Steven Dixon, on 18 December 2013 - 10:24 AM, said:
It sounds like you are really talking about a mod rather than a game. This isn't meant to be an insult but as a suggestion. If you can get together some programmers maybe you can make a mod for ArMA (look at how successful DayZ is). As long as its non commercial you should be fine.
A mod is not out of the question... however, if I were 'the man with the plan' - the mod would merely be a show-case to drum up the interest of venture capital.
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If you actually want to take the license from PGI and make your own mechwarrior game...this simply isn't going to happen. Hey we all have our fantasies and that's cool, but it won't happen. Just for starters PGI actually recently extended their licensing contract with Microsoft. First off this means that they showed Microsoft their financials and microsoft was pleased with what they saw. Naysayers might claim that this is because of all the 'money grabbing' and 'scamming' so of course they are doing well, but just in the short term. Believe what you want, I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise.
What the community giveth - the community can taketh away.
People did not accomplish because they realized they would "never" accomplish or payed attention to those who said they "would not" accomplish. That doesn't mean you bullishly slam your head against a brick wall against all common sense - but it means you do not ever take your eye off of your goals.
Microsoft owning the IP is actually a good thing. About the only issue that could arise is if PGI managed to wrangle a line in there that ensures them exclusive licensing - which I somewhat doubt. While some may see it as 'whoring' out - agreeing to develop a title for Microsoft proprietary forms (Windows and Xbox One/360) would be an interesting ploy.
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If you actually do want to try to get the license from Microsoft you are going to need a very well thought out business plan. Having fantastic gameplay ideas and goals are great but they don't really mean anything to Microsoft and they won't keep the business running. It sounds like a very ambitious goal and for that you generally need a big team of skilled professionals (who generally demand a large salary). If the plan is to get skilled people to donate their time to make something great, again you are talking about a mod (which again isn't a bad idea).
You're applying conventional thinking. The software world has changed.
For starters - programmers and graphic artists have greatly inflated salaries to begin with. The reason why they got paid so much to begin with was because of the low market permeation of development software, the requirement of locality for organizational and infrastructure purposes, and the fact that all of this combined to require an individual relocate and take up computer programming, graphic arts, etc as a full-time profession.
That's gone the way of dial-up.
It's no longer necessary for a team to be local to each other, full-time, or to have degrees focused on programming/graphic arts. A lot of engineering types and general eds end up taking computer courses involving programming and/or graphic arts, even if they never pursue completion of a certificate or as an actual minor within their degree - they have more than adequate skills for the job (in some cases, they put out better quality work than the applicants you would receive for full-time positions).
For a 3d artist's industry average yearly salary - during which time he'd make around 50 models (depending upon complexity, animation, if he was handling texturing, etc), you could easily contract 80 similar models out to free-lancers and have the models available for revision and approval within four months as opposed to twelve.
It would take effort to build the network - but social networking is -extremely- powerful. Everybody knows somebody - and that somebody knows other bodies.
It's kind of like looking for a job. You start by letting those around you know you're looking for a job. I would imagine, if you asked around, most people out there got their job through a friend or acquaintance. Some may have been hired directly or at the suggestion of that friend/acquaintance - others were simply informed of the position through their friend/acquaintance.
Similar, here. It's not important that only 'powerful' people get behind the project. It's important that people know to be looking and asking around for the 'power' the project needs.
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If its a business you will have to start with some practical questions and come up with some realistic answers. Where is the revenue coming from and how much is it on a monthly basis? And you will need concrete numbers. And how did you get those concrete numbers? If you say that you will make 2 million a month, where did you get this number (as an example). Is it based on what you think the community will pay because they are having so much fun? Where is your office going to be? How much is the rent? Are you just going to hire local people? How many employees will you have and how much are you going to pay them? Will you even have an office? What are the costs and benefits of having an office for the business model you are predicting? How much do servers cost? How many servers are you going to have? Are you going to have international servers? What are the difficulties involved with having international servers? What is your timeline for releasing content? Why do you think this is a realistic time-frame? How will you monetize this content? If you aren't effectively monetizing content how does this make you a good business? Keep in mind that you are going to be presenting this to business people, even 'goodwill' has a $ value in the business world. These are just a few questions off the top of my head, you will have to answer far more questions that this if you want to make a business proposal.
A lot of these are questions I've thought about extensively over the past couple years.
Remember - I grew up with my father as a factory manager. He was one of the few 'dark artists' left in the American industry for aluminum diecasting. Even if 'his' company (he didn't technically own it) was a secondary, contingency supplier of a part - Garmin, Bosch&Lomb, and others would fly him out to consult on the design of a part. He knew where designs would cause extra strain on the die (increased failure rate, decreased reliability and accuracy of parts - reduced interchangeability - just bad overall), what would prevent proper ejecting (requiring parts to be manually removed - time-waster), how to design it to reduce tooling costs, etc.
