What's a good project/game to write these days?

I've not had much luck finding work, so I'm mostly back to coding trying to make something a little more than the job centre force me to take(At knife point.)
What's a good app/game/genre? I can't think of a single product that isn't already saturated with a hundred commercial/freeware clonealikes. Games are less so, but again thinking of something that can be realisticly done by a less than starship enterprise crew size time isn't as easy as I once thought.
What game/app would you make if you were a bum like me? :)

Something that a single person could do that PC Gamer Editor Dan Morris (at IGC) said he'd like to see more of from independent developers are politically incorrect games like the JFK Assasination. Basically, things that normal companies cannot produce because they are too risky. PC Gamer would be behind you at least ;)

well it's easy to say "something original" but not so easy to do it. You can always do an exisiting concept in a novel way such as platypus (plasticine Shoot 'em up). Somethimes there's something to be said for do something similar to what is currently selling so you can get a slice of the "unoriginal" pie, do it well and the slice could be big.

If you want to write an AA game by yourself then I hope you like making strategy games and can do a good AI, because you can make a great strategy game without cutting edge 3D technology that are so labour intensive to make.

If you are looking for a project you can release as an indie and make some cash then you may well be better off looking at gaps in the utility market rather than games, and try to focus on stuff that is not dependant upon a platform.

Modelling tools can make good money but it is a fiercely competetive market, but there are gaps in the market place. There is no race track modeller (well nothing to write home about anyway:

http://www.bansheestudios.com/stuff/RaceCraft.html

Hardly stiff competition there, or how about a tool for modelling towns with roads and kerbs and fences and gardens and houses?

There's money to be made in helping programmers like me dellude themselves into thinking they can model, with the right tools.

It is possible to make money out of games, but it's tough, and it involves really working hard at marketting. If you've not had a freeware release making a few hundred thousand or more downloads then it's probably fair to say you might have some difficulty in knowing how to get the exposure you need to make a shareware game sell well.

Only thing with programmer tools is that the market is *massively* smaller than for games thus so are the potential earnings unless your tool sells for sh*tloads but then again lots of programmers are stingey buggers.

what about a 3D Game Engine, with DX9 graphics and ODE physics built in...

... an what say we call it Trinity... or Vivid3D... or maybe Unreal3Engine.

that, i'd be ready to license from you... for around $100 for an indie license, and maybe more for a commercial license...

... and i'm sure you would sell at least 100 other licenses easily within the first month...

that's 10 grand right there buddy... before taxes...

even selling 20 licenses a month would keep you outta the poor house...

and making a showcase game with it would probably help license sales...

... wait a second, i'm getting a sudden feeling of deja-vu here.


--Mike

Stratagy game is a good idea although finding an artist willing to work on one is slightly harder than coding it.
I've thought about modeling apps too. Was THIS close to starting one but lack of a good language/gui combo put me off.
Once bmax gui/max3d is here that won't be a problem anymore though.

Mike, I've thought about 3d engines. In fact I have a managed dx9 engine up and running, with blitz style tform stuff/move etc, but it's a lot of work. Are you sure it'll sell because it's that fact that's put me off the most. Is there really a market for C#/Net apis yet?
I couldn't handle DX in anything but managed form.
GL is a good option cos the ps3 is gl bound and the ps3 is the dream of all dreams.

well... my opinion is not based on hard market stats Ant... but take a look around you...

how many people here are waiting for 'the 3D Module'... how many are licensing new game engines daily...

now as far as dotNet based stuff, in my opinion, you are narrowing your market a bit... but if it's good enough, some people will make the switch over to the dark side... hell, most of the dotNet tools are free anyways... it's just getting your head wrapped around dotNet and the CLR...

as far as it being a lot of work... hey, you know that better than me... that's why i'm here playing with these things, and not in the books, or hacking out DX code...

but you were almost there a few months back... people were waiting... you were almost a god... i would've even offered a human sacrifice (noel) to you if you had've gotten Trinity done...

and that's another thing... stability... you think i'm hanging around here because i want to go out on a date with Mark... or do ya think that i have confidence that he'll get the game dev stuff that he promises out... (someday :) )
you've got a lil damage repair to do as far as all those who were waiting (like me) for Trinity... and those who licensed Vivid...

but that shouldn't deter you... you have the goods dude... polish em off, line em up, and market em...

hey... you gotta make an engine to make a game anyways... just make the engine generic enough so that it can be usefull to a wide variety of game types... and do what Garage Games did... market the engine on the back of the game... or on the back of a decent half game or demo...

xbox, ps should all bel secondary in your plans... most people are not gonna consider em seriously as development platforms... you shouldn't either right now... the licensing minutia for getting a release approved will be too much for most people... not to mention the costs...

right now there are millions of PCs out there... and a few Macs... target those hopefuls...


hey... we are all looking for a god... a new god...

