DBPro game sells 30.000 units in 3 months!
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/DBPro game sells 30.000 units in 3 months!
I must admit despite not being DB`s biggest fan that this Shenmue type game looks pretty sweet however you look at it. Check out that movie and how well it is selling. Trully inspiring!
Main Site :
http://www.tomyumgoongmovie.com/main.htmMovie :
http://files.thegamecreators.com/newsletter/tyg_trailer_hispeed.wmv
Impressive trailer!
The animation seems to be all scripted IMO. (running up the stairs, jumping over rails e.t.c) all blends together too well.
Would like to see actual in game footage.
Wish I had that kinda budget too :)
The anim blends didn't look too complicated to me Tom, it just used a lot of interpolation.
I've never understood fighting games, what to do, how to write them, or what the point is (in a gameplay sense), so i'm just going to take your word for it that this is a good game Quick, and again remind everyone that the author/team is worth infinately more than the tools...
Agreed Banshee, but it just goes to show what can be done to all those people out there that put down basic langauges.
Jason.
Hate to be the one doing the reality check here ... but this game could have been made using traditional game development tools 10 years ago. No one who is successfully using their standard 'AAA' tools would even think once about dropping them for some form of BASIC after seeing this video
... and 30,000 copies is great for a DB game and would be nice for any really small dev studio ... but A) that's horrible sales for any standard big budget game (you know like one based on a movie) and B) it's based on a movie so what'd you expect.
Still I'd be very proud had I produced it ;)
I'm not sure what some of that footage was. Like Tom said,
alot of it looked quite scripted.
There's no way that that scene at the stairwell could be
controlled by a player in realtime. It's just too smooth and
the the animations too specific. Strong signs that the whole
scene is one giant animation. Maybe some of that was
ingame cutscenes.
With that said, it looks like a fun game! I might see if they have a demo once I have a moment.
1minute 40seconds into that video, the stair scene, I guarantee you it's animated and not user controlled in game footage. In other words, it's a cut-scene.
Recall that PS3 footage? I forgot the game, it was some off road rally thing, dune buggies & motor bikes. I asked a friend involved with the company making the game 'is it realtime or pre-rendered?', he said he could not answer, and followed that with a *cough*8fps*cough*.
Marketing rocks!
this game could have been made using traditional game development tools 10 years ago.
i think that Jeremy raised a verrrrrry valid point above... one which i've also failed to realize, and have possibly wasted a good year doing so...
right now, 30,000 license sales would look pretty good to me and my dwindling bank account...
anyways, lemme check the facts out on this thing... try to separate the fact from the fiction...
thx for the link... very interesting... on the surface, it sorta renews my hope that a lil success is still possible in this arena...
--Mike
Were the sales via the shops or internet?
Read here for the full story, doesn`t say if the sales are internet or shop.
http://darkbasic.thegamecreators.com/data/newsletter/newsletter_issue_36.htmlJason.
It has a movie endorsement. The developer is paying a
premium to use the name. The lions share of the proceeds
go to the share holders of the movie. So consider 5%
going back to the developer after the movie and the
publisher get their cut. That may be about $60,000 going
back to the developer in those 3 months. That's a modest
salary for 2 people for a year.
Looking at the graphics the same thing could be done in
Blitz3D.
The "Machima" that we are led to believe to be actual "game
play" is a choreography trick you see in most game commercials.
The only metaphor I could think of after seeing that is
that any great guitarist can pick up a $20 kids guitar,
tune it and make it sound beautiful.
It is something to congradulate the developers for. A
great job. DBPro's feature set is growing and something
like this is great advertising for both products.
Shame it doesn't say where the sales came from or their value. Interesting thing about Ice9s "assumption" is that say they got 15%, this makes their salaries much more interesting.
Anyway the movie has Tony Jaa in it who was totally Brilliant in Ong Bak so I hope to see it!
You guys are so negative. Is it natural or do you put in effort?
Yeah but if it was writen in Blitz he could have licensed my shadow system and had the characters cast shadows instead of cast nothing. :-)
Hm... Things I noticed in the trailer:
1. The water is static, so it looks like the boats are driving around on land!
2. Animation looks like it was motion captured.
3. The lighting on the characters is nice, but at times doesn't match the environment at all, like in the scene with the elephant at the end. The mismatched lighting and the lack of shadows does not help cement the characters in the scene.
