Dreamland Chronicles - Can Someone Save This Game?

Mr.Obsidian asks: "I have recently followed the Dreamland Chronicles dilemma. If you aren't familiar, there is a good recap of the happenings here. I guess I should point out that my first gaming obsession was X-COM: UFO Defense, and I am sure you are familiar with the title. I would just like to say XCOM was a very innovative and well designed tactical turn based strategy game, and Dreamland is what it could be if it were in development today. I am sure that you have seen great game projects moth balled, run out of funding, or suffer some similar fate. I would like to ask you if there is anything anyone can do to save this title? This game has 2 years of development behind it and a team of excellent designers, programmers, and artists, even a representative from Fishtank Interactive (German publisher, titles such as Evil Islands) has posted interest in the title. There has and always will be a strong community for XCOM and Mythos. I just feel that at least once, maybe us lowly gamers can band together around a devloper and determine what game is worth developing, rather than a publisher determining which one might be profitable. Maybe... Maybe I am just being idealistic."

Comments

Steps needed for fans to save this.

[Christopher Thomas]

If you want the fans themselves to save this game, you're going to have to do something along the lines of the following:

• Find about 100,000 people willing to buy the game (as in, committing to buying it).
  
• Get them all to pay $30 *now* for it to be delivered a year from now.
  
• Take this big whack of money, and walk to the gaming company's door with it. Have a lawyer-produced contract in your other hand.
  
• Contract them to finish the game, within fixed time and budget limits (de-scoping if necessary to meet the limits, as they *must* deliver something).
  

The first two steps are the hard part. It might be do-able, but won't be easy. Good luck.

Don't forget to start a shell company and jump through all of the legal hoops for this as you proceed. This will make the contract-signing part of the deal much easier.

Make sure that, no matter what, your contracts (both with the company and with people paying you) say that *you* aren't on the hook if the game fails to materialize. You can't afford to pay back all of the gamers if you've already spent their money paying the development house for a year.

The way these revivals work in practice is that a venture capitalist, bank, or parent company will give the gaming house money if they think that there are enough customers to repay the investment. Their judgement seems to be "no" here.