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I'm giving away my startup idea to a deserving Haxor

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Re: I'm giving away my startup idea to a deserving Haxor

#41

Post by poppysan »

mynameishere wrote: post #36
poppysan wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is game maker web based? can you share your games on facebook? how do you monetize your games with game maker? There are vital differences. Look at aviary. i have photoshop, why would I use it? Because i can use it from anywhere and share it anywhere.

Is game maker web based? No, but that was from 1985. There's at least one company that publishes user-submitted games: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongregate Whatever the economics behind that, someone is getting paid. I don't know much about the game business, but it seems like there are a lot of great people working for next-to-nothing on the fringes. I can't imagine how popular a connect-the-dots approach to desi…

sorry for sounding like an a-hole. i was just noting the differences. Kongregate is far different as well. I want users to create the game through the site-based tools/ within set parameters. More like kongregate-mixed with game creator-mixed with the facebook widget

Re: I'm giving away my startup idea to a deserving Haxor

#42

Post by dfranke »

poppysan wrote: post #21

OK, so here's the idea. Initially I was looking to add a flex developer to my team because it would perfectly suit flex/Air. But I am learning that now so this shouldnt be a problem in the future. I was looking to develop a widget-based game creation system, based on customizing a pre-set group of parameters. its limited at first, but as the community grows so will features. Games are output into a widget, shareable…

nostrademons is working on something along these lines, IIRC.

Re: I'm giving away my startup idea to a deserving Haxor

#43

Post by hhm »

mynameishere wrote: post #36
poppysan wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is game maker web based? can you share your games on facebook? how do you monetize your games with game maker? There are vital differences. Look at aviary. i have photoshop, why would I use it? Because i can use it from anywhere and share it anywhere.

Is game maker web based? No, but that was from 1985. There's at least one company that publishes user-submitted games: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongregate Whatever the economics behind that, someone is getting paid. I don't know much about the game business, but it seems like there are a lot of great people working for next-to-nothing on the fringes. I can't imagine how popular a connect-the-dots approach to desi…

Kongregate is a different thing. Kongregate is for game developers, who already do games in Flash for example. I understand what he's proposing is different or is at least targeted to a different group of people (not professional game developers, but just people who'd like to design their own games, and to share them).

And I think it's an interesting idea (I work, or used to, in the game dev industry).

Re: I'm giving away my startup idea to a deserving Haxor

#44

Post by [deleted] »

poppysan wrote: post #9
icey wrote: post #8

I think you should just release the idea here. I think releasing it to a single person is going to severely limit the chances of it becoming a real thing. If it's a good (or great) idea, multiple people might be interested in building something based on your idea.

Good idea. I'm a bit hesitant now because if the idea sucks I will look like an idiot. But hey, good idea!

[deleted]

Re: I'm giving away my startup idea to a deserving Haxor

#45

Post by m0nty »

wallflower wrote: post #25
m0nty wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a HUD integrated into VR goggles with a GPS system so it can act as sat nav for people who are walking and cycling, etc. It could also allow you to meet with people who aren't physically there, but merely "there" online. You would see their avatar projected onto the surrounding urban environment, and they (seated at home on their computers) could move around a virtual world directly modeled on the real one. Th…

You mean like this? :) http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/Image:T-800a_Clothing.jpg

Yes :) I can see there's prior art on this whole thing. Maybe I need to go and reconsider...

Re: I'm giving away my startup idea to a deserving Haxor

#46

Post by nostrademons »

poppysan wrote: post #31
mynameishere wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure where the idea is hiding in this description. Game-making systems are an old idea, so that's not it: http://www.garrykitchen.com/product_history/garry_kitchens_g... Sharing things between websites is, well, pretty old too. So that's not the idea.

Is game maker web based? can you share your games on facebook? how do you monetize your games with game maker? There are vital differences. Look at aviary. i have photoshop, why would I use it? Because i can use it from anywhere and share it anywhere.

