Topic: S.MG - The Ministry of Games. - page 10. (Read 27185 times)

This is completely false, for the record. It is impossible to control the cashflow of fiat gold in a game even if you are exceptionally gifted in the field [of finance]. Absolutely nobody ever involved in game production to date was, and consequently this impression that "it's easy" and a solved problem simply belies a lot of Dunning-Kruger effect (ie, people are too clueless to even realize how clueless they are).

For that matter if you ask any fiat, inflationary economist they'll tell you the exact same thing: it's easy to control the cashflow in a country and mostly a solved problem. It never happens to be the case, in spite of actually gifted people in the field [of finance] being involved. So no, by no means has there yet existed an MMORPG which correctly handles the game gold problem, and I'm pretty sure unless this project succeeds there won't be for a long, long time (because people who grok this sort of thing are usually spending their time elsewhere, and it's a quite unique and incredible alignment of political and financial interests that has happened to declare the village of Gameville the site of what will be a famous battle, so there's all sorts of high value bipedals the likes of which Gameville's never seen before swarming around it - the windup to the "George Washington slept here" cultural phenomenon).


Ehehe, good pic.

But yes, it's true, using less than the best example to make your own case is usually construed as incompetence ("he either doesn't know the field enough or doesn't understand the problem enough to pick the better example") whereas doing the same to represent the opposing case is usually construed as at best incompetence. Way of the world.


This is an intricate point, because it's made out of completely different things which you improperly conflate.

So, first off: a BAD design requires grinding. That's all. It has nothing to do with RPGs; a bad marriage design requires marriage grinding, a badly organized job requires job grinding, a badly designed RPG requires RPG grinding.

Second: farming is the act of playing half the game. If the flow of gameplay can be divided into two portions, portion A and portion B, where A is perceived by players as extraneous to their enjoyment of the game, then A will be outsourced (to Chinese businesses, of course) and the game is broken. This is exactly what farming proves (to the hardheaded idiots who think "they solved currency" above): the game is badly designed.

Third: farming always inflates the economy. It makes no difference if it is or if it isn't combined with mass sell-offs of anything, this is clueless voodooman blaming one of the symptoms, much akin to medieval minds thinking that the coughing is what makes phthisic patients lose weight and there's no such thing as Koch's bacillus. The presence of meaningless crap that's money in name only is the problem, and the game designer trying to apply Western welfarism to "make the game better" (or moreover, just because he's culturally immersed in welfarism and can't quite think outside of Weber for lack of any exposure to actual culture, or even to first hand Weber crap for that matter) fails for the same reason the same nonsense fails when applied by politicians (who often seem children who aspired to design games but never got anywhere, much like our friend usagi). IRL they tend to blame "speculators" (look at Venezuela) for the IRL equivalent of "massive sell-offs". Nonsense & poppycock, they broke it, not the Chinese businessmen providing the very valuable and very respectable service of making it plain how stupid Mr. Designerman was.

Lastly, the idea that deleting players' cash is even something game management may contemplate, let alone implement is fucking scandalous.


Actually I'm told there's going to be a Design Document Highlights announcement later on, so commentary on this will have to wait for that.


It'd seem it's not because of time, tho. It'd seem it's because "we already have that, ty".


Yeah, perhaps that also counts for "largest", depending how you look at things. Good point.

I've been a gamer almost all my life, and I got into coding because of gaming. I've written several games including a fully playable nethack clone. And it always shocks me how few people in the industry really understand game design. The massive screwup that was Diablo III is a testament to that. It has been suggested many times that a great way to learn game design is to study the massive number of failures that comprise Diablo III.

You want to understand game design? Listen to a Dio or Gene interview when they talk about how to treat fans and get into the industry (here's one). Then you will understand game design.

D3 is actually a great example for this thread because it shows that billions of dollars and a (really huge) team of very experienced developers still has the chance to fail. I'd like to contrast this with CSR racing, which makes $12 million a month right now, and had a small team of (relatively) inexperienced developers.