--Mike

Good enough (Warren faints), about to start coding Vivid.3D>.Net as we speak. It's going to be build as a layer ontop of vivid.2d, so like bmax/b3d you can mix 2d/3d.


May also do a easy to use winapi module too. Though I think mark will be at my door with a whole cast of whoop ass if I do all 3.

ok...

It's commercial suicide doing engines of any kind or apps. The niches have been taken long ago. Do a low end game and do it well for the mass market. That is your *ONLY* chance.

Understand the mass market aren't FPS players and you will go far.

but mike makes a good point. there simply arn't any good 3d engines really on the market today, espeically for c#. especially ones that are easy to use.
Ogre is the best imo but is very complex..I never ever did work out how to load files directly from disk, and I had missiles and robots running about.
A c# engine with the power of max3d, combined with the ease of b3d and a clean oop syntax could sow the market up.
At least to get 100 sales, which like mike says is ten big ones.

I am doing a game also, or at least I'm supposed to be doing one. What up evak? :)

but speaking of low end games, what would you suggest? I mean I literally have no good ideas for small indie games. Every idea I have centres around a covert spy in the future part of a team of convert best of the bests, infiltrating some enemy fortress filled with eccentric madmen and femme fatles. (MGS Freak alert.)

bullseye One Eyed Jack



Sorry I gotta disagree, 100 sales in the first month of a 3D engine, hmm, 20 per month after, maybe if you REALLY market it. But $2000 per month is peanuts, you could get that working in a supermarket. And how long will this 3D take? $10000 divided by how many manhours 1000? = $10 an hour? woopie. What about support and bugs? How much time is it gonna take replying to all the support queries? How good would people expect it to be for $100, try VERY GOOD.

Like I said, what is the real size of the target market? That's not "How many indie coders are there", it's how many of those coders a) want to do a 3D game, b) aren't using an engine already that they got with the language, c) aren't using a pirated engine d) haven't bought another more well know/tried n tested engine e) have actually heard of yours f) have actually downloaded a demo and then finally there's the conversion rate of demo to full version sales, what's that gonna be then. For games it's around 1%! Maybe it's more for tool ... maybe not.

Think like a business, do the research and the maths. Then reevaluate.

GA... i think you grossly underestimate the market... he's not trying to market something that everyone else is, or has already marketed... there is only one other dx9 shader capable dotNet game engine i'm aware of (HADD3D) out there already...

now i can't say for sure that every developer will be banging down his email box door to get their hands on a license, but for sure a lot of people here would if Trinity was to come out today...

and i'm sure, a lot of 3DGameStudio developers would look at it... a lot of DarkBasic developers, a lot of 3DRAD developers, a lot of Ogre developers, a lot of new developers would look at it...

in 1985 i sold enough of a $14.95 application mail order, on a 1/9 th of a page ad to make over $3800 in the first month...

i dunno, but back then, that seemed like pretty good money... and this was before the internet, and targeted soley at the TI-99/4A home computer audience...

i tripled that in the second month... and this lasted for the next 2 or three months... dropping back to about 75 to 100 sales per month after that for a few more months...

at any rate, it sure beats cleaning up spilt jars of beets and vinegar at the local shop and go... no matter what the hourly comparisons are...

--Mike

Well GA, vivid 3d which had a very small market considering b3d came with a 3d engine and had a few thoushand regular users, sold 23 copies in the first couple of months then died out due to me not doing any updates, quiting the project. So 100 for a c# app seems about right given the bigger need for a good commercial engine atm and bigger market. Remember a net class library can be used in any net language, including vb.net, which has thousands upon thousands of users.

