In Croatia, we literally inverse the use of decimal points and thousand's commas. Our expression is decimalni zarez.. In writing, I find neither strange, but in computing, I'd love if there were just one way of writing things. I prefer the point system.
I've located a bug in Opera involving decimal comma/point handling; partially they took native locale into account, partially they don't. I reported the bug, and on the newsgroup got an astonished response from a dev. I've just checked, and they've fixed it. A pretty funny bug.
I dunno, after reading this interview from 1986 I don't think he used to be a horrible guy. The interview seems pretty insightful, and Microsoft does look like a nice company back then, at least according to Gates. And some of his statements look geeky to me, especially in light of bloatware that's bearing the name.Net Framework.
I don't use it, but if I wanted to, I would not be able to, so I'll ask: are prices for 3ds max fair? That's abuse of monopoly if you ask me. Autodesk is going around buying any piece of modelling software that's worth anything, and then charging ridiculous prices. So it would not surprise me if the piracy of 3ds max is be enormous.
so the cool diablo 3 background is not a piece of art? [snip] they do have to be painted or be drawn - and get paid for.
Diablo 3 background is promo art, created commercially with specific interest in promoting commercial sales. Thus, the artist creating the Diablo 3 background is on payroll or a fee, has a deadline, and the image wouldn't be ordered if Blizzard would have problems paying.
you are right about your differentiation between investor and sponsor, however it is not true, that paintings, sculptures are not made for money, as it is not true, that games/video/music is made for money only.
Of course. I mostly referred to Cananzza's statements, which says that most commercial art needs to be published, and most art is just sponsored and which I deem correct and offer additional commentary. Of course, exceptions prove rules.
Having no success with word of mouth doesn't mean the game sucks, it's just that it isn't superb. You are overestimating the viral effect which doesn't score in most cases. Go and record your cat doing weird stuff, upload on YouTube. Will it go viral?
This is especially true in casual game market, when you have hundreds of online distribution sites, and some of those advertise as having a new game every day.
How can you, in your sane mind, recommend counting on word of mouth for the game that your company spent several months working on? Are you aware of mentality of average casual game player?
Not every game is retail-worthy, not every game is a so-called "core game". We don't make sequels to "Elder Scrolls", we don't produce new "Warcraft". We're a small company with limited budget. We need to get the game out in any way possible; a good publisher can easily distribute the game on most of those online distribution channels, especially the big ones. If you contact the sites directly, the likelihood of being rejected is substantially larger than if a known publisher contacts them. I know, I've been there.
Of course the developers gets much less than they deserve. But if you have to choose between getting nothing at all, and getting much less than you deserve, what do you choose?
Besides, my experience with publishers says they invest a great deal of money and effort into you. We've had the services of the publisher's QA team, we got voice-overs recorded. They covered things that we'd have trouble covering. Three-to-four betatesters almost-full-time covering a game developed by four-to-five people? They caught quite a lot of bugs. Some more, some less important, but they were very detailed.
That sounds nice, doesn't it? Would we be able to manage that? I don't think so. Without the publisher's support, best we could do is ship a half-product that would have certain areas of the game in certain corner cases impassable, and occasionally the game would even crash.
That's the experience I've had -- quite positive. YMMV.
I'm talking about sum of all the costs. If you sum all my points, it can grow to be significant. A server by itself it cheap and worthless. But if company has to choose between spending loads of money on marketing but pay me (their employee) much less, or offloading it to a publisher with established practices and connections and pay me (their employee) more... guess what I vote for?
Not everyone has: a) money to rent and maintain the server, b) access to PayPal withdrawal options (I'm from Croatia) _OR_ money to pay web shops for maintaining your content, c) money to pay marketing company, d) money to pay local real-world ads.
Not to mention producing viral advertising isn't trivial. You need publishers to take off the burden of marketing from you, so you can concentrate on what you do best: development. Or do you want to hire several people just to sell the game, while that one combo of developer+artist you can afford after all the expenses works on the next $5 shareware puzzle game for the next two years?
Games, films etc. are made to make money, not to just satisfy artistic desires. Sculptures and paintings can only sell because of some perceived originality or artistic value; they don't have continued entertainment value (and by continued I mean longer than 10min). Sponsor thanks the artist, publisher invests into the creator.
By not having a publisher, you don't have a way to reach the audience. In short -- without publisher, you can usually shove your unconventional game up your you-know-what, since it won't have audience and won't sell. Without a publisher, the distributors (online and offline) tend to send you away. Guess how I know what a difference a publisher makes.
No, just provide users of binary releases either source, or a written offer valid for a few years to provide source. Certainly not to everyone.
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
[snip]
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
Don't forget you can do much, much work with C++ and OpenGL. ObjC can be a tiny wrapper and OpenGL ES is very very similar to OpenGL (no glBegin()/glEnd() and added fixed-point fractional numbers, that's all I care about, really).
Company I'm working at is working on ports of our (originally Python-Ogre-based) games to iPhone and we did most of the work in C++ with OpenGL on Windows and GNU/Linux, with ObjC being a tiny wrapper added in Xcode. I did most of the work on one of those ports, and I haven't touched ObjC with a single line of code.