I don't want to see S.MG fail but it is obvious to me that Mircea is in way over his head on this one. I don't know what he is thinking. He can't code and he thinks tech people are a lower form of life. He has no idea what he wants to produce or how to do it, but he expects people to come to him with completed projects. All I can say is that this will be an interesting company to watch but I liken it to a gold exploration company -- I wouldn't even consider investing until they pour their first dole bar. Good luck S.MG, you will need it.

Sure. They went the same route as Eve, except using real money to fund the economy. Eve seems to be more successful, and it's emergent gameplay seems to be far more profound and captivating. Perhaps this is what you're describing?

Yea Spiral Knights is free to play, but it funds the in-game currency through "real cash" in the same way Entropia does. It was the only thing I could think of off the top of my head without Googling.

I've seen it first hand, in production, in an experimental environment, for the purpose of such discussions for companies (like MG I suppose) to evaluate player behavior. It's very easy to control the cashflow in the game. Handling the game currency isn't the issue, it's what players do with it, which you can't control. Sometimes this is good, sometime this is bad.

It was a bad example, I apologize, but it's been cited many times as an RCE game, in many discussions on the subject. Usually people think you incompetent when you use less than the best examples, like calling Kenny G a jazz musician in front of Miles Davis.

http://i.imgur.com/6zR1x.jpg


An RPG by design requires grinding, some force it by design. You can't beat a boss, you grind levels until you're strong enough to do so. Farming, (if you're defining it as the act of grinding mobs for the sole purpose of acquiring loot), on it's own accord doesn't inflate the economy. When it's combined with mass sell-offs, like anything else, then the economy in the game tanks due to inflationary reasons. This I completely understand. Final Fantasy XI suffered massive inflation due to Chinese farmers selling Gil as a business. The only option Square had was to delete some billion+ Gil to force deflation.

This occurred due to 1) drops not being finite, 2) the currency not being finite.

Bitcoin will definitely solve 2), and I assume you're going to limit 1) as you see fit.

Definitely, but isn't this more due to the finite nature of resources in the game (money included)? When a player has to efficiently utilize "what I got" instead of endlessly farming to "get what I need", it creates another layer to the game due to the absence of farming.

However I would argue there will always be some form of farming, perhaps not on the scale of WoW or FFXI, but perhaps for small things. But then again you can make everything an "elixir", and increase the anarchistic capacity for the gameplay, which I would say creates some profound and emergent results.

Programmers may tell you they will write everything from scratch, but there will always be copy-paste.

I've already seen it first hand...not your product in particular, but definitely the experience you've described.

Ha. That gave me a good laugh, thanks for that. Very true. But that wasn't my intention to illustrate. Critically acclaimed success in a piece of art has an element of timing involved. For this reason actively trying to please the public is very much a moot endeavor. But at certain points in time someone develops something cool like Minecraft and everyone loves it. Repeating the formula never works because the timing no longer exists. "Right place right time" sort of thing I suppose.

That's usually the point of a publisher, even though the author still gets sent hate mail. C'est la vie.

I like to be thorough when it comes to my profession, even though I've been out of the industry for a few years. I am also very much enjoying the discourse.

Second Life?

Actually, Project Entropia/Entropia Universe is both the largest and oldest. Spiral Knights is some F2P java thing.


I think presenting D3 as an RCE clearly shows you don't understand what RCE means. It's not a matter of "correlation" to cash value; by this standard WoW makes the cut.


How would you know this?

Understand, the discussion here is asymetrical. We're in a position to say X is Y because Z, as we're working on X. You're not in a position to say X is Y for non-Z, because you're not working on X. The very most you can say is K says X is Y for non-Z, for any value of K in the set of people working on it (to which the answer obviously is, "that's why K isn't working for us, he doesn't have a clue").