While he died before I ever had the chance to learn much of the specifics from him - I am his son, and inherited much of his mindset, conviction, and business sense.
It's not that I have just thought about "how much will it cost to do X" - it's that I've thought about "in what ways can X be done?"
Which is where the "bitcoin-esque" idea for server operation came into being. The idea hit me that it might be possible to completely decentralize accounts and server management in a similar way that Bitcoin has no centralized authority in it. Bitcoin uses cryptography and compression to keep a record of every transaction made within the system. In a similar way, by treating each launched and completed game as a 'mined block' - it should be possible to store all player relevant data in the cryptography chain.
There would be a few hurdles (as there are a few peculiarities to bitcoin) - but the idea means that a game can run with a completely independent 'economy,' of sorts, with fairly robust defenses against hacking. One could, possibly, build multiple games onto the same cryptography chain.
Monetizing additional content might be a bit tricky, as the system this idea is based off of was specifically built to prevent the establishment of a centralized issuing and regulating authority. Though I am sure provisions for a 'hard currency' purchased in exchange for 'real' currencies (because fiat currency is somehow more real...) could be made - there may be other means of monetizing the game (such as just selling the game outright like many indie developers do).
There are a few ways to play the business game. You can provide comparable goods/service at a more competitive price. You can provide a product/service that doesn't exist. You can provide a product/service at a superior level of quality (provided there are people willing to be benefactors for that service - I've seen more than a few restaurants that should have gone out of business but were propped up by people who wanted their favorite watering hole to stick around).... or you can provide products/services in ways completely apart from competitors.
Trying to start something new and playing the same game as the 'old guards' of the industry is a generally bad idea. If it's worth starting something new - it's worth trying something new and approaching the problem from new angles. That's how you get an edge. In a world of successful game publishers - you don't get noticed by mirroring them.
It's a similar idea to one held by retired teacher who used to frequent our restaurant. He often argued with his students: "If all of you answer all the questions on the test correctly, you all should get a C." The logic went that you don't get ahead in the world by doing and being what everyone else does - you get ahead by making yourself stand out. Not just succeeding, but contributing additional, unique value.
"So you can add up numbers on a spreadsheet - so can the other two hundred kids you graduated with and the thousands of graduates applying for jobs in the world. What value can you add to the position? What can you actually do for me, the employer? Why should I pick you? What are you going to do in the next three months that makes you worth picking over the others? What are you going to do in the next nine months to convince me that I need to retain you at a higher wage?"
The difference between an outstanding employee and an outstanding entrepreneur is just a matter of audience. One appeals to established businesses. Another appeals to customers to form a business.
The thing is that, for now - a lot of what I can do is talk and make suggestions, offer options, etc. I am very cautious about confusing my own personal ambition with the course of action that is best or that will most satisfy the community. Along with that is the reality that my current goal is to get a group together.
I can't (and shouldn't) dictate what decisions that group makes. While getting that group together might give my statements and opinions a little more mileage (if bringing that group together is successful) - I don't expect to be making many of those decisions in the end (certainly not on my own).
I may want to try and create some crazy 'game from the ether of internet' within an unorthodox and unproven production model using radical new server/transaction architectures... because I like the idea of: "go crazy or go home" - but I can understand why others would shy away from that (particularly when I'm talking crazy with their money).
If I'd won the recent Mega Millions - it'd be nothing for me to throw a few million dollars at my own crazy ideas (such as the superconductive switch made of graphene strained by the deformation of boron-nitride crystals under a high voltage potential - under which doped graphene, when strained, has been shown to behave like a Type III superconductor which could potentially operate at room temperatures.... then there's the idea of using the piezoelectric effect to induce RO pressures at microscopic scales, using the Peltier Effect in conjunction with Ohmic heating to produce amorphous metal alloys...) ... yeah - plenty of ideas (why my response to "What do you think about winning the lottery?" would be: "It's just enough money to go broke on.")... kind of just rambling at this point...
Anyway - I've typed enough. I'm going to try to get a forum set up for us over Christmas and the holidays - but right now it appears as if my cat may very well chew my hand off before then (the poor critter is here alone while I'm at work... then I come home and spend that little bit of free time staring into a glowing square - I don't blame her for being pissed).
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great thread, very funny...oh, what..you are serious ?? $1000 for the MW IP cos you will ask M$ nicely, give you the models PGI spends millions making to use in a mod for free, throw away all the advantages of computers and make it exactly like a table top game ? You know they made a conservative $1.5M on project phoenix right ? With the new "al a carte" options they will probably make double that on Clan mechs.
