Entries Tagged 'Business' ↓

Hmm, I find this very interesting. Nexon (developer/publisher of Maple Story, et al) is apparently looking to fund games by indies (judging by the budget).

We are interested in finding original, unique and promising projects at an early stage of development in order to sponsor (and in cases co-develop) and later on publish through our global network.

I’m certainly considering what this could mean for Lila Dreams. But, I’m also hesitant because of what happens when you accept other people’s money, be it development funding, venture capital, etc. Usually, you lose IP rights and a huge chunk of your revenue. (Kongregate’s Premium Games Program was a rare exception and a beautiful thing).

In the short term, that could mean Lila would get made sooner. I would do a happy dance, and that would be amazing.

In the long term, that could mean I would lose rights to my own creation. I don’t really mind to share the money, because a company like Nexon could really help market the game, and you would definitely learn from working with them.

But, I don’t want to give up my intellectual property rights for short term gains. I think of my works as franchises, not just fire and forget projects. What about the graphic novels? The spin-off games in various genres? The epic TV series? The Lila Dreams movies?! *pant, puff*

Well, I am only assuming the worst here. I guess nobody is forcing me to do anything, right? I might submit the game and, if they like it, find out what their terms are like. You never know. It might be peachy like Kongregate!

To anyone who visits this blog regularly, above all, I thank you! But also, I hope you will keep Lila Dreams on your radar. The project is at a standstill, but it’s not dead.

Cave Story took five years to be created, and it’s not even an online game. I’m not saying expect that kind of epic time frame, just that the previously planned release date worked on the assumption that there would be funding and a team. Well, it’s just me and my pocket lint now.

Lila Dreams is no longer slated to appear on Kongregate as a premium game. In fact, Remnants of Skystone is the only premium game which will be released in the future. Kongregate will not be green lighting any more games. The economy is bad, so certain things had to give, I’m told.

[Correction: I was under the impression that Skystone was the only other game to be released after Zenning, but it sounds like I may have misunderstood what I was told. My apologies. I didn't mean to confuse or misrepresent anything/anyone. I wish the best for all the developers who will release their premium games with Kongregate!]

This is actually not a bad thing! Since I retain all the intellectual property rights, I am now free to pursue other ways of getting the game off the ground.

The Project

The current circumstances are that I can’t continue the project immediately. I have to build my way up, starting with some other projects which are all designed to get me to the point to where I can work on Lila Dreams again. I need backend infrastructure. I need client code. I need art. And so on. That’s all coming, but being one person, I can only do it in stages.

The Technology Platform

I am pretty sure that I will be using Unity for the client. Lila Dreams will be a 3d game. Being web-embeddable or downloadable is also a nice option to keep open. Plus, there’s a fast growing number of people working with Unity, so I think the pool of talent will be rich enough to tap into later.

The Game Design

I am going to make some fairly big revisions to the design as described in this blog. The game has to be scaled down to a size I can manage alone. I have some ideas for directions I want to go, but I’m still contemplating several different possibilities that I like equally. The difficulty is to choose which one best fits this setting and what I want the game to be about in terms of multiplayer activities.

The Future

My plan is to keep quiet about the project for a while. I don’t want to raise any expectations until I have something tangible to show for it. I don’t want to reveal anything until it’s a certainty, be that gameplay, art, or business model. I will post here from time to time, but there won’t be a lot of noise until significant progress is being made.

This is indie game making, and this is reality. I am sorry to those I have disappointed, but I hope you will give me another chance later. This is a game that I won’t stop working on.

So, some time from now, when you see that Lila Dreams is back in production, it will really be back in production!

I guess that you, dear readers, mostly know that Lila Dreams will use the “free to play” business model, along with micro-transactions and some ads. This is a rather controversial thing in this day and age, so I want to describe our philosophy about how we will approach the thorns of this particular issue.

(If you don’t know what “micro-transactions” are, it simply means [in the context of our game] that you pay a small fee for in-game items and services, like buying a shirt or hat for your character or paying for an extra convenience in the game. If you’ve ever bought a ringtone for your phone or a song from iTunes, you’ve already used micro-transactions in other contexts.)

The controversy

It all began when lots of people played games like Everquest and World of Warcraft, and they merrily paid $15 per month for access to the game. (Nothing wrong with that! Subscriptions are nice.)

Meanwhile, over in Korea, where there’s an astronomical piracy rate because of obscenely fast Internet connections which I’m very envious of (don’t even talk to me about Japan’s broadband), they decided to use a different payment model in order to deter copying of their games. Why pirate something that’s already free to copy and share? They made their games free. But then they needed to eat, so they decided to charge money for items in the games.

It worked. The Korean people did grin, and there was much rejoicing. The pirates were outmaneuvered, and the game makers could continue their craft.

Back here in America (with our much, much, much, much, much, much, much slower Internet connections and lower but still annoying piracy rate), having seen that the Koreans were doing well and that offering a game for free with optional, small purchases gave players a lot of benefits, some companies gave it a try.

It kind of worked. But there was much gnashing of teeth and even some confusion from gamers who liked to pay their money each month instead of paying in small amounts whenever they felt like it or not at all. Meanwhile, many other folks bought songs, ringtones, and even some games for their iPods and cellphones using very small fees to pay for very small bits of content.

Some time has now passed, and the micro-transaction business model is getting better (it may even start to feel fine, eventually). But times are still dark for micro-transactions in games, and there is much work to be done.

Our philosophy

It’s not so much a philosophy as an experiment, but there are some guiding principles we intend to follow when determining how to structure the use of micro-transactions in Lila Dreams.

1. Thou shalt offer a full, compelling experience to he or she who wisheth not to pay at all, ever.

2. Thou shalt not charge for that which maketh the gameplay unbalanced.

5 3. Those things for which players chooseth to pay shalt be worthy and enhance the game experience.

To summarize, that means we want to give you a complete game experience even if you don’t buy anything. But (you knew it was coming, calm down) we want to offer very compelling reasons for you to pay which will enhance your experience in the game.

This turns out to be a really good business model for us, because Creatrix Games is a really small company. For one thing, it deters piracy. If our games get pirated, it really hits us hard because we don’t have the marketing reach to make up for it in volume of sales. For another thing, we can remove almost all the barriers to entry, things like the need to install a program to play the game (gone, we use Flash for the user interface); things like paying a monthly fee to play the game (gone, you can play all you want for free). Without those issues in the way, we can get more players to try the game.

It also turns out to have some benefits for players. There’s nothing to download, no CD keys to juggle and lose, no copy protection to annoy you. You can play on Windows, Mac or Linux, from anywhere that has a web browser and Flash 9. You don’t have to pay if you don’t feel compelled. You choose what you want to pay for based on the merit of the content. If our game sucks, you don’t lose any money finding out.

I will be revisiting this topic later, once we can unleash more details about the game itself and after we have figured out with more precision exactly the way we want to implement this. Hopefully the five three principles outlined above will set your mind at ease. We do not want to rip you off or force you to pay, but we have to balance that with earning enough to eat dinner so we can continue to make this game awesomer and awesomer!

And now for something completely different

Here’s some new concept art for you. (Click on it for full effect.) What is it? It’s the base of Lila’s Tower, with the city wrapping around it. Aren’t those little cliff homes cool? Good job, Greg!!