There's some dressing up going on here, but it's not on the side you're pointing to.

First off, any game will forever remain a game, distinct from the player's life. That alternative where the player *becomes* his level 80 Warlock and lives forever a life of pixelated adventure distinct from his dreary, ramen-fed real existence is a point of fiction, possibly with mental health implications, especially if taken so far.

Second off, any game will necessarily meet your definition of "optionalism", in the sense that ANYTHING can be purchased with money. Name any game you consider escapes this so called "optionalism" and I'll show you how to hire somebody to play it for you.

The significant advantage of RCE over all other game implementations (absolutely all, including D3, WoW, FF and literally any other RPG) is that it removes the problem of farming. In your run of the mill mmorpg, built on the inflationary-minded "every action has a +EV result" the inescapable end point is a deluge of "currency" without value. In the RCE game some but not all activities are +EV, and this adds a layer of depth and richness to the player experience that can't be put into words. It will be put into facts, and you'll see it first hand.


How would you know that?


I think on one end you are confusing public opinion with forum agitation, and on the other Nobody Cares what FanFic Says. It's a rule. People who try and please a public are neither artists nor ever successful, and it occurs to me that probably the greatest service S.MG offers developers is complete immunity from having to ever listen to Internet people.


Well you've probably written some of Bitcointalk's longer posts (outside of the mentally ill and criminally minded, obviously).

This biggest one of these right now, and most successful (that I know of) is Spiral Knights. The in game currency "Energy" is used to play the game, and can only be purchased. Energy can be traded on an open market for goods and other things, but all energy spawns from users purchasing it.

Another less successful game using this model is Diablo III. All items can be traded for fiat, thus all the items correlate to a real cash value.

The reason there are few examples isn't because there "were a lot of problems with handling of game currency", but because once the mechanic is introduced it creates optionalism for the players:


Bitcoin doesn't automagically solve this issue, it solves the payment issues in the background, but not the mechanics themselves. When you add any kind of optionalism to a game, you're essentially saying "I've added a cheat code activated by money", no matter how you try to dress it up.

Spiral Knights did RCE well because they utilized economics inside the game as opposed to game subscriptions. Buying Energy amounts to buying subscription time. They didn't make it a gameplay bypass.

I understand the desire to cash in on the whole MMO cash cow:

World of Warcraft went live in 2004. A monthly subscription is/was $15.
That means for every player that plays a year, they generate $180 of revenue.
Multiply that by the peak 15 million actively subscribed players: $2,700,000,000/year

A lot of studios joke about how in the morning the Blizzard developers and managers would collectively first grab a wad of cash, throw it on the floor and roll in it for the first two hours of their work day.

I know that there are some standard deviations in there to get a more "reasonable" number (they had specials, yearly deals, etc. that changes this generalized number), but this still clearly shows the cash to be made from a successful MMORPG.

Now lets be generous and say 1/10th of those 15 million players have been playing the past 8 years:
That's $2.16 Billion they've made from that group of players.

Again I understand the desire to capitalize on such a product, but don't let this blind you from other important issues.

Bitcoin is it's own financial space, the financial giants have no reign here, what they say generally doesn't matter in relation to Bitcoin, because they've never used it. The ones that have still haven't used it as extensively as say MP.

What game industry legends have to say about the game industry definitely applies to any and all games.

To answer your rhetorical question: There is an invaluable educational value to Bitcoin if you're willing to sit and listen. As an anecdote, I've learned more from MP and others about business, than the so called MBA's learned during their "education". I've applied a few of MP's models to physical businesses that has been met with success.

MP wrote in his FAQ:

Everyone yearns for the pre-September days of computing. And alas here it is. Unfortunately it seems inevitable, the flood of college students will come and dilute the intellect, but hopefully not for awhile longer.


Are you saying the revenue model is merged in the process of developing the product? Or are you saying that you figure out what you're going to sell and how to sell it, then you create a product within those bounds?