I know of a guy just like you, and while I accept his and your position, I disagree with it. If it's boring and monotonous for you, then you're just coding in the wrong field. Creating business applications in.Net and MSSQL is boring, monotonous, annoying and utterly frakkin' irritating to me, too. Thank God I found a gamedev job.
When asked "who are you?", many answer "Im X, and I'm a Software Engineer". I think it's short sighted.
I'm not a software engineer, I'm a developer, and I enjoy it as a hobby. Am I short sighted? No, because I was toying and tinkering with computer software since I was a child, so it pretty much does define me. I enjoy occasional going out with friends for a beer, a cup of coffee, or similar. But I also enjoy coding, and I hate people who look down on me because I do.
When I was a three-year-old, I could type on a small PDA-like device. That of course says nothing of my potential programming skills in case I was given a PC or some other microcomputer back in 1991, which would have been pretty poor. Still, punching in PRINT commands and simple FOR loops in BASIC is not impossible for a three year old; remember that you don't have to work on a game, a word processor or an operating system in order to do something called programming. It doesn't have to be useful. Building with Legos isn't useful.
To figure out the real meaning of "free" in "free time" look at non-English languages. Free time is translated as slobodno vrijeme into Croatian. That is, we again run head-first into the "free-as-in-freedom" stuff; expression "free time" originates not from "free-as-in-beer", but from "free-as-in-freedom".
Again, remember I know nothing of Steam's pricing and don't care to investigate at the moment. Let's presume they overcharge (as in TFS).
Yes, but Steam is not a required service; even if you're a developer you have a ton of other options besides trying to "make your own water".
You can also theoretically get bottled water from local grocery store. Maybe it's cheaper to build a tank of water and when it empties, order the "water truck" (or whatever it's called in English) to ship some more water. Still...
Aside from Steam, you can distribute via brick and mortar stores and other online distributors.
Of course. But does the premium for reaching Steam players have to be high? You're also making presumption that it's all equal -- if it's equal, why is Steam overcharging?
Granted, Steam is required to play Valve's games, but Valve has the right to do that with their own creations; if you don't like it, don't buy their games.
Undisputed. We're talking about developers' relations with Valve and Steam.
Even if you put a game on Steam, you can put it on other services or brick and mortar stores.
If my water utility company is overcharging me, how is that not exploitative? I could cancel the water service... but who in sane mind would do that?
While Steam is not a utility for a player, if we think of a gamedev company as a person, then it's - like any other publisher - pretty much that company's utility service in that it needs a distribution channel.
I don't claim Steam is overcharging, since I have no idea what their percentage is and I don't care to Google it up. Probably they don't overcharge, compared to other publishers.
Slashdot Mirror
In Croatia, we literally inverse the use of decimal points and thousand's commas. Our expression is decimalni zarez.. In writing, I find neither strange, but in computing, I'd love if there were just one way of writing things. I prefer the point system.
It's also like the people that spell "voilá" as "viola". Despite not knowing another word of French, it annoys me horribly.
I've located a bug in Opera involving decimal comma/point handling; partially they took native locale into account, partially they don't. I reported the bug, and on the newsgroup got an astonished response from a dev. I've just checked, and they've fixed it. A pretty funny bug.
I dunno, after reading this interview from 1986 I don't think he used to be a horrible guy. The interview seems pretty insightful, and Microsoft does look like a nice company back then, at least according to Gates. And some of his statements look geeky to me, especially in light of bloatware that's bearing the name .Net Framework.
I don't use it, but if I wanted to, I would not be able to, so I'll ask: are prices for 3ds max fair? That's abuse of monopoly if you ask me. Autodesk is going around buying any piece of modelling software that's worth anything, and then charging ridiculous prices. So it would not surprise me if the piracy of 3ds max is be enormous.
Emphasis added. Q.E.D.
Diablo 3 background is promo art, created commercially with specific interest in promoting commercial sales. Thus, the artist creating the Diablo 3 background is on payroll or a fee, has a deadline, and the image wouldn't be ordered if Blizzard would have problems paying.
Of course. I mostly referred to Cananzza's statements, which says that most commercial art needs to be published, and most art is just sponsored and which I deem correct and offer additional commentary. Of course, exceptions prove rules.
Whoops. I missed the 'any'. Thanks.
Having no success with word of mouth doesn't mean the game sucks, it's just that it isn't superb. You are overestimating the viral effect which doesn't score in most cases. Go and record your cat doing weird stuff, upload on YouTube. Will it go viral?
This is especially true in casual game market, when you have hundreds of online distribution sites, and some of those advertise as having a new game every day.
How can you, in your sane mind, recommend counting on word of mouth for the game that your company spent several months working on? Are you aware of mentality of average casual game player?
Not every game is retail-worthy, not every game is a so-called "core game". We don't make sequels to "Elder Scrolls", we don't produce new "Warcraft". We're a small company with limited budget. We need to get the game out in any way possible; a good publisher can easily distribute the game on most of those online distribution channels, especially the big ones. If you contact the sites directly, the likelihood of being rejected is substantially larger than if a known publisher contacts them. I know, I've been there.
