25 replies to this topic

[HellJumper]

hello

well as the title says.. i was just wondering how expensive it is to start the development kf a mechwarrior game??

what things stop companies or players to start a new franchise???
is it the money involved or other legal issues?

[Kyone Akashi]

Well, for Mechwarrior it is chiefly the money, and all the strings that come with working on such a franchise. I mean, we are talking about Microsoft here - those guys are notorious for just leaving licenses lie around unused for years because they don't know what to do with them, whilst simultaneously also not wanting anyone else to make something out of it. We can probably be fortunate that PGI got the license at all .. make no mistake, this is quite a small miracle these days.

You can still make a computer game with comparatively little money, as various kickstarter projects have shown - however, as soon as you do something with an established IP, this means huge license fees, which in turn means you've got to aim at least for an AA title just to turn any profit at all. And we're talking several million dollars here, minimum, because once you start shooting for this tier, you really do have to invest a lot just to make things look nice. Visuals are as necessary as they are expensive on that level.

And then there could be numerous conditions attached to the license (specific numbers for users or profit, rating requirements, release date pressure, ...) which may make you pause and uncertain on whether or not you'd truly wish to go for such a risky endeavour.

Licenses are one of the big problems these days, though it'd probably be easier if the license for video games in the Battletech franchise would rest with a different company than MS. But to say something positive for them, it should also not be forgotten that the MWLL team received official permission for their non-profit project, so it's not some malicious force greedily holding on to a license in order to destroy it, rather just a case of IP mismanagement, I suppose.

[Pht]

It really depends on your goals, but for a small idea, on the NGNG podcast one of the MWO team said that in order to implement a single mech they have to spend from 40,000 to 60,000 or maybe more... and this is only a single expense out of many.

Edited by Pht, 05 January 2014 - 12:07 PM.

[Sybreed]

Pht, on 05 January 2014 - 12:07 PM, said:

It really depends on your goals, but for a small idea, on the NGNG podcast one of the MWO team said that in order to implement a single mech they have to spend from 40,000 to 60,000 or maybe more... and this is only a single expense out of many.

the initial budget (including founders money) was around 10 millions I think.

[HellJumper]

thanks for answering.

so basically Microsoft is the main problem here?? they dont want to do anything with the license and at the same time they dont want anyone else to do anything with it.

i was asking this due to the fact that a large number of games have gone out with a kickstarter program and i was wondering if anyone of (playes or a new company) can start a kickstarter program for mechwarrior and make another new game. i know if MWLL people did something like this people will invest again, reason? well they know what they are capable of and they will deliver. If PGI stop breaking promises people would be very happy with what they get but if this continues i like many other are worried. and its this worry that made me ask this question.

[990Dreams]

Well, not talking about licences, it depends.

• If a game is going to be a 3D game the work/costs automatically go up.
  
• Single player games are rather cheap, there are lots of free programming UIs out there.
  
• Multiplayer compatible games (Minecraft for example) are still cheap, but harder to make.
  
• Games with their own websites can be more expensive due to server costs.
  
• Games that use their own servers (MWO, WoW, LoL, etc.) are very costly due to server expenses.
  
• Using a game engine can save time (but it may not be free-to-use)
  
• There are a lot of ways to reduce cost when you are dealing with websites, servers, and multiplayer games

Edited by DavidHurricane, 06 January 2014 - 12:50 PM.

[Sybreed]

don't forget that IGP/PGI probably don't want anyone else doing MW titles in fear of diving the player base (lol)

My dream BT experience would be a mix of MW:T and Jagged Alliance 2. Turn based combat but with an open campaign like in JA2.

[Pht]

I think microsoft is really only at this point a part of the problem, not the whole problem. I will say that no, MS is ... NOT happy to sit on a dead unused license. That means it's not making profits that it otherwise could, so they DO want to see it used.

Really the problems, imo, are really just the basic nature of the video game industry - the risks are crazy high these days and the profits are harder and harder to acheive; combine that with the ignorance to outright stupidity that PGI ran into when trying to get big publishing money backing for their MW project ... I mean, wholly aside from the problem of not being able to release on PS3/4... and let's not talk about how the piracy problem is creating pressure to NOT release any stand alone works offline content.

Edited by Pht, 06 January 2014 - 04:09 PM.

[ValdnadHartagga]

A complete game, with single player, multiplayer, voice acting, reasonably good graphics and professional sound design, licensing, legal affairs? You're looking at a minimum of six zeroes. A AAA title costs many millions of dollars.

[HellJumper]

it makes me sad that iF MS and license is not an issue why havent anyone with a good reputation tried to do a kick starter program for mechs or battletach game..

Star citizen managed to build up huge amount of money just because they knew the devs are good and committed..so only if someone (MWLL guys) buy the license and start a company to develop a game i am quite sure people wont mind putting another $50-80 for their kickstarter program. and this will give a competition to MWO which should lead them to improve the game much drastically.

just look at WOT and WT..they both are competing now and trying to improve very quickly.