4. The characters seem nicely modeled.
5. The environments are not lit particularly well.
6. The interactions with the environments might simply be animations that are triggered when certain things happen. hard to tell.
All in all, it's not a bad looking game, but it is also not a particularly professional looking game. It's not particularly polished. If this came from an indie developer that is understandable. I'm surprised it sold 30K units in 3 months though. From what I can tell it's a basic fighter with basic gameplay. Could this movie which it is based on that I've never heard of be relaly popular in China or something, and that is where all the sales came from? I would have to say that the movie license would be a large part of the reason it sold so well.
Looks like a pretty cool movie though, if it comes to the states I might see it.
Agreed with Banshee.
Come on, they did an awesome accomplishment, so stop saying "ohh this part could be done better" "not that hard to do" "they probably didn't make much money" "its low according to today's standards" "i could do it easily"
Well then, ffs, DO IT, and do better. We'll all be happy to praise you afterwards.
The only reaosn people are saying things like that is because:
A) It's made in Darkbasic, and the fact that a DB game could sell that many units is surprising.
B) It's a fighting game, and the fact that a fighting game could sell that many units is surprising.
C) As far as fighting games go, it looks only average, which again makes it susprising it would sell that many units.
D) That fact that it sold 30,000 units period is surprising.
I mean, if you sell $30K worth of units, then you're pretty lucky. 30K UNITS, is way more than $30K. If they're selling it for $20 a pop like most online games, that's $600,000!
Given that it sold $600,000 worth of copies, I think it's fair game to pick it apart just as we would any commercial title, because it's playing on that ballfield if it's sold that many copies.
Oh, and for the record, I didn't see anything in the gameplay movies that Blitz could not do better. So get to work! :-)
I think it looks great for something done by a few people (9 total), regardless of what they used.
What impresses me more is that it scores an average of 7.1 by people who played it on gamespot.
It doesn't look super fantastic, but it looks much better than most of the finished games I've seen in Blitz3D. So if you neglect their effort out of envy, fine, but maybe it's better to use your energy on doing something to top it.
Agreed. Blitz could probably be used to make a better looking game but it hasn`t yet.
Is there a download available as in the write up it states that it has been a popular download but I cannot see a link?
Jason.
> Agreed. Blitz could probably be used to make a better
> looking game but it hasn`t yet.
One day people will learn that tools don't make a game, it's down to effort and dedication and of course even the best tools don't always make the best games.
Your unfinished game in Blitz is going to be no better or worse than an unfinished game in DBPro.
I'd like to see real gameplay, a HUD, the actual camera angle, etc.
ENAY: Yes, true. The game can only be compared to actaul finished and sold Blitz3D games of a similar genre, or to other mainstream titles made in C++ or whatever. Sometimes I see some amazing code/graphics etc in "tech demos" on this site and could get depressed, thinking, "my stuff'll never be that cool" but if my stuff gets out there and the tech demo stuff doesn't then I should still be happy :-)
All we've seen is a good looking trailer, with apparently cut scene footage.
30k sales... is there a demo somewhere?
I'd like to see real gameplay, a HUD, the actual camera angle, etc.
Yes. Me too.
And SSwift, you need to watch Ong Bak right now. Stop
reading this and head to your nearest video rental shop.
Watching that movie is like going to the circus!
drew. he might have seen it as he was referring to the tom ym goong movie I think. Hoever, if he hasn't seen Ong Bak then I wholehartedly support you by saying "GO RENT/BUY IT NOW EVERYONE IT'S RADICAL!" I will say, yeah plot/acting soso, it's just the action. Remember when he jumps in the air and points his legs and arms forwards to fly through a 1foot diameter hoop, incredible... and that's just one stunt.
You guys are so negative. Is it natural or do you put in effort?
But I thought there was a rivalry between Blitz and DB and
any topic with DB in it is fair game??
Although I'm not a big fan of elephant keepers who happens to be skilled in the ancient art of muy thai or even Pradal Serey, and the sudden rise of thai hip hop (which also includes the rise of cambodian hip hop), the game does look pretty good....and it would look pretty good in any language if anyone can pull that off.