My cofounder and I have been working on exactly this idea (web-based game maker, can share games on Facebook/MySpace, targetted at non-programming users) for the last 15 months. Six months of that has been full-time work. Other competition - folks with released products - includes http://sploder.com/, http://www.gamebrix.net/ (they've got $500k in angel funding and 8 developers on it), and http://www.mygame.com/. Both Sploder and GameBrix have been working on this for at least 6 months longer than us, so they've got at least 2 years of development behind their current releases. I believe the FuzzWich guys spent some time trying to develop a game-making platform before they started their current idea, and I've heard of at least another half-dozen startups in stealth mode that're doing the same thing, though obviously I don't know the details. So you're not the only one who's had this idea. ;-)

The problem is that "a widget-based game maker" does not let you create fun games for any reasonable definition of fun, and a system that does let you create fun games is probably too hard for ordinary non-programming users to learn. Play around with GameBrix for a few minutes and then decide whether any of the games generated by it are stuff you'd be willing to show your friends. And judging from the GameBrix screencasts, their builder isn't all that easy to use anyway. Sploder's done a bit better - you can at least figure out how to use it in 5 minutes - but it gives you very limited customization. It's more like a map editor for common strategy games than a game creator itself.

Anything more complicated than that requires a lot of both UI and technical discipline. We've run into some really thorny technical issues when trying to develop a UI that's both flexible and simple to learn, and we keep running into them. It makes me wonder whether the problem is even tractable, given the long history of attempts to solve it and the noted lack of success outside of specific domains (eg. GameMaker, Quake mods).

So that's what the view looks like from 15 months in. I definitely still think there's something to this, otherwise I wouldn't still be working on it. But be prepared for some really tricky technical issues - you'll want a top-notch technical cofounder, because otherwise you'll be pretty limited in what you can do.

Re: I'm giving away my startup idea to a deserving Haxor

#47

Post by justin »

poppysan wrote: post #9
icey wrote: post #8

I think you should just release the idea here. I think releasing it to a single person is going to severely limit the chances of it becoming a real thing. If it's a good (or great) idea, multiple people might be interested in building something based on your idea.

Good idea. I'm a bit hesitant now because if the idea sucks I will look like an idiot. But hey, good idea!

You might. But fuck what other people think! Go big!

Re: I'm giving away my startup idea to a deserving Haxor

#48

Post by nostrademons »

carpal wrote: post #22
poppysan wrote: post #21

OK, so here's the idea. Initially I was looking to add a flex developer to my team because it would perfectly suit flex/Air. But I am learning that now so this shouldnt be a problem in the future. I was looking to develop a widget-based game creation system, based on customizing a pre-set group of parameters. its limited at first, but as the community grows so will features. Games are output into a widget, shareable…

Zynga?

Zynga is much more in the Kongregate/Newground space, serving as a hosting & distribution service for Flash games made by experienced developers. This guy (and us) are targeting programming novices who want to create their own games without programming experience.

Re: I'm giving away my startup idea to a deserving Haxor

#49

Post by henning »

icey wrote: post #8

I think you should just release the idea here. I think releasing it to a single person is going to severely limit the chances of it becoming a real thing. If it's a good (or great) idea, multiple people might be interested in building something based on your idea.

He could probably give the idea to 100 people and get a hundred different products of wildly varying quality and feature sets.

It's kind of arrogant of the OP to assume that his precious idea (which of course no one else has ever conceived of in any capacity) is so valuable, like a beautiful fragile snowflake, that it must be carefully protected and only revealed to a deserving "haxor".

Re: I'm giving away my startup idea to a deserving Haxor

#50

Post by tomh »

poppysan wrote: post #24
poppysan wrote: post #21

OK, so here's the idea. Initially I was looking to add a flex developer to my team because it would perfectly suit flex/Air. But I am learning that now so this shouldnt be a problem in the future. I was looking to develop a widget-based game creation system, based on customizing a pre-set group of parameters. its limited at first, but as the community grows so will features. Games are output into a widget, shareable…

I forgot to add an important feature. I would monetize the games and do a profit-sharing with the users by creating In-game or widget based overlay ads. As well as traditional advertisement. Also, concerning monetization, I would have sponsored events where users compete on creations for leading brands. the winning project is of course distributed branded by that product mainstream. There are unlimited options with r…

You could also make it more granular and allow users to 'tip' other users who make in-game widgets, or even part of a widget (think areas of in-game play, travel etc). Tipjoy might be a good partner to go in with this one. Alternatively, do something with the AFP to allow users to 'tip' but you do keep a percentage.
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