That just seems like it over complicates the nature of selling games. Lets take the anomaly of Minecraft for example, and I use the term anomaly because there was a lot of luck involved in its success. But Notch started by first demoing a prototype on an IndieGame forum, much in the structure of this one. He got good feedback, so he continued developing it. Eventually he started charging 5 dollars per download. Unexpectedly the game was an overnight success, so he took the numbers to someone he thought best fit the role of "Manager". At that point they sat down and discussed what you described above. From this they made a simple authentication server to track purchases, similar to the functionality of Steam.

Yes, I understand it's an anomaly, but games tend to follow: "lets make cool shit now, if people like it we'll figure out what to do". The whole concept Valve popularized of, "Keep coding and the rest will take care of itself", is a sound plan. This is why you're likely confused, you know from a realistic standpoint this generally doesn't work, but in the world of games it tends to defy reality's logic.

This is why there is a mystique surrounding the entire process. You could argue the reason it worked for Mojang is due to it being an anomaly, but they aren't the only ones who took that path and succeeded.

Isn't this the same way Satoshi got Bitcoin started?

That's exactly what I was trying to say in so many words. If you have a great game and a poor business strategy you go up in flames. If you have a great business strategy and a sucky game, you go up in flames. You definitely have to do both well.

No, but I know that when business hands start trying to do creative work it ruins the creative process in the same way when artistic hands start handling money they get paint all over bills.

This is very hard to do with games generally due to the fickle nature of gamers.

Lets take Legend of Zelda for example. The first 3-4 grew into a snowball of a franchise. Then, Ocarina of Time Comes out on the Nintendo 64, the first Zelda game to be done in 3D. A critically acclaimed success people still rave about today. A year or two later, Majora's Mask, the spiritual sequel, comes out. Fans are disappointed, the game is still well designed, uses the same fundamentals used in Ocarina of Time, but it just didn't catch on with fans. Still financially successful, but fans are now on the fence with the franchise. Okay, so Miyamoto takes a step back and says, "lets mix up the art a little, go back to the cartoon-ish roots". Windwaker is announced for the GCN, and fans go fucking bonkers, foaming at the mouth in anger. Game is still excellent, and critically acclaimed, still didn't hit fans the same way as OoT. Fans state clearly, "We want a more realistic approach", so Twilight Princess comes out, fans again foam at the mouth.

The moral of the anecdote is not that you can't please everyone, but that fans are fickle and sometimes it's a "certain place / certain time" aspect to garner both commercial and fan based success. This is why I said revenue and fan-base health hang in a balance, rather than naturally align. I applaud your optimism, but don't underestimate the fickle nature of a neckbeard gamer, nor his ability to get a large portion of the fanbase foaming at the mouth in rage.

This reaches back to what I stated above, sometimes the fanbase is too fickle to please at some particular time. You can have healthy sales but upset fans, and the fanbase dwindles over time, the two do not correlate. Revenue from direct game sales generally correlate to how many people purchase the game, in the same way the box office numbers correlate to how many people paid money to see the movie. It doesn't reflect how many people walked out the theatre pissed off, in the same way healthy game sales don't reflect the attitude of the fans.

The recent reboot of SimCity is a perfect example of this trend. The game was financially successful, however you'd be hard pressed not to find long term fans who have given up on the franchise due to their disappointment in the reboot of the game. Some fans who have followed the franchise for over 20 years, being long term buyers, will likely not be buying anymore Maxis games. This is a problem, a problem that EA caused by putting too much emphasis of milking revenues from a new model they applied to SimCity relating to DLC.

S.MG won't initially have this issue, as there are no games out there to have fans, (yet). But like a good drug dealer, your income is on the "come back": recurrent customers. As a game company produces games, and people become fans of those games, they also become fans of the studio. You don't have to put as much effort of convincing as many people to buy the game since there's already loyal fans who will buy the game despite what anyone tells them.

