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“It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

kickstarter.com

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Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#231

Post by stdbrouw »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #168
jeremiep wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I myself learned it from Rich in the very talk I linked to a few years ago and I'm the first to admit I didn't make that distinction beforehand. I've met more developers unaware of the distinction than otherwise, which is why I'm curious as to why you think it has become a meme? Also note that english isn't my first language (I'm french Canadian) and even here in french the distinction is seldom made.

In colloquial English, no. The distinction between two main types of simplicity, those of parsimony and elegance, has been a long-standing philosophical topic [1]. In engineering, the so-called KISS principle (first coined as such in the early 20th century) has always had the implication of minimalism and implementation simplicity, in contrast to mere ease of use. Fred Brooks wrote a famous paper in 1986 [2] perfectl…

I dunno, people use the same kind of argument to say that nobody's really done anything new in philosophy since Kant or even Aristotle. The KISS principle is not the same as a distinction between simplicity and ease. Accidental vs. essential complexity is orthogonal to simplicity vs. ease. And parsimony and elegance are both about simplicity rather than ease. Some people can be a little bit too historically literate for their own good.

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#232

Post by blakeyrat »

voronoff wrote: post #226
blakeyrat wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all from the top of my head. Credentials: I play a lot of video games. AAA game (typical example: Skyrim): * Sells for $50-$60 * Has cutting-edge graphics and (generally) runs on the newest generation of hardware * Is available on most/all gaming platforms * (Nowadays) Usually has some celebrity involvement (Skyrim had Max von Sydow, Christopher Plummer, Michael Hogan. Oblivion had Patrick Stewart.) * 20+ hou…

AAA games are frequently one platform, generally either PC for UI reasons or locked into a particular console as an exclusive.

Yeah, remove the multi-platform thing. It's frequently the case (Skyrim, Assassin's Creed, etc.) but it's certainly not required to be a AAA title.

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#233

Post by roel_v »

Kequc wrote: post #228
roel_v wrote: post #195

The assets of this company are, essentially, worthless. I think the liquidator would jump for joy on a bid of, let's say, 5 or 10k euros for all IP of this game. I've seen cases where IP that cost orders of magnitude more to develop sell for less, sometimes under the condition 'you have to take the office inventory too, because otherwise I have to pay for getting it disposed of' (where 'I' is the liquidator). If anyo…

Maybe they could do a kickstarter.

That would be the (logistically) obvious route to take for an interested party, but I didn't want to suggest it out of fear of coming across as facetious :)

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#234

Post by overgard »

Wow, my heart goes out to these guys, I guess they dropped the ball but obviously they really cared. It's hard to fault people when they made a good faith effort and came up short. I hope after things settle down and maybe they get some space away from this, they try again on a new project with a bit more wisdom.

I think the lesson here (and this one really is probably important for entrepreneur types), is getting funded really should not be viewed as an achievement. It just means the stakes got higher.

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#235

Post by differentView »

candu wrote: post #124
TomGullen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "AAA Game" mean anyway? I'm a bit lost on the definition. Wikipedia says: > In the video game industry, AAA (pronounced "triple A") is a classification term used for games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion. A title considered to be AAA is therefore expected to be a high quality game and to be among the year's bestsellers. By definition, a budget of $75k + 6-10 people wont make an…

The video game industry makes ~2x as much as the film industry [1], so imagine production on a scale comparable to (or possibly even exceeding) that of big-budget Hollywood movies. [1] https://www.quora.com/Who-makes-more-money-Hollywood-or-the-...

Box office revenue is only 25% of revenue from film entertainment.

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#236

Post by bobajeff »

People are acting like the game wasn't able to be made. The issue is it was made but the sales didn't cover the costs.

"At first we could not believe that our “baby” was not more successful, in our emotions we started looking for explanations not related to the game. Maybe gamers are just spoilt brats, bashing on everything, maybe there is an oversaturation of indie market, maybe all the free-to-play games by big studios are giving players a false sense of value. How could less than $10 be to expensive for a beautiful game like Woolfe? How could this be our fault? "

"Of course none of the emotional excuses above are the reason of our mixed steam rating. We can only blame ourselves… "

It's good to see someone excepting the fact that their game just wasn't good enough. Also nice to hear someone admit what a cop out blaming customers or the market is.

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#237

Post by blakeyrat »

james-skemp wrote: post #89
cautious_int wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you didn't back it back then, you can now buy it immediately on Steam. It looks like a functional game, and not a failed project.

It doesn't have a proper ending (obvious they were expecting a second in the series), but having played it I enjoyed it for what it was. With the bankruptcy, it's questionable where purchases of this will go to, so you might want to keep an eye on the game's Steam forum. (There was another game, the name of which escapes me, that had a similar issue, with it getting sold cheap, and the money wasn't going to the creat…

It wasn't "recent", but after Gamecock went bankrupt (good riddance!), their FPS title Legendary was on Steam for like a buck fifty. It's $3 now. I assume that was a creditor trying to squeeze every cent from it.

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#238

Post by facepalm »

kelukelugames wrote: post #2

Here is the steam page. http://store.steampowered.com/app/281940/ Remind me of Alice, which had some beautiful levels. http://store.steampowered.com/app/19680/

I'm confused - how is it failed if they launched it on Steam? Is that just a demo?

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#239

Post by klodolph »

jules wrote: post #85
[deleted] wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Do you realize that while it wasn't successful, they did actually make a game? http://store.steampowered.com/app/281940/ For comparison, €60000 buys about 40cm = 0.0004km of highway.

Highways in America can cost $4M per mile, at that rate $60k gets you 80ft. I assume that in Europe the costs are not two orders of magnitude higher?

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#240

Post by joonap »

dmbaggett wrote: post #10

I wanted to believe that a team of 6 to 10 people could make a game that looked and felt AAA. Boy was I wrong! When we made Crash Bandicoot (with a team of 7), it was already virtually impossible to make a AAA game with 6-10 people, and that was 20 years ago. I tell inexperienced entrepreneurs to take their honest best estimate and multiply by 10. Or, as Mark Cerny (our producer on Crash) used to tell us, "add one an…

Thanks for Crash Bandicoot! Still one of my favourite games!
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