Although i would rather see the actual in game footage rather than scripted one....
"One day people will learn that tools don't make a game, it's down to effort and dedication and of course even the best tools don't always make the best games."
ENAY, I did actually say that Blitz could probably be "used" and not that Blitz could create a better game, so I already do agree with your opinion, without the right people the tools are nothing.
Jason.
A) It's made in Darkbasic, and the fact that a DB game could sell that many units is surprising.
That porn game sold way more IIRC.
What impresses me more is that it scores an average of 7.1 by people who played it on gamespot.
Well it's a fighting game for PC. People are likely to cut a game some slack, when it only comes around once in a blue moon.
"porn game", what Love Chess? wasn't that around 10,000 sales?
Your unfinished game in Blitz is going to be no better or worse than an unfinished game in DBPro.
actually... your unfinished game in Blitz stands a verrrrry good chance of looking worse, that your unfinished game in DBasic...
...all things being equal talent wise, DBasic gives you the ability to take advantage of DX9 shaders that can really give a boost to the graphics.
at any rate... can we lower the fan boy flags for a while, and not turn this into a mine is bigger than yours foodfight... let's just look at the game for what it is... and envy the dev team for at least getting their names on the map with a 'low end' 3D indie development tool... similar to the one that we're using...
also...
he could have licensed my shadow system and had the characters cast shadows instead of cast nothing
hey Swifty... that's one of the first things i wind up noticing on everything i look at nowadays... shadows... or at least some faked shadows... and even though DB does have shadows, i don't know how well they worked in 5.7... 5.8 shadows work, but you gotta be carefull or you'll kill your framerate...
only 3Impact seems to the only tool in our class that does shadows well (fast)... maybe 'Max3D will do it well too...
in the mean time... Swift... what's the deal with your shadowing system currently... any price reductions... and chance of an honest developer taking a 'good look' at it to see if it can fit into his warped oop game engine before he commits to it or not...
thx...
--Mike
"porn game", what Love Chess?
No the DarkBasic one.
I'd be more than happy with those sales figures. You could have done that game in most of the more popular engines.
Most of the hard work in making a successful game after finishing it, is spending the time and understanding business and marketing. Something most developers suck at.
The screen shots on this page
http://www.tomyumgoongmovie.com/html/games/index_e.asp do have shadows. Didn't watch the video though.
Most of the hard work in making a successful game after finishing it, is spending the time and understanding business and marketing. Something most developers suck at.
That'd be before starting it, surely?
That'd be before starting it, surely?
That depends on whether you want a "Duke Nuke'em Forever" situation or a "Civilization IV" one.
Hypeing something, then failing to deliver, just makes you look silly.
Well marketing isn't just hyping... you'd look pretty silly if you made a game without a market, too!
Often it just comes down to bad business and marketing strategy, like in Aerial Antics case. It could probably be turned around into a success within 4 months if done properly.
I don't think Aerial Antics had a poor business and marketing strategy ... I think that it just doesn't appeal to very many people.
My strategy was to occupy a niche previously pioneered by games like Pilotwings and Lunar Lander ... a small niche I know but it seemed like the right time to fill it again since it'd been about 10 years since there had been something like it (for a good reason apparently). I then took that niche gameplay and fit it into a Marble Blast formula since Marble Blast was working well for Garage Games and I really wanted Garage Games to publish the game so I taylored it a little to suit their existing audience.
The fact that the game received so much attention from press and publishers I think shows that I wasn't way off base with my assesment of the market playing field. Obviously those on the business end of things agreed with me ... but in the end players didn't care that there was a gap in the market.
The playing field was shaped the way it was because flight games like Aerial Antics and even Pilotwings really don't sell that well. They simply don't have a broad appeal so you'd have to advertise the heck out of it and get millions of downloads in order to get a decent number of sales.
I don't see any other similar games which were relatively more successful. Pilotwings being a Nintendo launch title in both cases with few other titles to choose from at launch had the best shot of any game like it to succeed. Aerial Antics could never have a shot like that. Furthermore Nintendo has re-used all of it's old licenses multiple times since the launch of the N64 but has yet to bring Pilotwings out again ... and there could have been new versions ... even refurbished versions of the originals for both Game Boy Advance and the Nintendo DS.
