Greetings fellow gamers, i've mostly been reading RPS in the past, but have recently found out that the company behind Total Annihilation, Dungeon Siege and Supreme Commander, need our help with their kickstarter campaign:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...n-rpg?ref=live
The game is called wildman and I think it looks interesting. I nearly missed this kickstarter, which is why im posting - to let you guys and girls know about GPG and their need for a bit of help.
Happy Gaming!
- Walincas
They just fired a good chuck of their staff, so this is a desperate move.
Nope.jpg
dude, that is kinda the reason for us to back him, there is no reason to back someone who does not need backing, and he is completely open about needing help from the gamers, if they want Gas Powered Games to continue making games for us in this video:Originally Posted by pakoito
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...age=2#comments
I would not call it a desperate move, but a well thought out move.
I'm not trying to be a cunt, but nothing GPG did except SupCom was worth my time. Chris Taylor has no credibility left.
Well, Demigod was a good idea but they half-assed it and missed the MOBA hype train.
Supcom is the game Chris Taylor wanted to make, and he had free reigns to create the game. To get a publisher to back up supcom 2, GPG had to dumb it down to a console standard, in order to make it "appeal to a broader audience ja da jada".
With kickstarter, developers can create their games without being restricted and forced to design their games in certain directions by their publishers.
Besides, i've got nothing against cunt's - being of the male gender, I only have pleasant memories of cunts - so go ahead :)
Nah, it is pretty damned desperate.
And the big concern in this case is that they are already circling the drain, so the risk of failure to deliver is MUCH higher.
I dunno, I am personally not sold on what little of wildman they have shown, but I'll keep an eye on the KS and maybe back later in the cycle.
Also, I would actually say the best possible people to back for a project of this scale are the people who do NOT need the money. Hear me out. Obviously you shouldn't give cash to someone who already has a publisher backing them and the like (unless it is a funding-matching scenario). But you want someone who can absorb increased costs.
More than a few KS projects (in gaming and otherwise) have failed horribly because they didn't anticipate certain expenses or asked for too little. And you either get "Sorry, we can't give you anything. If you have the balls to ask for your money back, we'll do it eventually" or "Yeah... enjoy this alpha. It technically meets all the things we promised you".
Whereas a group who at least have some money put aside (like Double Fine or even Obsidian) can say "Yeah, costs were higher than anticipated and we had to tap into our normal operating funds, but we can still pull this off."
If GPG run out of cash during development, they are horrifyingly boned.
Steam: Gundato
PSN: Gundato
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I completely agree with you, but if we are to believe the information we have gotten from GPG and Chris Taylor about wildman so far, he will do everything he can to keep GPG afloat.
Besides they are not completely new in the business, they got experience in developing games and are using to budgetting their projects etc.
But the poing of me creating this thread was just to give you a heads up, I did not know Gas Powered Games had a kickstarter, nor did I know they needed help from their gamers - so I thought I would share that information with fellow gamers.
I admit im a fan of some of GPG's games such as Supcom and DS, but im probably not the only RPS'er who would like GPG to continue making games.
Here's the problem for me, this game is going to take a year to make, in that time they are only going to have this 1.1 million for funding everything in the studio. I doubt that would pay the wages alone, without equipment, maintenance and so on. We don't know how many staff were let go, we don't know their plan to make this entire game with the 1.1M and there will be no guarantee that this will get any additional funding and is a much higher risk now than your average kickstarter.
GPG has bet the farm on this kickstarter, without it they'd be gone anyway but if you went to the bank and asked for a loan, then days later gut your company staff and then make a 2 minute video with just the reason why and no solid business plan, they wouldn't give you enough change for a coffee.
If Chris Taylor wants this to succeed, he needs to explain how 1.1M will pay for the entire development for a game that is still a year away at least. He also needs to ensure that it is the lowest risk it can possibly be for kick-starters, as they know they won't get their money back if this falls through, so why would they risk it in the first place unless they are already sold on the idea anyway? It seems a publisher might be needed here, or some other private investor to maintain upkeep so the pledges are spent solely on development costs only.
I believe I read somewhere that they let everyone go but a few people. A "few" to me means around 3-ish, and if that's true that's pretty scary O_o
"Everybody but the project leads goes," leaving just enough money for the golden parachute.
The reason im risking it, is not only because of Wildman, but because I would like PC games to improve overall and in my book, GPG improved PC gaming immensely with Total Annihilation, Supcom and dungeon siege and I would like to see more solid games from them in the future.
Besides that, im often vocal about the lack of "decent games nowadays" and now I have the oppertunity to put my money where my mouth is, or walk the walk instead of just talking the talk.
Sure, it might not succeed, but at least I tried to help changing the PC gaming scene for the better and that is reward enough for me, with that said however, im pretty confident that Chris Taylor with 15+ years of experience will be able to deliver.
Except that TA and SC both were a dead-end and just weren't what gamers as a whole were looking for. Taylor and his guys focused on "Supah big wars with faceless mooks". Relic went in the opposite direction and focused on tight but detailed battles and a focus on squad-level combat.
Dungeon Siege, while fun, has the sequel being notorious for being "The game everyone enjoyed, but never really got past chapter 1". And it really brought nothing new to the genre.
Fair enough and I salute you for it. The big issue most of us have isn't that we don't think it would be a fun game (although, many of us are skeptical. Keep reading :p), but because we don't think the studio can deliver due to financial reasons.Besides that, im often vocal about the lack of "decent games nowadays" and now I have the oppertunity to put my money where my mouth is, or walk the walk instead of just talking the talk.
How would this change the industry?Sure, it might not succeed, but at least I tried to help changing the PC gaming scene for the better and that is reward enough for me, with that said however, im pretty confident that Chris Taylor with 15+ years of experience will be able to deliver.