As I said, ideally you'd like for the revenue and fanbase to align, but it rarely ever does, thus it leads to difficult compromises.

That's definitely good to hear. Giving open doors to the game development community is a good way to bring in worthwhile talent. Indie developers generally know they'll make terrible managers, that is why S.MG has so much potential. S.MG needs a good development community to surround it, the development community needs people to tell them when they're fucking up. I would say it's Win-Win if the attitude stays this way.

Which is why I called it a flamewar, no one truly cares. It's a debate for neckbeards to get into so they feel they are standing up for something they believe in: a fruitless and unproductive endeavor.

Take what the wrong way? Sounds like a compliment, and I appreciate the discourse. I don't particularly feel strongly about these topics one way or the other, just trying to illuminate some of the fundamentals. Again you gotta make your free throws: they're free points.

Curious, what points did I raise in particular that were interesting?

MP sez:


So I guess it was appreciated.

Oh damn I was reading the thread and just lost the game also what is this a movie trailer or a Game fancy he-he

When it comes to design choice the discussion here is interesting I know a fair bit about games myself but as the plan on design is still being discussed will with-hold for now.

Regarding the models both have benefits there is also the members vs non-member model where certain parts of the game are not accessible to non-members such as runescape with free servers and paying servers.
While not one of the two mentioned it is worth distinction

I guess outsourcing is also an option
Example being help S.Dice make some alternate games on their site as Abu noted

My point wasn't that you were going to use item-malls - but that deciding upon a revenue model does also restrict game-design choices and so can't be decided upon entirely seperately.  I used item-malls as an example because that's what the other poster had posted at length about.

RCE, for example, pretty much rules out single-player offline games.  RCE means games need to either be player vs house or player vs player - as the key resource has to be both limited (in terms of creation - not in terms of some maximum ever issued) and redistributable.

I totally agree that Bitcoin and an RCE model are an obvious pairing - isn't there some gambling-based MMO that already does that (which isn't an argument against someone else also doing it)?.

I think through the workings of forum magic, what was originally a distinction, contrast and opposition (RCE vs Item Malls) has been conflated into a nonsensical identity (RCE = Item Mall).

For the record and for everyone's benefit: RCE (short for real cash economy) is a Bitcoinesque way of running game universes where instead of the developer/operator playing Bernanke and issuing endless quantities of game "gold", the available gold is strictly related to funds deposited by players. Thus being an efficient hunter is more important than being a BIG hunter. There's few examples of such games being developed, specifically because pre-Bitcoin there were a lot of problems with handling of game currency. Bitcoin superbly resolves all these, and it'd be ridiculous for it not to be used for the one purpose it's actually been made to satisfy. We're like a bunch of people using a hammer for anything but nails, currently.

Item Malls are mostly unrelated, offering the player base the option to buy more or less gameplay-enhancing items for USD. We generally agree it's not a great model, which is why the specification was made that as far as possible we prefer RCE (ie, a completely different model) and I think re-reading the discussion with the distinction clearly in mind will be very helpful.

You have just lost The Game. And so have I.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_%28mind_game%29

There really are a lot of different definitions for the word "game". Maybe we should be thinking more along these lines:

I don't believe the distinction between the type of game/revenue model is that black and white.  You can't, for example, design a game, seperately determine a revenue model and then assume that the two will fit.  Some revenue models fit certain types of game better than others.  As an extreme example consider a game developed with a total time to play-through measured in the 10s of hours.  If the game is great then it could do very well sold through app stores for a small one-off fee - but it would fail dismally if you tried to sell it using a monthly-subscription model.  To a significant extent the revenue model is coupled tightly to some aspects of the game.

