Re: Loki files for banruptcy protection.

[Steve Baker <sjbaker1@airmail.net>]

Mark Collins wrote:

> > * HOWEVER, only one game in 35 ever makes a profit.
> >
> > Just as in the movie business, it's very hard to know in advance what games
> > titles will "take off" and which will simply sink without trace.  Everyone
> > knows that no matter what, the next James Bond movie will do quite well -
> > and everyone knew well in advance that Quake III would turn a profit...but
> > if you are an unknown - then there is a HUGE risk factor involved.
> 
> This is the eact reason there are so many clones out there. A company
> releases a game, and it becomes popular (eg. Quake, C&C). OAround this time,
> several startups are designing their "premier" titles, and see that
> [Quake|C&C] is selling really well.
> 
> "Well, why don't we just copy that?" asks the Manager.
> 
> "Hell, we can just license the technology, and have it out of the door in 6
> months", replies the technicalogy manager
> 
> Of course, this company aren't the only people to think that, so within 6
> months of a game hitting number 1, you have dozens of cheap clones which
> don't add anything to the genre. This is why so many games fail, not because
> of the consumer, but lazy developers.

Yes - I guess that could be a part of the problem - but even if you don't make
a clone, the odds of a game becoming a hit is pretty bad.  It's like the Xmas
toy market - who could have predicted "Tickle-Me Elmo"?   Who could have predicted
"Deer Hunter" (or whatever it was called) would have been a hit?
 
> > So, for Loki, if they had set out to incur the enormous expense of writing
> > a new game from scratch *just* for Linux, they would bear the dual risks of
> > only having a 3% chance of getting a hit *and* even when if it is a hit,
> > the relatively small market of Linux users would shrink the potential
> > profits by a factor of 50 or so simply because of the small user-base.
> >
> > Their idea (and it was basically a reasonable one) was to port games that
> > were known to be successful.  That eliminates the 97% chance of coming up
> > with a dud.
> 
> There is a major flaw in that premise: Linux users have different tastes to
> Windows users. I'm sure you remember the email I sent out a while back about
> what games people like to play, I think the results showed a slight trend
> towards "intelligent" games, not titles such as Deus Ex or UT.

Yes - I strongly suspect that's the case - but I doubt that any solid
research has been done about it.  And Rule #1 in any business is "Know your
market".

> There was a lot of hype about MindRover in the Linux press, which only adds
> weight to this theory. Kent Quirk (The original author of MindRover) had a
> good idea there, and is probably going to make shitloadsa money form the
> sequal.

Yep.
 
> > So we are back in the usual chicken-and-egg situation:  We need more games
> > to get more Linux users.  We need more Linux users to get more games.
> >
> > The only way to get out of that loop is to write FREE Linux games
> > ourselves...which is what I do.  The problem is that it can take 100 people
> 
> We need *high-quality* free linux games, of which there aren't veyr many.
> FlightGear, TuxKarts and the like are good, but they're not going to draw Joe
> 'LeetFrag' Bloggs to Linux gaming.

Yes - but it's *VERY* hard to get enough OpenSource people together to get
that to happen.  And the utter non-existance of freeware artists is a
crushing blow.

> > three years to write a major game - you increasingly need to hire actors to
> > do the voice overs, full scale orchestra's to record the music and pay
> > skilled artists to do the artwork.  Programmers make up a tiny fraction of
> > those 100 people.  Most games are *programmed* by just a handful of people.
> 
> At Silicon Dreams, we were organised thus:
> Each team had around 5 dedicated programmers
> Each team had an average of 4 artists
> Each project had a producer (some had an assistant producer (Lara *grin*))
> There were several smaller teams for building technology (graphics engines
> etc)
> A team of 2 musicians/sound technicians for the whole company
> 
> Some other companies have more artists assigned to a project, but usually the
> same (low) number of programmers.

Yep - but even if only 50% of the team are artists - that's 50% we don't have
in the OpenSource world.
 
> > Hence having a lot of Linux software people try to write a game is a very
> > tough proposition.
> >
> > In my two OpenSource games (Tux-A Quest for Herring and TuxKart) I was able
> > to write all the software single-handed in a relatively short time - but
> > getting 3D and 2D artists and musicians to throw in some effort has been
> > more-or-less a dead end.
> 
> Music isn't really a problem (assuming you have no problem using Windows to
> create it). There is some excellent software available (I use Magix Music
> Studio Generation 6 for mine) and royalty-free samples available for a low
> price, so even an old Pentium can be used for that (assuming you have no
> problems with dance/techno/industrial).

Yes - but you need a certain musical talent - you may have it - but I certainly
don't.  No amount of good tools will make up for that.
 
