Obviously you don't work in the industry in any way. I work for a small yet well known game company that has a pretty good track record so I know the industry a bit, and its not something you can just ease into. Now a days, you have to have a big budget to be able to make anything that competes with games the big publishers are putting out because making games is probably one of the most difficult and expensive areas in software development. And self publishing? There's a little more to it than just putting an executable up for download on a website...things like marketing to try to get people to buy your game and customer support and distribution... All of those things mean more and more expense.
Maybe the reason for releasing this is not so much a matter of "Artificially prolonging the life of URU's fanbase to make an extra buck" but rather so people who enjoyed exploring through Uru's worlds together or just meeting and chatting in the neighborhoods can continue to do so.
Maybe this is for the fans and has nothing to do with money.
Maybe the very small charge is simply to reimburse a small amount of the money that Cyan put in just to release these updates to the community.
Uru Live did die, but the fans did not...this is not a matter of trying to prolong the life of Uru Live but rather a way of letting the fans have a small measure of what they enjoyed so much before, until they decide it is dead.
What did he spend $300,000 on? Over 3 years that's $100,000 a year...over $8000 a month. Does he need a couple of T3 lines for one fairly low traffic website?
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously you don't work in the industry in any way. I work for a small yet well known game company that has a pretty good track record so I know the industry a bit, and its not something you can just ease into. Now a days, you have to have a big budget to be able to make anything that competes with games the big publishers are putting out because making games is probably one of the most difficult and expensive areas in software development. And self publishing? There's a little more to it than just putting an executable up for download on a website...things like marketing to try to get people to buy your game and customer support and distribution... All of those things mean more and more expense.
Maybe the reason for releasing this is not so much a matter of "Artificially prolonging the life of URU's fanbase to make an extra buck" but rather so people who enjoyed exploring through Uru's worlds together or just meeting and chatting in the neighborhoods can continue to do so. Maybe this is for the fans and has nothing to do with money. Maybe the very small charge is simply to reimburse a small amount of the money that Cyan put in just to release these updates to the community. Uru Live did die, but the fans did not...this is not a matter of trying to prolong the life of Uru Live but rather a way of letting the fans have a small measure of what they enjoyed so much before, until they decide it is dead.
What did he spend $300,000 on? Over 3 years that's $100,000 a year...over $8000 a month. Does he need a couple of T3 lines for one fairly low traffic website?