There are also massive design decisions which have to be made in terms of game-play.  If you're going with the item-mall idea then you first need to determine which model of it you'll use.  All of these comments are my own views - not based on forum discussions.  I see item-malls as being split into two types:

1.  The model widely used - especially by all the Chinese companies - where players basically buy success.  The vast bulk of revenue in these games comes from a very small number of whales.  To be successful (at generating revenue) game design has to focus on ways for the whales to be able to compare their strength to other players and, ideally, bully those who haven't paid much.  That allows the whales to stand out (and see clear benefit for the cash they've handed over) - and also keeps operational costs down by driving out those who won't pay as they can't compete or achieve much.

2.  Item-malls aimed at taking a smaller amount of cash from a far wider user-base.  That means ensuring that no massive difference in progress/strength can be easily bought.  It also means having to appeal to players via actual content/game-play rather than just "if you spend some more money you can be the strongest."

Type 1 is what so many gamers object to.  Progress is achieved through use of a credit-card not a brain.  As someone who has played a LOT of games over the years (and continues to do so) I don't like type 1 from a player's perspective at all - because they don't provide the challenge I'm looking for.  But that doesn't invalidate them as a means of making a profit.  And that's where thestringpuller is, I think, going wrong.  As a game-player I far prefer type 2.  But investors in S.MG (should) want whichever will give the best return on investment - the company's focus should NOT be on "what will make the most players happy" but on "what will make the most profit for our investors".  And I'm VERY certain MP is on the side of investors not players.  

None of which to say the two (pleasing investors and having satisifed players) are mutually exclusive - it's just that it's far easier to develop something that focuses on one of them than to try to deliver to both.

Well honestly, it's preferred because MP says it's preferred. I asked him why and he said "that's complicated" after a pause, which means there's about 50-50 odds he'll at some point write a Trilema post about it.


Why are you in Bitcoin when so many reputable industry giants have flat out stated the many flaws in this system? Because reputable industry giants are idiots, perhaps? Because they have different incentive structures than actual functioning markets? Who's to know.


No but look, this is mystiquizing. Nobody goes "let's make some cool shit" and then, after the cool shit is made, has meetings to establish if it will be sold as a Broadway musical, a make your own adventure book series or a line of branded sodas. The revenue model is established first, the thing that will sell is made within that model. Anyone is free to feel creatively superior to reality, but it's just a feeling.


This is additive tho'. You're acting as if doing the business homework somehow automagically prevents doing the creative homework, as if brushing your hair guarantees you can't brush your teeth and now you'll get gingivitis AND DIE!!!

It's not a this or that. It's doing this well, and doing that well.


Well yes, actually there is a way. Have a little patience now will you.


Not really. In a well managed project the incentives are so aligned that this never happens. If the situation is of that nature management has already amply failed, and the designs weren't in all likelihood too bright either.


Only if what you mean by "fanbase" is people who want to use but not pay. If that's what you mean we disagree: the free-as-in-beer-and-only-free-as-in-beer types are NOT fans. They may call themselves fans but it's a misnomer, like calling strippers chaste or politicians leaders.


At that time we were discussing, generally, what games S.MG may in time own/publish/distribute. There's really not much constraint, at the present time, like it or not. Maybe in time.


Yeah well, sorry I can't be bothered to join that debate. I really don't care if they are or are not. I don't think anybody sane cares, for that matter, much like Moliere's bourgeois is pleasantly surprised he speaks in prose but doesn't really give a shit past that.

Now don't take this the wrong way, I understand you feel very strongly about all these topics, and in many places you raise interesting points.

yep, thestringpuller should obviously be hired as consultant by MG

7 Posts and very well written

Maybe I am, but I literally just finished an article in GameInformer on microtransaction/RCE video games, titled "Red Flags". Perhaps not the best magazine to take gamedev advice from, but the fact even GameInformer is touching on the issue, means it's pretty mainstream.

Maybe I did read into it a bit too much, but it feels like you guys took a quick look at the marketplace, said "RCE based games seem to be the winners!" and are running with that without further research.