Sounds good RO. What was the app, was it more generic than a 3D engine (i.e. bigger market) and did it take less time to make? Also what mag was it, clearly one that reached the target audience very well? Did you exploit a niche? Maybe there weren't many competitors. What I'm saying is you obviously got it right, good for you, but it may be harder now esp. with something like a 3D engine.

I didn't want to sound harsh with my post, it just came out that way. I still think it's important to do the maths. Let's try shall we, and if anyone have better figures post em:

Number of indie developers guess 100,000. How many are making a 3D game? Less than 50%? Lets call it 50% (market=50000), now how many already have 3D engines, 50%? (market = 25,000) how many competitors are there, lets say 10 (market = 2,500). How many will actually hear of you 20%? (market = 500), how many download the demo 30% (market = 150), how many buy the full version, generous 10% (market = 15). oops ... virtually no money made. So of course we can look at these figures and do worstand best case scenarios, probably worse case is market of 0, and best case is very unlikely to happen.

I think you should write a nice little puzzle game with real physics ( probably ODE ) being key to how the game works.

I'm still trying to think up a concept =)

Vivid was poorly marketed and supported... it never created the illusion of absolute necessity in the minds of prospective licensees...

i'm surprised you even got 23 license sales... but you did get 23... imagine if you had made this something of a substantial effort...

look at Josh's web site, it looks like something you might bookmark... and grow to believe in... he just markets his products a lil too high, and keeps changing things around from day to day (where's the 2D engine, what happened to the price reduction for that animation software)... that srta stuff will kill ya...

believe in it... make it... hype it... market it...

lets look at what you are doing with your latest Vivid2D thing...

first off... what is it... there is no clear definition in the minds of the intended audience...

what will it run on... what exactly does it do... and more importantly, what does it promise to do for me...

will it empower me in some way... will it entertain me... will it make girls want to be with me... well, i really don't know, and can't find out, because the web site that i'm directed to doesn't work...

ya see what i mean... you might not like to hear this Ant, but you are already following in the steps of your past failure... and if you continue, you are bound to repeat it...

i know you wanna get it out quick, and have it start bringin in revenues... but it's gotta be done right...

there can be no perception of dishonesty, fly-by-nightedness, weakness, instability when a prospective customer visits your site... all they know of you is your site... you have to appear larger (like that puk) than life... and definitely larger than what you are...

your product... by its very nature, must be rock solid, if only in its perception by all who see it...

look at the word of mouth hype that Cobra3D has generated... it's like Batman and the Holy Grail all wrapped into one... what do we actually know about it ot the people who make it... how much is behind them... but we do know, or think we know, that it is gonna be a killer 3D development system...

why do we think this!!!

do ya see what i am getting at...

ok... good, now can ya explain it to me... i sorta got lost back there with the rock solid stuff... :)



--Mike

OK, I'm gonna try the same with games. You have made a Shoot Em Up game in 2D. Target Market of PC gamers = 100,000,000 (sounds a bit better doesn't it, but wait ...). How many actually buy games from the Internet as opposed to shops or pirating? maybe only 5% (so market = 5,000,000 still not too shabby). OK, how many only buy 3D games 50%? (market = 2,500,000) OK how many are casual gamers i.e. they don't like action games, 60% (this is a pretty accurate figure) (market = 1,000,000). OK how many like shoot em ups 20%? (market = 200,000). How many competitors are there, uh loads, lets say 10. (market = 20,000 ouch). Now how many actually hear of you, oooh maybe 20% (market = 4,000), how many download the demo, 50%? (market = 2,000) how many buy it, remember a conversion rate of 2% would be fantastic (market = 40). Wow, 40 games sold you really hit the big time. Press any key to try again.

your figures are way off GA... in all categories... your interpolations of half accepted figures, even if correct, or near correct, are not anywhere in the realm of how real world marketing projections are made...

your equation will undoubtedly result in erroneous results... it's no wonder you see yourself as failing before you even get started...



--Mike

My unbiased impartial opinion:

Ant - Listen to Mike.

I would buy it. I have been dying to get my teeth into C# but need to see graphics going on real early to keep up my motivation.

