Re: Loki files for banruptcy protection.

[Chris <chris@starforge.co.uk>]

#19-Aug-01# Message from *Steve Baker*:
Hi Steve,

> 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.

Granted. I know several people who work for Hyperion, they work on basically
the same idea. If you're selling to a userbase of hardcore Windows haters 
that can't dual boot - Mac and Amiga users for example - then you stand a 
good chance of making a living using this model.

> What needed to happen was for Loki to port each game as it was being
> written and release it on the same day and at the same price as the
> Windoze version and have it on the shelves of the exact same stores.
<snip>
> games companies are VERY busy that close to the release date and they
> simply don't have the time or energy to even THINK about talking to Loki.

But that then makes it impossible to avoid the 97% dud problem, which is
perhaps more significant: anyone doing ports has to either trust that a
release will sell and persuade the publisher to allow the tandem release 
or wait until solid sales figures are around to identify the hits and 
then do the port. 


> 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.

Yes. Artists and musicians tend to approach things from a different angle
than programmers: IME programmers tend to be far more likely to work for
little or nothing aside from the enjoyment of programming. But I've become
convinced that artists are machines for turning large quantities of money
into small arrangements of coloured pixels. 

Luckily I'm not utterly without artistic skill (eg: the graphics on my 
website were hand drawn by me in TVPaint, as was everything but the nebula 
bg (a hubble pic) on the screenshot of my old Amiga's Workbench at http://www.starforge.co.uk/images/screen_nowin.jpg ) so I can often do 
any graphics I can't afford an artist for. But I freely admit I'm no master 
at it.

Chris
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