
edit: And yes, I realize that "release now" has been the bane of many a game, but I'm more curious as to the pre-suit intervention process.
I've always been curious at how a successful company goes at the task list when producing an mmorpg, and how it would compare to the design process for other similar yet less successful companies.
edit: And yes, I realize that "release now" has been the bane of many a game, but I'm more curious as to the pre-suit intervention process.
j00t
Silver Baronet of the Realm
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depends entirely upon the studio/game in question, i would assume.
as far as TOR goes, idle curiosity meets idle guessing. there was a lot of rumors that bioware purposely tanked TOR so that it could get out from under Lucasart's control. adding that to the idea that maybe bioware caught wind that lucasarts was going belly-up and they didn't want to feed it just to keep it up and running... who knows if any of that is true. everyone loves a good conspiracy theory. /shrug
going back to your original question, for series like Call of Duty, they don't really put too much time and effort into "what is going to be fun about this game?" and just get their spreadsheets out instead. they focus very hard on multiplayer and all the spreadsheets that they can muster. another example is all the facebook and mobile "freemium" games. they don't put too much focus on fun ideas, just what the most efficient way to recoup costs and make a profit.
it sounds backwards, but there's a reason why "freemium" games are becoming a new standard.
Utnayan
F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
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And I would say the IP is unproven because no one cares about the IP. No one. The game was nothing. A single player RPG with bloated quests no one cared about, and no one cared about the story. No one. The story, by the way, written by BHG when it was ascension.
I'm of the realist view. The IP itself is not worth it. At all. I would challenge anyone that played the game to talk about the story and characters. Anyone.. The end result of KoA was a good combat system with a lackluster story and over bloated side quests.
None of which makes a fun game. And it didn't. Even your boss said it sucked. Seriously.
In other words. How long would it take to turn a profit based on investment. Right?
That's right. Business. Not a good game.
Denaut
Trump's Staff
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The invention process itself varies quite a but by company and even person. This is how I work.
Assuming, like j00t said, a non-freemium non-sequel/clone, I usually start with a germ of an idea that comes from anywhere. It can come from a book, another game, sometimes a mechanic in another game I think is underused but really good, a conversation with someone, and so on. That first step is really the one you have the least control over, and you just kind of let them come to you.
Immediately after that germ of an idea though, you have to form it into something meaningful. That means extrapolating the idea out into a semi-abstract goal or set of goals that form the guiding principle(s) for all future work. The goals should revolve around player actions, thoughts, and/or feelings. From there you can move onto concepting high level mechanics. Sometimes you think of the mechanic first, but you still have to use that mechanic to form your guiding principles before moving back to it.
For me, when I am designing a mechanic or system, I concept it and then I play a bunch of "games" or "scenarios" in my head with it to try and ferret out problems. I then work to try and solve those problems by changing to or adding to the system or mechanic. Sometimes it just doesn't work well and you throw it out to come up with something else. I always try to come up with systems that have very few and very simple rules but that can interact in meaningful ways and also be excepted discretely to add game-play. At this stage of the design details, like actual damage numbers, don't really matter, just the idea that x does more damage than y and what does that mean to the game?
An incredibly good example of this principle at work is the new X-Com game. The tactical game has very simple rules. You have 2 actions, you can move or attack, if you attack it ends your turn. Really, really simple. BUT it uses that simplicity to create a game that requires large amount of decision making in how you spend those moves. It then introduces discrete exceptions to those rule such as, "Shooting no longer ends a turn", which as a simple exception to a simple rule is easy to assimilate but has far reaching and very important ramifications for the game.
Once I have a really good grasp about what the stats are, how they interact, what kind of features there are, and roughly how everything ties together I have what I consider a "High Level Design." This stage of a design is complete enough to plan production and actually begin building the game. It is at this point that I will dive into budgets, spreadsheets, formulas and so on. It is also the point where I'll begin detailed UI work.
Anyway, there is more to talk about but I am tired of typing
Tmac
Adventurer
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As someone who was really excited about KoA, got my friends to buy it, and played it for about 30 hours... I agree with Ut.
The story was lost amid the cluster$&@( of quests in that game. Oh my god the quests... /shiver
Sigh. Anyways. The combat was great for a while, but since the story was so f'ing difficult to follow (as someone who likes to follow every breadcrumb along the way) the game literally drained the life out of me.
It was like an ADD Fable.
All I remember about the storyline was what I found out "before" I played the game. The Well of Souls or whatever... I don't remember. So many quests...
The story was lost amid the cluster$&@( of quests in that game. Oh my god the quests... /shiver
Sigh. Anyways. The combat was great for a while, but since the story was so f'ing difficult to follow (as someone who likes to follow every breadcrumb along the way) the game literally drained the life out of me.
It was like an ADD Fable.
All I remember about the storyline was what I found out "before" I played the game. The Well of Souls or whatever... I don't remember. So many quests...
I'd be surprised if EA lets KoA go to someone else. They spent money marketing the first one and it did okay, but the sequels are where they can make easy money.
Ranak
Molten Core Raider
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Looks like it was officially pushed back to December 11th. They also claim they unearthed a completed game that was never released: Rise of Nations: Tactics.
Unreleased 38 Studios game discovered, auction set for Dec. 11 | Polygon
Unreleased 38 Studios game discovered, auction set for Dec. 11 | Polygon
Tmac
Adventurer
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