If it was any good I would even translate it into Spanish for you and help market it over here. Good luck

RO: I said "So of course we can look at these figures and do worstand best case scenarios", so that people can put they're own figures in. Do you have some better figures, show me your estimates. Also the equasion isn't definitive, I just whacked it out, there are many other factors, it's just an example.

Btw I don't see myself as failing, just that MOST tools and games will achieve very low sales, this is fact, surely you can't dispute it. Sure some do very well, and this mainly down to marketing followed by game type and then game quality (but not always, look at Snood!)

RO: You are right that you do have to believe in yourself and remain positive and to set targets. What you can do then is take my equation (or a similar one) and work out the best way to increase the percentage at each step thus resulting in more sales, this is not easy and it's also boring to most people, especially if you just made a game because you like making games and you are not really interested in "business".

As a matter of interest, I made an app in a niche market http://www.merlio.com and ran the company that sold it (been there for 9 years). At first I was only the project manager but after the first manager failed to make enough sales, I became the manager (6 years ago) and had to take the company from a loss, to breakeven, to profit. Last year 4 of us turned over £300,000+ (pounds) with £100,000 Net profit, yes Net not Gross. This year looks to be even better. We've only sold 120ish systems but at an average sale price of £3000 to £40,000 you don't need to sell many. So I would hope that this qualifies me in some respects to comment on marketing and sales processes, even though of course I don't have the actual figures for the markets we've been discussing.

using your logic... and your forecasting methodology... lets say i wanted to make another dumb fishing game... i mean, heck, there must be enough fishing enthusiasts out there to garner up enough interests to get me a lil sales success... right...

or maybe not... according to your logic... if i follow the GA school of bsuiness forecasting... heck, i'd be lucky to even sell 20 of em... hey, big names like Sega, and every other dimwit with a web site and a game engine have already made fishing games...

even if i was to add something special... something that fishermen would appreciate, it still wouldn't be enough... not according to your logic above...

so i might as well forget it... get me that job in that grocery store...


well GA... read this --> http://www.conitecserver.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=452568&page=&view=&sb=5&o=

BASS Fishing!!!


i rest my case :)

seriously though... i don't pretend to know all the answers... and of course you are presenting a valid point, partly based on experience... i just try to imagine what you posted above as an objective assessmement and forecast... and i just don't see it that way...

a good idea... stability in marketing... overwhelming ad hype and visibility... that's what i think it takes to get staarted and running selling software licneses over the internet...

and the game plan should include planning on getting a decent publisher... one who also believes in you and your product, and can get it out on the shelves, or in front of the intended audience (big mag coverage, convention spce, etc)... not because they love you... but because the think that your product can give them a solid return for their investment... and that's another point... believe me, the stuff on KMart and WalMart shelves do sell... they may only make you $2 or $3 dollars per sale, but if you sell enough of em... hey, 200,000 x $3 is a lot more than 0 x $99.95...


also, no matter how well you think you can market stuff, you can't do it as well as someone who has been doing it for a while, and who has the marketing resources... after a trial run on the internet marketing circuit... actively seek a publisher...

they'll be the ones that'll be able to accurately gauge if there is any potential for your 'stuff'...

and listen to em... even if they refuse you right now, most will tell you why... listen to em... if enough refuse you and tell you the same thing, then make your decision based on what they had to say... they do know what they're talking about... most of em anyway...

now this guy is not making a zillion dollars by any means... but he has made a start... a good start... and his well on his way to his second 'killing'...


--Mike

Always wanted to check out A6 gamestudio but DAMN they are proud of it... 900 dollars for the pro version.

RO: "i rest my case :)" sure, so they did something right and pushed up those percentages. Besides, on the forum, it also says "It's still selling for $9.99 as a **Jewel case** product." i.e. it's not just sold via the Internet! So my equation, which was for internet sales only, doesn't apply. Besides how much of $9.99 do you think he sees from the publisher as boxes have a lower % royalties than internet sales? Mind you at that many sales, even a low percent is good news :-)

However, the rest of your advice about publishers is sound.

A quote from IDGA :

Note: The download market accounts for approximately 10% of the total PC gaming Revenue.

So Ant, make a zuma clone and retire!