Saying it could be turned into a success within 4 months if done properly is a bit ridiculous at this point. I've been working on it for 3 years ... I think that at any given time it could be done properly. All it might take is a single day's worth of work to make it sell respectably. The last update I did people had no complaints. Where to go from there I'm not sure yet.
When I began on the game it seemed quite simple to me as well. Identify a gap in the market and fill it with a fun good looking game. I did that ... it's not so simple.
If you took Aerial Antics before we released it and something like Love Chess I think it's safe to assume both seemed quite marketable to their respective audiences. After seeing what both accomplished in their respective markets it's easy to understand why Love Chess sold well and it's mind boggling why Aerial Antics did not. How many people were surprised by it's low sales numbers?
If it were 'done properly' in 4 months it'd be sheer luck.
Hindsight is 20/20 etc etc...
I wasn't surprised by the low sales numbers, not because it's a bad game, it's very good of course! Thing is I've heard a lot of developers who've made good games talk about poor sales, some have done the marketing and some haven't. But often the game is great but not something I can imagine people buying (with a decent conversion rate) that's all, and it's as simple as that. It's why I stopped work on Iron Fist.
Good lord one of their screenshots has debug info displayed on the left of the screen. Sexy!
For what it's worth, I'd buy this for $20 maximum. Looks good, but not full-price (now $60 it seems) good.
DBPro users could sell a billion games for all i care - its still
crap - probably the best example of spectrum basic since..
well the spectrum ;) - DBpro = Spectrum Basic with Shaders.
:)
Well, the game is certainly a lot less appealing than the trailer.
There's a demo here:
http://www.thaiware.com/main/download.php?id=6821&mirror=0 At then end of the day with games like Onimusha 1,2,3, Devil May Cry 1&3, God of War etc and of course Iron Fist ;-) it has a lot to meet up to!
Aerial Antics does have broad appeal, but not without new less chore like gameplay. Thats all part of business and marketing too. A lot of people love the game but don't feel there is enough there to keep them hooked.
That is something that needs to be fixed. We pretty much did zero marketing, and had no business plan from the start, and never did much more than tweak what was there and submit it via robosoft. That was it.
The game fails on so many levels that are easily fixable with about 2 months extra work.
You know, the part I hate most in shooters is when there is a big gap a player can fit through visualy. like 2-3' between buildings, or space between a tree and a building. But you can't fit through that space.
Or a fence you can't climb over. even though its barely 3' high. Your supposed to be a fit, athletic war hero!!!
I play games tacticaly and expect to have visual cue's that a place isn't navigatable, I like to do reconisance and evaluate the playfield and plan escape routes and a preliminary plan of action. Something that you can't do in a lot of these modern FPS games because of little details.
I havent played COD2 for a while, but this is something that really annoyed me from time to time :(
This fighting game is really pretty decent ... in an old school Final Fight kind of way. Hmmm... I actually don't think it's that good but then again there's not much like this on the PC. The graphics are defintely Playstation era type stuff but it's fairly fun to play and the animation is good.
DBPro users could sell a billion games for all i care - its still crap
Actually....if anything sells a billion copies, it would probably be a good idea to check out.....or take into consideration.
I'm actually more interested in their previous game. If you read the article Quicksilva posted, there's a link to the article about PanPan.
Neuro - i have checked it out + i owned DB - both are ugly
as hell to use - all credit goes to the people who suffer
through it + make something half decent...but its not for me.
This game is really pretty cool. I'd buy it I think ... it's a bit rough around the edges but hats off to the people who made it. They could probably make a really amazing game with a better tool though ... I think that whole tools don't matter thing is a bit ridiculous ... afterall the tools are made by someone so if you want to look at it that way using Blitz is like having Mark Sibly on your team and I think he's simply much more talented than most guys out there!
Anyway, I think the game deserves to sell 30,000 copies it's fairly solid ... nothing mind blowing but probably as enjoyable if shallow as the kung fu flick it's based on.
For anyone that played the demo ... doesn't Aerial Antics look way better than this? Maybe it's just me but the graphics in general are probably one of the weaker points of this game with the exeption of the character animation which is very good. The environments themselves aren't all that great.
