It's probably a good thing for the industry if the era of the small, derivative game is coming to a close. Also from my own point of view as a selfish asshole - I am incapable of making decent small games :p

Translation

One more - this has to be read in all its glory.

Just realised I had .25p on Paddy Power so I've stuck it on Leeds to beat Watford, I could potentially double my money here. Damn straight.

At 8/25/09 12:48 AM, Duchednier wrote: i almost said it was Gil... i gotta lay off the final fantasy

Which Server?

At 8/25/09 10:45 AM, knugen wrote: Did sponsors at some point decide to only go for bigger deals, did the financial crisis significantly cut down their budget, is our game too sucky, or what's up? :P

I couldn't get past about the 25% point of level 1.

If you read it from a sponsor's perspective, its like a pitch. They are going to play it about a minute and decide if they like it or not before moving onto one of the hundreds of other games. Something has to catch them quick and things need to be right.

At 8/25/09 12:20 PM, jmtb02 wrote: If you read it from a sponsor's perspective, its like a pitch. They are going to play it about a minute and decide if they like it or not before moving onto one of the hundreds of other games. Something has to catch them quick and things need to be right.

I think what jmtb is trying to say is that it needs boobs.

At 8/25/09 11:44 AM, Johnny wrote:

At 8/25/09 12:48 AM, Duchednier wrote: i almost said it was Gil... i gotta lay off the final fantasy

Which Server?

Gil is the generic money system in every FF game, i'm playing 7 on my psp and 12 on ps2 right now :P

And i wasn't too interested in 13, but i learned about the battle system and it looks AMAZING!

At 8/25/09 10:45 AM, knugen wrote: So whatever happened to the sponsorships for smaller games? We (me and Argentin) have had a game out on the market for almost a month now

that game is sweet! but it's missing something, it needs more

knugen, a platformer with those control schemes would be cool.

At 8/25/09 12:20 PM, jmtb02 wrote: I couldn't get past about the 25% point of level 1.

Is it really that hard? =/ I realize you get good at your own games as you develop them, but I find it almost too easy.. Some of my friends said it was hard too, I personally don't really mind if it is, as long as it's closer to 'challenging' than impossible.

But what does everybody think, should we ease it up a bit?

If you read it from a sponsor's perspective, its like a pitch. They are going to play it about a minute and decide if they like it or not before moving onto one of the hundreds of other games. Something has to catch them quick and things need to be right.

Yeah, and I definitely realize this game isn't the kind of game that would bring in the big bucks in any way (I mostly saw it as good way to practice OOP and AS3). But the so far the only bid is $100 for exclusive, and that is to be split with artist and musician, surely we should be able to get more? :O

At 8/25/09 12:54 PM, ImpotentBoy2 wrote: that game is sweet! but it's missing something, it needs more

Hm, perhaps boobs?

100 bucks exclusive? i would say no. here's what i would do
double the width of the game and have 2 floating platforms per interval instead of one( i know they're not platforms but i didn't know what to call them) then have spikes or traps that the player cant hit.

this is just my opinion but the game is very linear right now and should have more than just timing and accuracy difficulty.

At 8/25/09 01:04 PM, knugen wrote: But what does everybody think, should we ease it up a bit?

it's hard at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's easy. It was also a fun game to play

At 8/25/09 02:42 AM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: the site says winners get a shiny trophy to decorate their mantle, and the grand category gets $5000

Well congrats for getting entered, hope you win!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbmxw6bef yQ#movie_player

Lady gaga has a dick? Watch from 1.11 onwards :P

At 8/25/09 01:20 PM, ImpotentBoy2 wrote: 100 bucks exclusive? i would say no. here's what i would do
double the width of the game and have 2 floating platforms per interval instead of one( i know they're not platforms but i didn't know what to call them) then have spikes or traps that the player cant hit.

this is just my opinion but the game is very linear right now and should have more than just timing and accuracy difficulty.

Definitely agree with you on that it's linear, the powerups gives it some variation, but not much I suppose.

Your ideas are good, but there wont be any major modifications to this game, I have since long moved on to new stuff. I will keep them in mind though for the small chance that we will make a sequel ;)

At 8/25/09 01:29 PM, Magical-Zorse wrote:

At 8/25/09 01:04 PM, knugen wrote: But what does everybody think, should we ease it up a bit?

it's hard at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's easy. It was also a fun game to play

I've played 1 game nearly exactly like it (it was a download game, couldnt remember the name though but someone compared aether to it and sent me a link and no it really didnt resemble it but it sure as hell resembled yours) and 1 flash game similar to it (not not quite the same)
http://www.adamatomic.com/gravity/

Honestly, you have to ask yourself how much you think the game is worth which is a combination of how well the game can spread coupled with how fun/addicting/original it is, how much pull your name has, and how much you can promote the game. Not "well sponsors pay 1000 for games so that's what I should get for anything"

I got my school books for college, guess what was in there?