Also, that 15+ years of experience includes:
Demigod
Space Siege
Supreme Commander 2
Dungeon Siege 3
You previously argued "He only did that because the publishers made him". Which, to me, suggests a lack of integrity. And either way, all four of those managed to fail to grasp what people LIKED about those genres. "Innovation" is nice and all, but only if it is backed up by a fun game.
Also, TA: Kingdoms deserves a special mention for taking the "highly prone to defensive turtling" gameplay of TA and forgetting to give a reliable counter to said defenses :p
Don't get me wrong, I loved TA and SC (TA moreso), but when their best work was over a decade ago and their last decent game over five years ago, I need some concrete details. And I suspect that is true of most of us.
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I for one would like another game like SC or TA and what gamers as a whole do not want is completely irrellevant, if you got a solid foundation of gamers in a niche genre, which SC and TA do. Loads of people are still playing those games my self incluced, though not regularly.
Relic makes some of my favourite games, including homeworld, dow and coh - but that does not mean, those tactical games should fill up the entire RTS genre.
Dungeon siege was fun that's true, what it brought to the genre however was not "nothing new" as you put it, but instead somewhat quoted freely from KS site "it featured an enourmous streaming world with no loadscreen, an innovation that's now become standard for open world games"..
Regarding the lack of integrity, it's not Chris Taylor as a person, it's the industry as a whole that has taking a hit to their integrity, a few good examples can be seen by looking at former kings such as Bioware with their Dragon Age 2, or Blizzard and the buggied D3.
In closing you need to remove DS 3 from your list of his experience, as he has not really earned to be recognised for the development, as it was Obsidian Entertaintment that dumbed it down for us (how is that even possible with an ARPG you ask? im just as puzzled as you, nevertheless - they succeded).
I would like more details as well and im sure we will get them in time, in the meantime he still gets my support because I believe GPG got a lot to offer PC gamers, starting with Wildman and hopefully King's And Castles afterwards (Supcom - medieval style - Hell Yea!!).
Wait, what? DS 3 was made by Obsidian, right? And it was a decent game.
Right, Obsidian.
Preferred DS 1 and 2 though..
There is a problem with regards to publishers, they are funding you and your ideas, and keeping your company and employees going to keep food on the table. There is a point where you have to grin and bare it when they decide your collectors edition should some tasteless, tacky item because they think gamers will love it. I can understand if it was a regular shill who would turn the game into an edgy TPS if they were told to, but Taylor has a track record here that does have some merit.
The other thing I don't care for is that this is an isometric ARPG, they aren't my favourite genre anyway, but we've had quite a few in the past two years and with more coming (Anakeiro: Demon Hunters is also on Kickstarter). If Blizzard and Runic couldn't break real ground on the ARPG genre, and just make improvements (I'm describing Runic here, not D3), then how does anyone expect Taylor to create anything other than ARPG no.5 with a different art style and another sound track?
Don't get me wrong, I would jump at the chance to throw money at this thing but I need to know how in the world he thinks he can pull this off with a shell of a company. I'm guessing its just the art lead, programmers, Jeremy Soule if he's working for free and admin left, the rest would be the first to go.
I'm not inclined to put any more thought into Wildman than I already have, at least not until I see more about the game. Here are some existing threads, though:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/foru...PG-RTS-Hybrid)
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/foru...off-most-staff
Well, to be fair, it is possible that such a game could be made if the remaining employees were willing to take a bit of a pay cut.
Let's say they get exactly 1.1 million. Factoring in the cut KS takes and failed payments, we'll put them down at 800k.
Using a random site that seems remotely close to reputable: http://gamasutra.com/view/news/16735...p#.UP3WjSf_l8E
Game designer (so Chris Taylor): 73k per year
Programmer: 92k
Art and animator: 75k
Audio: 83k
QA: 47k a piece
And I think the video update says that the core people are still at GPG with HR and the like specifically listed, so let's not count the support staff (lawyers, HR, etc). And I will assume, based on that, that they have whatever building they require (whether it is a single office they rented over a bowling alley or their usual building).
So that gives us one of each, and 2 QA people, for less than half the money they pull in. GPG is an established company, so they probably already have lots of art assets (either made by them or purchased) already, and it is safe to assume they are using their existing repositories of code wherever possible, which also drastically lowers costs and development time. So let's say 2 more of the expensive people and whatever licensing is required brings them to 600k. That leaves 200k for them to spend on additional licensing and either a few more employees or contracted work (where reasonable).
Also, while I don't know all the details of how royalties work, it is safe to assume that anything they get money on the sale of will be getting a Steam sale or five (possibly with a Humble Bundle for charity a la THQ) pretty soon, so that should also help with operating costs.
So it is still definitely a tight fit, and most of that assumes they are willing to take pay cuts (he would have kept the senior people, not the new hires. Senior people make more moneys), but it is possible for them to operate for a year or so of development.
Of course, that estiamte doesn't consider stuff like health insurance and the like, which will completely bone them. But, with a bit of clever legalese (probably why they kept HR and legal :p), they can probably get away with most of that by having everyone be contracted work for the year.
But without detailed info from Taylor himself, I have a hard time supporting them. Because thsoe are already very tight margins, and you'll understand if I don't see the senior members accepting less than a 6 figure salary.
Steam: Gundato
PSN: Gundato
If you want me on either service, I suggest PMing me here first to let me know who you are.
For some reason most of my posts are getting delayed while waiting for a moderator to look them through, not even sure this will get posted, but here goes..
I believe it's possible as well and hate the fact that most of my favourite gaming companies are on the verge of destruction.
Last edited by Walincas; 21-01-2013 at 11:23 PM. Reason: It worked! (im a magician).
Does anyone know why Space Siege ended up being the turd it is?
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