Yeah, it's good news, I want to be part of the expanding market. The only worry with an expanding market is that the big players expand too, so they eat up the extra revenue and the small players still don't get much of a slice! However, do all the little points right to push up the percentage likelyhood that your customer moves onto the next step in the sales chain, and you could have a winner. It's just that a lot of people don't improve those steps, and then experience low sales.

Anyway I still say that making games will probably make you more money than making tools.

Kanati... the guy fought tooth and nail to get it done in 3DGS... he mentioned that he would be changing development tools for his next game... 3DGS was too limiting i think... $200 only gets you half the engine... you gotta license the $900 dollar version if you're the least bit serious... and you're gonna find that your $900 bought you a faulty system... if you're gonna spend that much, you would be better advised to spend a lil more and get something really professional and proven... (some guys poked fun at IPete for licensing Virtools, it being sorta pricey... but trust me, that's a solid package, and a solid deal... it's for real, and it'll give him the leverage that, added with the talent and drive he has exhibited, well... i bet he comes out with something big soon)...

Indiepath... good reference... and this is just the tip of the berg... more and more marketing will be online...

GA... you gotta start somewhere... your forecasts methods are faulted partly because you only take 'online marketing' into account... publishers that market to store shelves are also marketing via online storeshelves... and online advertising that directs buyers to storeshelves (there are segments that want a shrink wrapped box to put under the tree, or to hand as a gift)... there is a lot of mergence there...

--Mike

RO: Good point, but don't keep analysing my formula in detail when I said "I just whacked it out, there are many other factors, it's just an example." The key point is it was an example to get people thinking that way to realise all the factors that would limit their sales, or conversely, the factors that they should concentrate on to increase sales ;-) Do I make sense now?

hahahahahaaa.... what...

:)

--Mike

Well that about sums up everything the major online retail portals will NOT accept :)

You want to make a game which is pikmin style, very bright and fun and is mouse only controlled. It must be the easiest thing in the world and have no complexity to the play, yet not be boring.

The engine must be DX7 based at the MOST if you are aiming for the majority of users in this demographic. Therefore Blitzmax is okay and Blitz3D is okay, and making your own engine is a pointless waste of time.

These people will not appreciate blur and special effects. They will appreciate things that are really "realised" artistically, that is, they go ahhh thats nice! as opposed to "WOWZERZ BLURR" - they don't know what special effects are.

They are also mostly 10 years older than you are. Yep I do have figures for this.

Can you do it?

One day all software delivery and purchase will be on-line, kiss goodbye to your local GAME retailer.


You probably know my feelings about portals and when they deem acceptable, they're hurting the indie business and they need to change - if they don't change then they might just wake up one day and realise that thier business model no longer cuts it. Anyway that's a conversation for another day.

EOJ I can *see* it but turning a vision into reality can take a while ;-)

Yeah well if you think about it, a lot of retail purchases are done via amazon and play.com anyway...

Yeah, that's interesting because it's a purchase over the internet but of a retail boxed product, not a downloadable piece of software. That's why Indiepath's quote uses "download market", because it's much clearer than "Internet sales".

Good point Indiepath. I was thinking, but you can play demos in shops and went doh! Think how many times I've played console demos in a shop (even tho' I own PS2 and Gamecube) compared to via the Internet, and of course it's far more PC demos.

Jacks is correct (portals and related stuff above)... unfortunately... the majority of the buying public can be fitted right into the segment he described...

... but consider the following.

1- hard core gamers do not constitue a major part of that segment, and in spite of this, the people who make Alienware boxes are doing a pretty good business... as are the people who make and market NVidia high end video cards... so someone out there is looking for these blur effects... quite a few someones...

2- even if the above accpeted as true, this small segment, percentage wise, is still a substanital amount of potential sales, numbers wise... and a developer looking to write the next DOOM3 killer will look at your engine... and there are enough of them out there as well (that fact is unsubstiated, my opinion, based on what i see around the 3Dengine forums i frequent)... to make this seem a viable segment for a game engine developer to entertain...

--Mike

How about making a platform game, which doesn't seem to have been very popular lately. Maybe you can bring em back into style. Maybe something like sonic the hedgehog but `Blitz the Hampster`, or something.

I guess it depends where your heart is. You should pursue what your heart is most into, not what all these external rules and guidelines say you should be doing. You won't be able to cunjour up anything to offer if it doesn't come from deeper inside yourself.