4 x 6 Bamboo Tablet
500 gig hard drive
Art supplies galore
14$ book.

I have intuos 3 6 x 8 tablet so i'm just gonna sell the bamboo lol. But i'm liking the hard drive :P

I'm finding this to be the most epic booklist EVER though, theres only 1 book! :P

At 8/25/09 02:41 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: I've played 1 game nearly exactly like it (it was a download game, couldnt remember the name though but someone compared aether to it and sent me a link and no it really didnt resemble it but it sure as hell resembled yours) and 1 flash game similar to it (not not quite the same)
http://www.adamatomic.com/gravity/

Yeah, I am not proud about it, but I certainly wont lie: A very large chunk of the concept is pretty much ripped from another game, I can't remember its name as it was a "weird" one, but it had a few significant flaws which we considered fixable. For one it was much harder than our version as the hook thingy was shot from the player (like ours), but the shooting angle was equal to the angle between the bottom of the screen and the mouse. Not intuitive at all.

Honestly, you have to ask yourself how much you think the game is worth which is a combination of how well the game can spread coupled with how fun/addicting/original it is, how much pull your name has, and how much you can promote the game. Not "well sponsors pay 1000 for games so that's what I should get for anything"

I actually do think much along those lines, even though it may not show in my posts, but of course I lack the experience that sponsors have when it comes to estimating how many views a sponsored game would need to get in order for it to be profitable. That is why I refer to previous sponsor deals when trying to figure out a suiting price tag, and that is what brings me to the conclusion that we aren't getting bids that quite corresponds to the potential of this game (note that I'm not saying it will shoot into the top 50 and get millions of views, or anything along those lines).

All this brings me to my original question; did sponsors' approach to smaller games change at some point?

At 8/25/09 03:22 PM, knugen wrote: All this brings me to my original question; did sponsors' approach to smaller games change at some point?

I think some research into how popular development is becoming would help. If there are a lot more people developing smaller games, it's going to adversely affect how much interest a single one generates. I know a lot of people who a few years ago were developing as a hobby have turned it into a job - maybe we're seeing an explosion of young, otherwise unemployed developers.

At 8/24/09 08:05 PM, zrb wrote: This is insane, Cyclo Maniacs btw:

From what Longanimals said, they got $23k from the sponsorship+5k more if it did well on Kong(which is did) which makes $28k alone. Its gotten over 1 million views on Kong in a few days also, which with 50% revshare has to be at least $2000 more.

It took them 6 weeks to make that game, dear god !

Dont think thats right, they got offered $23k but went with the kong performance based sponsorship instead, i think :) I know he did $7k worth of licenses over the weekend though, bastard!

These kong sponsorships are goldmines if you get a hit btw, if anyone gets offered one on a game they think will do, fucking take it, even if you have high offers from other sites, so glad we turned down the $6k offer for Penguinz in the end.

Does anyone know any sites with good wall art? I have a new room and want to filll my walls with inspiration!

At 8/25/09 03:27 PM, Jimp wrote:

Does anyone know any sites with good wall art? I have a new room and want to filll my walls with inspiration!

Honestly, paint a mural of Penguinz, gunz blazing and headbands flapping heroicly in the wind.

I would.

At 8/25/09 03:22 PM, knugen wrote: All this brings me to my original question; did sponsors' approach to smaller games change at some point?

No, average price of sponsorships has shot up for mid to large games though so people's perspective on small game sponsorships are skewed.

Project monochrome got me $300 when it was released in like 2005 or whatever

Closure got me (my share after paying jon his share) i think like 4k, plus a free speaker pass to GDC ($2500 value), and probably about, i dunno, 2k in misc prize and ad money (and some other stuff too like invaluable business relationships).

Did dan break even on project monochrome? I'm sure as hell he did. Did Tom break even on Closure? It's a much fishier situation. From a pure ad revenue standpoint there's no way he did (he'd need over a $15 CPM on the closure page to break even, which is really really tough when average CPMs are lower than $0.30)

Sponsors generally don't care too much, they need to offer big games large sponsorships if they want to keep in good standing (and viewers that come for one game often stay and play others too if there's a constant stream of content), but they do bank on the riskier chance of a small game exploding over the web and getting 10 million views a day for something that cost $500 to sponsor, and they know that if you spend less time on a game then they're more willing to accept a low sponsorship (i got $500 (split $250/$250) for Pilgrimage for instance cause haha that game was worth crap...