Having a publisher is worth it.
Of course the developers gets much less than they deserve. But if you have to choose between getting nothing at all, and getting much less than you deserve, what do you choose?
Besides, my experience with publishers says they invest a great deal of money and effort into you. We've had the services of the publisher's QA team, we got voice-overs recorded. They covered things that we'd have trouble covering. Three-to-four betatesters almost-full-time covering a game developed by four-to-five people? They caught quite a lot of bugs. Some more, some less important, but they were very detailed.
That sounds nice, doesn't it? Would we be able to manage that? I don't think so. Without the publisher's support, best we could do is ship a half-product that would have certain areas of the game in certain corner cases impassable, and occasionally the game would even crash.
That's the experience I've had -- quite positive. YMMV.
I'm talking about sum of all the costs. If you sum all my points, it can grow to be significant. A server by itself it cheap and worthless. But if company has to choose between spending loads of money on marketing but pay me (their employee) much less, or offloading it to a publisher with established practices and connections and pay me (their employee) more ... guess what I vote for?
Not everyone has: a) money to rent and maintain the server, b) access to PayPal withdrawal options (I'm from Croatia) _OR_ money to pay web shops for maintaining your content, c) money to pay marketing company, d) money to pay local real-world ads.
Not to mention producing viral advertising isn't trivial. You need publishers to take off the burden of marketing from you, so you can concentrate on what you do best: development. Or do you want to hire several people just to sell the game, while that one combo of developer+artist you can afford after all the expenses works on the next $5 shareware puzzle game for the next two years?
Hm.
Err... precisely my point?
Games, films etc. are made to make money, not to just satisfy artistic desires. Sculptures and paintings can only sell because of some perceived originality or artistic value; they don't have continued entertainment value (and by continued I mean longer than 10min). Sponsor thanks the artist, publisher invests into the creator.
By not having a publisher, you don't have a way to reach the audience. In short -- without publisher, you can usually shove your unconventional game up your you-know-what, since it won't have audience and won't sell. Without a publisher, the distributors (online and offline) tend to send you away. Guess how I know what a difference a publisher makes.
CPC for teh win.
I'm interested in your thoughts on th "Let's raid Afghanistan and Iraq!" policy.
Don't forget you can do much, much work with C++ and OpenGL. ObjC can be a tiny wrapper and OpenGL ES is very very similar to OpenGL (no glBegin()/glEnd() and added fixed-point fractional numbers, that's all I care about, really).
Company I'm working at is working on ports of our (originally Python-Ogre-based) games to iPhone and we did most of the work in C++ with OpenGL on Windows and GNU/Linux, with ObjC being a tiny wrapper added in Xcode. I did most of the work on one of those ports, and I haven't touched ObjC with a single line of code.
Just sayin'.
I'm not a software engineer, I'm a developer, and I enjoy it as a hobby. Am I short sighted? No, because I was toying and tinkering with computer software since I was a child, so it pretty much does define me. I enjoy occasional going out with friends for a beer, a cup of coffee, or similar. But I also enjoy coding, and I hate people who look down on me because I do.
When I was a three-year-old, I could type on a small PDA-like device. That of course says nothing of my potential programming skills in case I was given a PC or some other microcomputer back in 1991, which would have been pretty poor. Still, punching in PRINT commands and simple FOR loops in BASIC is not impossible for a three year old; remember that you don't have to work on a game, a word processor or an operating system in order to do something called programming. It doesn't have to be useful. Building with Legos isn't useful.
To figure out the real meaning of "free" in "free time" look at non-English languages. Free time is translated as slobodno vrijeme into Croatian. That is, we again run head-first into the "free-as-in-freedom" stuff; expression "free time" originates not from "free-as-in-beer", but from "free-as-in-freedom".
Again, remember I know nothing of Steam's pricing and don't care to investigate at the moment. Let's presume they overcharge (as in TFS).
Yes, but Steam is not a required service; even if you're a developer you have a ton of other options besides trying to "make your own water".
You can also theoretically get bottled water from local grocery store. Maybe it's cheaper to build a tank of water and when it empties, order the "water truck" (or whatever it's called in English) to ship some more water. Still...
Aside from Steam, you can distribute via brick and mortar stores and other online distributors.
Of course. But does the premium for reaching Steam players have to be high? You're also making presumption that it's all equal -- if it's equal, why is Steam overcharging?
Granted, Steam is required to play Valve's games, but Valve has the right to do that with their own creations; if you don't like it, don't buy their games.
Undisputed. We're talking about developers' relations with Valve and Steam.
Even if you put a game on Steam, you can put it on other services or brick and mortar stores.
You already said that :-)
If my water utility company is overcharging me, how is that not exploitative? I could cancel the water service ... but who in sane mind would do that?
While Steam is not a utility for a player, if we think of a gamedev company as a person, then it's - like any other publisher - pretty much that company's utility service in that it needs a distribution channel.
I don't claim Steam is overcharging, since I have no idea what their percentage is and I don't care to Google it up. Probably they don't overcharge, compared to other publishers.