Maybe I'm underestimating the depth in which MP's research has gone into this, but with some of the blanket statements you've made, it definitely isn't showing.


Why is it preferred? Because it seems more fiscally sound based on what you know about the game industry as of right now, or because it really is the best option?

The RCE model is something most will cite in their essay: "What is wrong with modern video games?" Why MG is pursuing this model when so many reputable industry giants have flat out stated the many flaws in this system baffles me completely.

Are you really too cool to stick to fundamentals? You happen to be taller than everyone else and can dunk, so you have no reason to learn to shoot free throws? One day you'll be at the line, in a tied game, with no time on the clock, wishing you had practiced more free throws.

You're confused because you have never worked for/with a game company. There's no way in hell you can convince anyone with a brain in the game industry that a revenue model is more important than a game that will sell. That's exactly how the Atari brand failed multiple times.

Squaresoft (of Final Fantasy fame), made several games before creating the first Final Fantasy. None of these games sold. They had a solid revenue model, solid business plan, solid team. Yet no one wanted to play their games. Okay, so they give it one last shot, an RPG: their Final Fantasy. The game sells very well, generates a pretty big fanbase. It alone saved the company from imminent doom.

What do I mean by this? You can focus all day on your revenue model, solid business plan, etc. But if your game sucks, no one is going to willingly play it. In game development the traditional business process is in reverse, you start by making sure your game won't suck, then do everything else.

You have no way to prove to anyone what you develop won't suck. So lets suppose your game does suck that you spent a year, maybe 2, or perhaps 3 years, and some thousands of BTC developing. Any and everything you planned for it, including your RCE model, and overall revenue plan is irrelevant.

Then you join the ranks of Team Bondi.

You can dodge details all you want, but from the gist of what you've posted it sounds like you're creating a business plan around, "fuck the user as long as we get paid."  


It's not particularly divorced, but they hang in a balance for a game company. There will be many a decision that helps the revenue stream, but hurts the fanbase. They oppose each other by nature. Ideally everyone would love a healthy fanbase and revenue model/stream to refelect one another, but that's rarely the case. Every time someone has the bright idea to merge the two topics, they may end up making a bunch of money, but turning away a long term fanbase (EA), or growing a large happy fanbase but going defunct due to lack of revenue (Sega).  

Why is Nintendo so successful? In short it's because of long term fans. People who grew up with Super Mario Bros. on the NES are buying Mario Galaxy for their kids today. They didn't always put the fans first, but it was certainly one of their top priorities.

At the end of the day you'll be given choices that are divorced, "do I piss off the fans, or do I hurt the cash flow". There has to be a balance.


Creating a AAA title requires intensive long term labor, and large teams. Mainly due to issues revolving around structuring the game engine for the title. You either have to purchase licensing (which is $1 mn off the bat), or you have to spend n years developing an inhouse engine. As well, you usually have to put together resource allocation which amounts to a small-med animated film depending on the game: voice actors, animators, concept artists, motion capture, etc.

Lets say John Carmack didn't have access to capital, or any leverage at all. Carmack, I would say is a very skilled programmer. You ask him to develop a triple AAA title. There is no money to be found. He can't recruit a team based soley on "dreams". It'll take him a decade to create everything on his own.

The monetary budget reflects the scope a game may reach.

Yes, they can still create a great game despite lack of funds, but the scope will be drastically cut in comparison to something like Alan Wake.

So let me rephrase: MP has both the capital and leadership ability as a producer to congregate a team together capable of creating a title to compete with current AAA titles.


I'm pretty sure you said

That either means you literally don't know, or you don't care. Perhaps you don't have to know or care because you aren't designing the games. But it is an important distinction to make.


So at some point I should also look at a masterpiece painting and notice it's just oil and pigment on a canvas? Is a good book just ink on a piece of paper? Sure that's all it is, but at the same time it's much more. The whole is more than just the sum of the parts...