For me I am lately shifting away from making games to making applications just because that seems to be closer to where my heart is.

Platforms sell well currently, look at Professor FizzWizzle and the "Snowy" series of games. A good platformer will always be a good seller.

Jake, no but I know a man who can. (Any excuse to quote fools and horses)
I could, if I had an artist. Finding a 2d artist is like being jaffar looking for the diamond in the ruft though.
I've never played pikman, but I've had ideas along those lines. If I had an artist, I could conquer the world.
(Hint to any artists reading wanting to make money. :) )

It's good to know that platformers sell, but I can't help feeling that they have to be cute and that my Iron Fist kung fu platformer might be too specialised. Also platformers are actually quite hard to make really good.

Ant, I've often found my self wanting a good fishing simualtor that is UK style coarse fishing based.

Tench and Carp hunting would be a nice area to specialise in, but regular coarse for other types would be fine.

Lakes would make my day as I've not done much on flowing waters in meatspace.

Should be easy to make good 3d float models etc. as all equipment involved is pretty simple shapes really.

I can almost imagine setting up a good "lift rig" right now, what a hoot that could be if it could be made to work right!

Damn, I want one of them! ;O) I'm housebound these days so it'd be one hell of a handy toy to me!

Force feedback would be great, but I realise that's a games place that blitz struggles badly with.

i'd have to spice it up a little. like fishing...for narcotics that were just flung out of a speeding speed boat.
You know, add a little excitement to it :)

Anyone ever see that King of the Hill where he goes looking for some bait and gets (unittingly) sold crack and then starts catching loads of fish. It was Hilarious!

My thoughts on everything:


How will You know, if you dont try?

Write games for the upcoming GP2X console.

Did he eat the fish?

No, they ate him... probably.

Haha. I can imagine them eating the fish, and the one who always talks gibberish? What if HE was on crack!?

snffbbbgrnnnabb man...

i'd love to see a xrated king of the hill where they all become drug smugglers and users and end up in a shoot out with the cops, and sniffbnngman man is left to negoiate their way out.
'snnfgnngn barnnnff patsies yo snsfffffrura immunity.'

*swipes idea*

Write a sex game. I reckon they sell like hell.

Antony starting a new project? It must be... Monday.

Nawi, you're probrably right.

How sad is THAT!?

Antony, I suggest you spend the entire day, and heck the entire night, researching sex games...

Sex sells??? Why the hell wasn't I notified? :P

Just be careful not to end up with RSI - that's 'Research' Strain Injury. :O

>Antony, I suggest you spend the entire day, and heck the entire night, researching sex games

why? those kind of games are out of andys reach, and it's not so good bussiness idea. I wanted to make them for a few years thinking it would be good seller and have few 3d female models that would be perfect but I decided to give up on it. To produce the amount of content that is expected of that game and with quallity that is good enough so people actually buy it and not just download the demo is out of reach withouth good investment and even then you got large competition with other such games not to mentions real porn, bla bla bla. dont give him such bad ideas guys...

maximo. Such as serious answer for a joke, but you are right O'course. Did you ever play Maximo on the PS2? good game.

ahh it was a joke, didn't get it then i guess :D but even so ant may take it seriously and injur him self when studying the material that is on the net ;)

never played that game just saw the screenshots, I just like the name, its all :)

Hmmm. I wonder how well that Love Chess game sold. I reckon the conversion rate from demo to purchase would have been dire.

The game was a "sequal" to Ghosts 'n' Ghouls which is of course the sequal to Ghosts 'n' Goblins. It's a nice 3D hack'em up with cute graphics (suitable for kids), the old puzzle, frustrating jumps, addictive gameply etc. Not amazing but still really good. So was the sequal.

IMO, a sex/porn game would be a good idea but you'd have to set yourself up with a porn site. Get a deal going with them and have them pay you for it ... you write the game, brand it with their logo/URL, and they buy it from you as a marketing tool. Nothing on the back end but if you get enough for it, it sounds like it would be worth the time.

Space Invaders would mean something completely different.

Whatcha mean by that? I could easily write one myself. and he coud too.

WarrenM's final comment is a good one, and, something ive actually nearly been involved with a few times.