You know playing this brings back an old idea. I was always a fan of beat 'em ups and I wanted to do a co-op networked fighting game in the old style like Final Fight etc... but instead of your co-op buddy standing beside you at the arcade you could play online with them or over the LAN. It'd have to of course evolve the gameplay a bit but how about a community project based on this to show off what Blitz could do with a similar subject matter?
@Jeremy
Aerial antics looks great and the engine is smooth - I just didn't feel there was enough to the gameplay in the demo to keep me interested. Land on a pad/hit a ball/fly through rings wasnt enough. I reckon if you made it a bit more mission based it could be a winner - e.g: Put out flames/rescue damsel from burning building etc. I've not played the full thing so perhaps its better in that respect - but the demo doesnt show it.
Jeremy: Make a game called Final Dragon of Rage which will embody 3 of the best old-skool beat 'em ups, of course if you can squeeze Axe in there, even better.
it probably sold alot because there were alot of fans of the film ...
yeah thats most peoples problem with AA, in one way or another all the gameplay revolves around a simple gameplay mechanic, either landing on a switch, dropping a bomb on a switch, flying through a switch or pushing a ball through a switch.
Basicaly you activate all the switches in no particular order till they are on at which point you get a jingle that indicates you can finish the level. For the majority of people that gets boring fast.
The latest single player demo on the site has tweaked controls but keeps the pacing of the original, and I think the flight model is good. With the Reboost demo, which has MP it still uses the same gameplay, and unfortunately Jeremy slowed the pace of the game to make it easier.
Its slowed to aproximately half the speed and makes the game even more boring to play, which is really unfortunate.
Here's a typical review that pretty much summed up the responses I get from most people that play the game.
I'd like to make a quick comment about Aerial Antics, which I tried out last night, since the graphics looked great, and I couldn't understand why it's not doing well. Surely the vey attractive screenshots would earn a lot of downloads from curious people.
Well...
I loved the gameplay. The controls are great, very responsive, and maneuvering the character is very easy. The toon-like graphics are also excellent.
However...
There is practically nothing to do in the demo. Three of the five levels merely required me to land on target. That's it. When I got the rings level, that's when I had some (very brief) fun.
I think AA has a great concept, but you need to show the user just how fun the full version will be. The first few levels manage to make jetpacks boring, which is quite a feat. I would recommend reworking the demo, and giving players more goals.
The thing is that the gameplay doesn't really progress all that much, and as someone else said, the tasks seem more like chores once you get so far into the full game.
Of course, I'd like to redo the graphics it it was going to be overhauled again. The original was ok considering that we didn't use any multitexturing, and only had vertex lighting at the time ( baking vertex lights in 3dsmax was new for blitz then, there wasn't any way to export lightmaps from 3dsmax 2+ years ago)
In many ways the cell shading technique was a problem, it meant that you had half the number of polys to play with which wasn't a lot when the target system was a P2 400 with Geforce 2 at a decent framerate with sswifts dynamic shadows enabled.
There is a hell of a lot of potential in the game, with Single player mission based gameplay, and arcade action competitive Multiplayer modes. But not at the current speed of the MP version which has you flying at walking pace at the best of times.
You never got to play the latest multiplayer version ... it was pretty fun. It's the same speed as the demo that's up now. I think it just seemed a lot slower because you were trying to chase the other guy and the relative motion in the air was non-existent.
I played the MP single player last time, only managed to get MP to work once a while back.
Heh ... this Tom-Yum-Goong game is only $7.50!
WHOA ... with shipping though it's $41 ... yikes!
Shame there's no download options to keep it at $7.50.
Congratulations to them! I'm happy for any independant developer to receive some success like this, and they seem to have done really well with the limitations of the tools.
Yeah ... I'd download it in a heartbeat for $7.50. I'm actually still thinking of picking it up just for something different at $41. It's a good game, lots of combos, blocking, dodging, and good animation. Definitely, not on the 'AAA' level of today but it's good Playstation quality stuff, worth playing.
And aparently all the animation is done by hand and not motion captured which makes it even more impressive.
Jeremy, what site did you buy it from, could you provide a link?
Jason.
Thanks :)
Jason.