[990Dreams]

Here is the Mechcommander 2 open source files btw.

Edited by DavidHurricane, 07 January 2014 - 07:23 AM.

[HellJumper]

Marack Drock, on 07 January 2014 - 07:22 AM, said:

Because this series has been the focus of law suits from Harmony Gold, and George Lucas (the original version was Battledroids but then Lucas copyrighted the name Droid forcing a total rename of the series). Harmony Gold (rumored) was one reason MW5 crashed so hard. Microsoft never did anything with it until they gave license to MEkTek for the MW4 Mercs Free RElease with mekpaks. This was short lived though because later PGI took the license. MWLL would never be able to last because it was under agreement that if any MW (Official) games were released MWLL would have to shut down as they had no license to the product.

thats sad to know

[CyclonerM]

Well.. If you are willing to go trough this project (make a new MechWarrior game is one of my dreams!) i do not think the costs may arrive at millions.
There are programming softwares like Unity, which have a free version, seem to be quite powerful and not terribly hard to use. Sure, you have to know how to code in C# and Java, not to mention graphics..

With "only" 90$ you save about 3 months of developing getting a working base for your game from the asset store...
Which is basically MechWarrior with Unity engine!

[Pht]

Marack Drock, on 06 January 2014 - 07:16 PM, said:

... (judging because each mech they make will cost around 10 dollars to make in time,...

Each mech costs them more than 40,000 to make. Not ten dollars. I can find the NGNG quote if need be on this.

Quote

Since most of the promised stuff has been delayed I would say they are spending their budget on unnecessary things.

Your conclusion here isn't warranted by the things you've said. You're guessing.

Marack Drock, on 07 January 2014 - 07:22 AM, said:

Because this series has been the focus of law suits from Harmony Gold, and George Lucas (the original version was Battledroids but then Lucas copyrighted the name Droid forcing a total rename of the series). Harmony Gold (rumored) was one reason MW5 crashed so hard.

The lucas lawsuit didn't cost much if anything more than resetting the name to mechs instead of droids and that suit is long dead and nothing more than normal practice in the industry.

The HG suit, while unfortunate, does not affect the IP in any way other than not being able to use the unseen VISUAL designs, and in that Fasa dropped all third party visual designs and references out of their IP to cover their butts. That debacle, and the money it cost, is long over; and as long as anybody using the IP for profit just doesn't use the unseen VISUAL desings, HG can't say squat.

Quote

Microsoft never did anything with it...

Pardon, ... and as much as I wish MS had never acquired the rights they do have ... MS did nothing with it? ... Hello ... they made mechwarrior four? Sure, it wasn't a great game, but they didn't let the IP sit idle.

Quote

until they gave license to MEkTek for the MW4 Mercs Free RElease with mekpaks.

Mektek was not "given the license" - they were given the green light first to keep supporting MW4 and after that the green light to do the free release (which is amazing, considering that otherwise MS had NO way to leverage the MW IP for profit by doing so... as much as I pick on MS, they did let us have a FREE release).

Quote

This was short lived though because later PGI took the license.

PGI didn't "take the license" from Mektek - as I just said, MT never had the license for the IP, just the rights to support it and release it for free.

Quote

MWLL would never be able to last because it was under agreement that if any MW (Official) games were released MWLL would have to shut down as they had no license to the product.

I think you might be right on this one.

---

Perhaps a little less angst and more thought would direct your torpedoes of annoyance at the right targets...

[HellJumper]

if only their were not so many legal issue, licensce issues i am sure someone from the community would have tried to register a company and start developing a new battletech/ Mechwarrior game.

i soo much hunger for another developer starting a similar game.

[Captain Stiffy]

HellJumper, on 07 January 2014 - 09:42 PM, said:

if only their were not so many legal issue, licensce issues i am sure someone from the community would have tried to register a company and start developing a new battletech/ Mechwarrior game.

i soo much hunger for another developer starting a similar game.

For a long time I've been considering completely recreating the genre from scratch. No stupid harmony gold or microshit, just straight up brand new mech IP.

[Hex Pallett]

Captain Stiffy, on 13 May 2014 - 08:05 AM, said:

For a long time I've been considering completely recreating the genre from scratch. No stupid harmony gold or microshit, just straight up brand new mech IP.

In fact I'm surprised about the lack of mech IPs in the western world. Let's make something new and serious!

[Heffay]

Go track down Panda Vision. terrantitans.com or something like that. He's involved in setting up a new mech-based game that he's convinced will be the MWO killer.

[A73XAND3R21]

How to buy a license to start my own project? How much it might cost? How to contact Microsoft? I am interested in creating games in the Battletech universe...So many guestions..I have ideas and have the opportunity, but I do not know where to start.

Edited by A73XAND3R21, 23 December 2015 - 03:11 AM.

[MarineTech]