> Art can also be done quite easilly, if you're prepared to invest more time in
> the technology side of things (IK-type systems).

!!

Systems like IK can certainly help with the animation - but not the original
modelling of the characters, props and scenery.  "Art can also be done quite
easily" is a ridiculous statement...as MANY people have said on this list in
MANY threads - Art is THE problem.

But perhaps the multi-talented Nurgle is also a grade A artist as well as
programmer, musician and writer?  Personally, I'm at most bi-talented and
I know my limitations.

> > My next game "The Chronicles of The Evil Overlord" is designed to need a
> > minimum of artwork and make up for it with much more programmed features.
> > But I'm under no illusions about how hard that will be to do.
> 
> Steve, I'm working on a NURBS/IK character animation system for this exact
> reason (can produce lots of artwork from a single frame+script file). Contact
> me off list if you're interested in helping...

Coincidentally - I'm also working on character animation stuff!
(Although not using NURBS - and the IK part isn't running yet).

But I don't regard the animation part as the biggest issue (maybe I'm just
tri-talented and can do the animation part OK) - the 3D model and 2D texture
origination is the big deal for me - and I don't see a way to automate that
because it's "artistic" in nature.

> > I don't believe that.  RedHat is profitable - QED.  Linux users not only
> > pay for things, they even pay for things they could theoretically download
> > for free! The shelves in Fry's have about two shelf-feet of Loki games and
> > about 40 shelf- feet of Linux distro's - there is a reason for that.
> 
> One of our main concerns about adding Linux support to vectorC iat work is a
> fear of piracy. While there aren't as many source for Linux-warez, the ration
> of warez-users:non-warez users is much scarier than on Windows.

Linux people I've met seem generally MUCH more concerned about the licensing
legalities and being careful about that...but it's really hard to tell. There
are so few commercial games out there - we just don't have good statistics
on the size of the piracy problem.
 
> Actually, you're partly right there (And partly wrong). Many Linux users are
> either a) privacy freaks who won't want the Evil Credit Agencies controlling
> their lives, or b) have shit credit ratings, and can't get a CC.

*REALLY*?   You have evidence to back that up?

I doubt that's true here in the USA - it's almost impossible to live without
a credit card.

> However, I did a little research into the cost of self-publishing a while
> back. Assuming you can sell 2,500 units (not hard, all things considered),
> you can press CDs for at most $1 each (includes packaging).
> 
> If you generate plenty of hype (read: good marketing), you could, in theory,
> generate enough advance orders of the title to cover these costs. FOr
> example, if you sold the title for $20 a pop (online), you would only need to
> sell 250 units to cover production costs (add shipping to the order so that
> doesn't cut into your margins).
> 
> Generating publicity is a piece of piss, assuming your game has some
> "features" that people will want to use. Sites like slashdot are more than
> willing to announce the release-date of a title, and I'm sure TuxGames gets
> enough regular traffic to help with this. Hell, a company like TuxGames or
> The Linux Emporium might order enough units in advance to cover the
> production costs.

That's very encouraging news.
 
> > It is - but there are LOTS of jobs in the games industry.
> 
> Not at the moment, there aren't. Remember, a lot of the larger companies are
> run by *shudder*businessmen. They read the news about the decline in the
> technology market, and they react like any other technology company would.
> Take the recent Dynamix and G.O.D. (is dead, and no one cares). games
> closures.

Well, I looked in on the SigGraph jobs fair three days ago - and I have to
say that:

  1) There were more jobs on offer there than I've ever seen in all the
     years' I've been going there.

  2) Maybe 80% of them were in games.

  3) Despite the fact that I have zero commercial games experience
     and little desire to get into commercial games, I had to beat off
     the game-headhunters with a stick.

I don't think things are as flat as you think.

> > No - the loss of Loki in itself is no big deal - but the publicity it's
> > demise (well - it's only chapter 11 - it's not dead yet)...has generated
> > will make it much harder for the next contender to get
> > funding/credibility/whatever.
> 
> I recently had a "debate" (read: flamewar) with RMS about this sort of thing,
> and he made a single good point (which applies here): Get a day job. If games
> development is your passion, you can get a day job to cover development costs
> (and artists fees) until you start getting orders for the title.

Yes - I think that's a strong possibility - but that "artists fees" thing
scares me.  What sort of rates do those guys charge?   Where do you find
contract artists like that?   Do they charge by the hour or the model?

----------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------------
HomeMail : <sjbaker1@airmail.net>   WorkMail: <sjbaker@link.com>
HomePage : http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1
Projects : http://plib.sf.net       http://tuxaqfh.sf.net
           http://prettypoly.sf.net http://tuxkart.sf.net
           http://freeglut.sf.net   http://toobular.sf.net