"Space Invaders" lol, what about (lunch)Pacman. And of course Super Snake. And Rockman (aka boulderdash on the spectrum)

Why not make it digitised like mortal kombat? then you can use digitised graphics of antony wells with antony wells wearing a wig.

I feel hot already.

:-0

Also the players can have "Finish Him/Her" moves!

Rockman=Megaman. (Jap)

Lol, and get a "Super Bonus" for the "money shot".

I ment this one: http://www.clive.nl/detail/22599/

I own it in a dusty box somewhere.

I get emails everyday telling me how to increase my bonus. Apparrently I have to eat some magic pills, pacman style. Thing is I'm not sure I need them ... yet.

that could work, but what pornsite is gonna shell out 6-7 grands to develop something which is worth releasing to wider public??? but not bad idea warren.

You'd be surprised. It leaves them with a unique product which when spreads, people will want to see. Off they trot to www.worldsbigestb00b13s.com to play it.

Yeah but with my graphics it would look more like a dna profiler than a sex simulator.

Ah, damn! That site seems to be down at the moment, Cyg. :P

Well, yeah, the trick would be finding them and then convincing them that they want to do this because I don't see any of them advertising for video game developers at the moment. :)

I would think the simplest level of this would be a puzzle game where every X levels you clear, you uncover a piece of a picture or something. Eventually earning yourself a gallery of pictures that aren't available on their web site.

The key to that working would be a live connection to their server so the game downloads new pictures routinely (sort of like how Puzzle Express downloads new scenery pictures from the web).

They dont know they want them, thats why. Go to one with a demo :)

Something simple might be good, but go for something more specific- something that would fit the website, without going too Out of Bounds.

@Big10P


Yeah, sorry, I think after they bought my game, they went bankrupt.

Was it the effect of your game or just how much you charged them?

Lol.

"It Wasn't me." ;)

I think the problem was you had to know l33t speak or whatever to logon thus their market was limited to stay at home geeks with no money.

Ant, make a game and go to the Garage games community, it has a big job section with 3000+ developers of all kinds avaliable with various methods of compensation. free/royalties and paid work. Thats where Jeremy originaly found me for Aerial Antics. Jeff tunnel is also helping developers who want to use torque or port existing projects to torque, and get them partners. But the job section doesn't have any conditions except those laid down by the developers.

http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=marketplace&page=jobs

thanks evak, i'll take a look now.

interesting idea now all that is needed is good contact in web porno industry :D

Working on it. :P j/k

check out craigs list, tons of porn related company design jobs going there. I'm sure you could get your proposal through one of those :)

can you post one example, I went there searched in media jobs for what you suggested but no porn entries there.

Warren you want to team on this one :P

I've decided to do a soccer management game aka champsion manager slash sensible world of soccer. Anyone know a good site for player stats?

It isn't legal to use player names just so you know. It might not be legal to use the stats either depending on your source for the stats.

just make them up speedball 2 style.

Real club and player names are insanely expensive to (legally) use in a game. They tend to make huge amounts of money by licensing them to one or more large game companies, and tend to agressively defend that revenue stream by shutting down unlicensed use, whether its commercial or freeware.

Unless you can pony up a couple of million to license your use, it's probably a better idea to come up with fictional league, club, and player names.

Well I'm going with a real/fantasy option so if worse comes to worse and they start bitching and f.a'ing, i'll just pull the reality option.

Can anyone explain the law about this. I've never understood it.

I can write a novel about football and mention player names. I can make a film with real cars in it. I can make a record and sing about barbie dolls. Who made video games a special case?

I really doubt it's illegal at all.

I know you can't pretend the product is associated with someone "David Beckams Football" but a work of fiction can incorporate factual elements.

In the USA you cant use real weapon names in games without some bull@#!* licence I think..

Are you a big football fan yourself, Anthony? I think you'd need to be pretty knowledgeable about the subject to write a convincing game for fans - that's why I could never write one. :)

As for using real player names - don't... but, making all player/team names editable and then anonymously release a save file with all the names changed to the real ones. >:)

10p is right... working on a topic you have a lil experience with or knowledge on would probably yield much better results...

and, if you really like the topic, it'll make it that much easy a year from now when your project still aint done, and none of the code is working right, and none of the graphicsa look convincing enough... :)


--Mike

Many are lookin to develop that 'new genre' or 'original game'. I don't quite understand this mentality when it comes to developing games for profit. The commercial houses are using formulas that have been tried, tested, and succesSful. It makes more sense to me to use the same formulas.