You clearly asked, even if rhetorically to deflect "going into detail", "why is it so important to establish conceptually what is or isn't a game?" while spearheading the PR for a game company. You represent S.MG no? S.MG = Video Company. No game company worth mentioning, in their right mind, would say such a thing, even as a joke. That was my point.  

Every year at the GDC, you'll have schmuck saying the same thing when arguing "games aren't art" which has been debated for years, becoming the new micro/monolithic kernel flamewar for the game industry. Yes your brain is just making you click a mouse or press buttons on a controller. What your brain does in between seeing the screen/hearing the sounds, and pressing buttons is what matters, not the action itself.

Like the painting, gameplay is a representation of something else. Play as a cultural phenomenon in itself is a representation.

You refuse to acknowledge this simple fact. However as your team comes together, if any of them are worth anything of value to the industry, someone will bring it up.

Edit:
John Carmack not Richard Carmack. Yesterday twas a long day.

I guess you are not only "naturally confused" (what ever that means in your sick head) but you are utterly delusional.
This mess you call "MPOE/MPEx standard" is a joke and has nothing to do with proper financial reporting.

I can understand why you think it's a new and shiny standard - you have no idea what bookkeeping and reporting are so you invented something you can understand. Because of your delusions of grandeur, it's very hard for you to comprehend that you are wrong. News flash - this delusion of yours will not make you right. Your reports are only a part of the picture. You obviously have  no idea how to put together the rest of it so it all adds up.

PS! Try pulling your head out of your ass. Maybe fresh air can help.

I think you are perhaps reading a little more into one (vague) sentence than is warranted.

The comment referred to games already established. If we are acquiring an already published title which is built around an Item Mall model, S.MG will not force a change to that. This is just plain common sense, as it's not too likely for such changes to be economically feasible anyway, in most cases.

If we are developing de novo, the preferred model is RCE. I thought that was stated sufficiently clearly, but perhaps not.

All these considerations aside, the actual concrete solutions in actual concrete circumstances will bow to those circumstances as much as practicable, we're merely discussing generalities here, and perhaps a lot past the point where it's worth it.


I'm confused as to what you mean by that? Everything starts with the revenue model, this isn't fanfic.


If competing with AAA titles was a matter of capital only (and $1mn at that) Paris Hilton would be billed above Angelina Jolie and Coindesk would be a competitive Bitcoin company, with relevance and marketshare. Sure, people with ideas (ie, fanfic) often misrepresent their inability to compete within the business in terms of not having money, because they commonly don't. Money is not really the issue, however.


Sure.


I think again you're probably going too far on the interpretative journey. My statement was simply a refusal to go into detail. You can't read into that some detail of your own choosing and then argue with it.


No, I am simply doing what PR does since time immemorial: refusing to answer questions when for whatever reasons my employer considers it pointless to entertain them.


While I can appreciate your own aesthetics and the fact that the brain exists principally to recognize patterns in the environment, be they actually there or not, at some point you'll have to notice that all you do at the computer as long you're not typing is move the mouse and click the mouse.


There's no argument here, is there?


Seems there's no argument.


As long as we agree that the definition of quality is "people are willing to part with their own labor in exchange for this" then absolutely.


Well depending on what your take is with BTC, S.MG is funded by almost 9k of such dreams. Either way really.


Why do you suppose the revenue plan and the players becoming fans are divorced topics?


Probably worth pointing out that the OP is naturally confused. S.DICE was keeping its own accounting, by its own standards. Which, I guess, were indeed ill advised, in retrospect. Had they followed S.MPOE/MPEx standards closer they would perhaps find themselves closer to the position in which S.MPOE/MPEx finds itself, which is to say the only public company of that age in BTC.

many lels indeed, no doubt. BH HTML source looks like a zen circle painting.


one more giant lel behind that link. glad I dumped all my S.DICE shares and put them into AM; my BTC30 loss due to napkin accounting was more than recovered.