Comments on: Tank Universal: His Tronish Majesty’s Landships

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:40:09 +0000

Steve: As in many things, it seems things are different in the UK. Or at least where I was in the UK.

At least on my time, I had many covers fall through. I’m impressed you didn’t have to break any promise though – I mean, what did you do when a game slipped a month and you’d promised them a cover which you’d already promised someone else?

(And, to be doubly fair, being a newstand based business rather than a subs one, covers are of more import in the UK than the US)

By: paul

paul — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:01:44 +0000

Just chipping in here as another happy purchaser of TU and happy reader of RPS. Coincidental? I think not. :)

By: steve

steve — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:23:25 +0000

Weird, this talk about contracts/written agreements for covers. I put together er, about 150 of them without a single written agreement.

Of course I never screwed anyone over and backed out at the last second, though I probably should have. I did have a cover deal fall through with a weekend to go because the publisher promised something they didn’t pass through legal.

By: Ginger Yellow

Ginger Yellow — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:07:32 +0000

“Free on-line platforms have been dwarfing print platforms for quite a while now, but for the moment, paper is where the money comes from.”

Also, people who read RPS and the like are already more likely than average to buy Multiwinia. A print publication like Total PC Gaming is more likely to reach people for whom Multiwinia would normally pass under the radar.

By: Caiman

Caiman — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:24:42 +0000

Yes, I hope more people actually try the linked game despite the thread getting a little off topic. I had to get the full game, and there’s a lot more variety in the missions and parallels with Tron than the demo implies. It’s a mix of great base fights a la the demo, and levels best described as Tron 2.0 with tanks.

By: Cooper

Cooper — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:21:26 +0000

Nice little game. Well done to them for pulling off that tronish look without it being painfully galring and cheesy, it’s actually pretty cool. Shame the resolutions are fixed though.

By: LSTAR

LSTAR — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 14:36:20 +0000

Free on-line platforms have been dwarfing print platforms for quite a while now, but for the moment, paper is where the money comes from.
On the subject of Neon-Tanks, I’ll download this and give it a go.

By: Ben Abraham

Ben Abraham — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 15:21:00 +0000

I hope you guys are managing to monetize RPS in some not-too-sinister way. You deserve it for all the top work you all put in.

By: Al3xand3r

Al3xand3r — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 11:37:36 +0000

Note he said UK mags. It sort of makes sense. Pay to read magazine only available in one country, or free to read website blog available to read for anyone in the whole wide world? Of course, the requirement is for the blog to be good, like RPS ;)

Sad thing is, the mags probably still make way more money both from ads and from ripping buyers off. I really don’t understand this, with internet browsing available on all major platforms, why do they still sell when all the information you could possibly want is available online months before? People need to get with the times, I haven’t (regularly) bought a related magazine ever since I bought my first pc over 10 years ago (I was a console junkie prior to that).

By: Hexapodium

Hexapodium — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 11:17:47 +0000

Yeah, thanks from me as well- the system works!
And RPS has more readers than any of the print mags? I knew it was a little bit revolutionary, I didn’t know it was *that* revolutionary.

By: NeoThermic

NeoThermic — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 11:10:07 +0000

@hoohoo
Without going over the same points that Kieron went over, it would be silly for any company to go into legal action over instances like this. No money would have parted hands over this agreement, ergo it is not a service, so legally it’d be hard to hold down a case. If I were to say that I’ll mow your lawn for free, and then I don’t do it, you can’t sue me.

Also, please learn what Ad Hominem means.

As for Defcon taking down the Steam Auth servers, it’s in your own quote. Everything went down. When a Steam version of Defcon tries to authenticate, it does so with the Steam Auth servers, not the metaserver. In the case of a Steam copy of Defcon, the metaserver is only used for getting a list of games. Ergo when IV note that the metaserver was suffering under the load, then yes, that’d prevent people from getting a list of games. Since it’s clear that Chris also mentions the Steam Auth servers were down, then it’s safe to say that they also went down.

While past performance isn’t an indicator of future performance, the industry normally expects the next game from a developer who’s had previous big hits to be a big hit as well. Uplink sold well. Darwinia sold even better. Defcon beat all three of them. Given that pattern, it’s not unexpected to say that Multiwinia will beat them all.

Your comments about Darwinia and how it should have had multiplayer indicate to me that you didn’t play Darwinia or that you don’t know how hard it is to take a single player concept and make it multiplayer. Balance is always a bitch, and Darwinia could not be balanced for multiplayer without rewriting chunks of it… what you see now in the form of Multiwinia.

As for your AoC or Multiwinia cover question, considering that AoC has been out for quite a while now, I can’t quite see how it’s an exclusive. The mag should have honoured the agreement it had with IV.

NeoThermic

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:17:28 +0000

Congrats, man. And do drop us a line if it goes up anywhere else. RPS’ doors are always open to men who create digital tanks.