IMHO, developing a cookie-cutter with a few new gimmicks and killer graphics and sound is the way too go.

woo 100th post pr0n etc.

Actually I have something sensible to say, based on Frank's comment. Many people say you'll only make money if it's original etc and I think that this is the "trendy" approach yet it's not totally realistic. Sure platypus and Gish are original (well sorta) and have done well, but plenty of original games don't! Also games that follow tested formulas may or may not do well, it all depends on how you market them, but at least if it looks great and plays like something familiar, the portals will take it and people playing the demo will feel "secure", if not inspired by your brilliance at making an "original" game.

I'm a tottenham fan so my knowledge is limited to domestic competions.... but yeah, if my knowledge fails me I'll just boot up pro evolution soccer 4 and copy that :)

I'm going for something like Sensible World of soccer though. Something fast paced, instead of 20 mins per game like cm4 which i find too boring to play for more than a few games at a time. I played about five seasons a go in swos.

wow what a turn, from futuristic shooter with espionage and tacticts, hoolywood story and jonh woo hongkong balet style action placed in a postapocaliptical world staring solid snake like hero, using the latest tech avaiable to enchance the experience you completly turn it around and decide to make something as boring as that. That's (180*2)^2 turn around. Good choice!

Hmmm, I feel you may be entering into a world of pain on this one, Ant. Don't you ever do things by half? That's a rhetorical question coz I already know the answer. :)

I reckon your intended audience will be super-critical of even the smallest inaccuracies... football fans seem somewhat passionate about the game... but what do I know!? :P

My god, it's full of critics! :)

I realise it's not qutie a John Woo Do, but then again, I'm trying to make some money here, not re-invent gaming. Big, i'm not going after the hardcore, they've got cm stats dripping introvenus into their veins. I'm going after the masses. The swos-army of old. 60,000 people can't be wrong.

Cool. I'm not a critic of yours, as such - not sure why certain other people seem to be. Afterall, it's no skin off my nose if you fail. Good luck! :)

john woo is highly overated in my opinion anyway. Should have done RIFA whilst you had the chance. that probably would have been shipped by now and selling.

RIFA?

/me waits for Ants drug-related gag :P

"My god it's full of dumb ideas" (modified quote from 2010 (I think or was it 2001?))

R.I.F.A - Robitic Intergalatic Football Asscoitation.

It was great. But it was buggy as hell on the new version of blitz.

Grey, feel free to enlighten us with a good idea or two. No really :)

Actually my comment was just a joke as I liked your "it's full of critics" so much!

I told you my good ideas, copy something that sells, change it enough to be slightly "original", really polish the graphics and interface, find a decent publisher and sell it (don't try selling it yourself until you are an expert in online business). Oh yeah, copy something EASY that you can do in a couple of solid months max. Don't tell me those sort of games aren't good enough to sell because they ARE and they DO!

I just feel that lots of people round here are really talented but set their sights too high, they want to make games that only med to large teams can hope to. Sure I'd love to make an Ultima style RPG in 2D or 3D but have I got several years spare no, so it'll never get finished.

Thats me. So, I've settled with working on a single aspect of FPS game: The Weapon System!

Yeah I had a look at that, modular upgradable weapon system, it seems like a cool idea. But how can you test it without a game engine to run it in? Are you doing this for fun/learning or do you have a market you plan to sell it to?

It's his play on reefer, don't ya know?

and a play on fifa. football game. it worked on multiple levels.

a bit like a lift attendant.

Wait, let me do this right.. (Hand on hip) oh no you di'ernt.

if I didn't loose you, you certainly lost me!

I will eventually develop a complete FPS game engine. But, for now, I can settle with droping a controllable camera in a empty level map; mounting GunVertor and firing away.

As far as making money, the game engine will be a freely available workhorse for developing TournamentBlitz Service enabled FPS games.

Quoth the beard 'To loose, a chance to swear.'

wha ... to shave mon amis!

To confuse, a chance to err..cause confusion.