Your game for instance, I'd imaging ~750 would be the high ceiling for what you could get for that if you stretched the pitch

At 8/25/09 03:42 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: stuff

Sounds reasonable I guess :)

Your game for instance, I'd imaging ~750 would be the high ceiling for what you could get for that if you stretched the pitch

That is actually in the interval I was thinking, when the artist asked me for an estimate as we started the hunt I believe I told him $600-800, and because of the seemingly low interest for the game we have currently set a 'buy now' price at FGL for $600. I also sent out another email to the sponsors who didn't reply the first time around, announcing this, but nothing after a couple of days.

Oh well, no matter how this turns out it can't really be seen as a very big loss since the "max value" isn't very high. Even though that $100-bid involved letting us have ads on the game, I would probably rather want to release it with just the ads and keep the possibility for selling non-exclusives, pretty much for the reasons you say small games get sponsored: $100 (divided on several people) is barely nothing, and despite being unlikely the game might become a smaller hit and get sponsors interested in licensing it.

Hmmmm i doubbbbbbt you could beat me at RB drums. But i only have RB1, not RB2. And for GH:WT i have 2 bass pedals and a headphone splitter. And i CAN do Expert +. But i think thats because i can actually play drums and guitar in real life.

/endbrag

At 8/25/09 04:31 PM, Blackfang wrote: Hmmmm i doubbbbbbt you could beat me at RB drums. But i only have RB1, not RB2. And for GH:WT i have 2 bass pedals and a headphone splitter. And i CAN do Expert +. But i think thats because i can actually play drums and guitar in real life.

/endbrag

I can do expert drums on GH, haven't played in a while since the fucking red broke again. I can only do a few songs on guitar expert. Funny since I play guitar better than drums in real life...

At 8/25/09 04:31 PM, Blackfang wrote: Hmmmm i doubbbbbbt you could beat me at RB drums. But i only have RB1, not RB2. And for GH:WT i have 2 bass pedals and a headphone splitter. And i CAN do Expert +. But i think thats because i can actually play drums and guitar in real life.

/endbrag

do you have an xbox?

At 8/25/09 04:33 PM, Saza wrote: I can do expert drums on GH, haven't played in a while since the fucking red broke again. I can only do a few songs on guitar expert. Funny since I play guitar better than drums in real life...

Yeah me too, i play guitar better than drums.

And yeah, i have an xbox but its my brothers and hes a dick. Meaning he wont let me play it.

At 8/25/09 03:42 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote:

At 8/25/09 03:22 PM, knugen wrote: All this brings me to my original question; did sponsors' approach to smaller games change at some point?

No, average price of sponsorships has shot up for mid to large games though so people's perspective on small game sponsorships are skewed.

Project monochrome got me $300 when it was released in like 2005 or whatever

Closure got me (my share after paying jon his share) i think like 4k, plus a free speaker pass to GDC ($2500 value), and probably about, i dunno, 2k in misc prize and ad money (and some other stuff too like invaluable business relationships).

sponsors generally dont like their sponsorees sharing amounts of money they got under and over the table on the open air. Most games sponsored have custom prices tailored specifically to the game they are buying. Some end up being good investments and some bad ones.
Its a slippery slope, because on the one hand as a community member you figure its something that the public has a right to know but on the other it ruins business relationships with your sponsor so as a professional its probably a bad idea to get on a pedestal and talk about your financial negotiations. Some sponsors include that in the fine print of the paper work also.

I'd say the gaming scene is decievingly lucrative. So if youre on the verge of quitting school or your job because youre under the impression its a gold mine out there, then i'd be careful with how naive you are.

At 8/25/09 05:29 PM, Luis wrote: I'd say the gaming scene is decievingly lucrative. So if youre on the verge of quitting school or your job because youre under the impression its a gold mine out there, then i'd be careful with how naive you are.

The flash scene is really crazily inconsistent and unstable to make good money in, if you actually look at the figures i quoted compared to the time I put into the games, most would actually be like... below minimum wage

But you get paid for a hobby which is always good

At 8/25/09 05:55 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote:

At 8/25/09 05:29 PM, Luis wrote: I'd say the gaming scene is decievingly lucrative. So if youre on the verge of quitting school or your job because youre under the impression its a gold mine out there, then i'd be careful with how naive you are.

The flash scene is really crazily inconsistent and unstable to make good money in, if you actually look at the figures i quoted compared to the time I put into the games, most would actually be like... below minimum wage

But you get paid for a hobby which is always good

That's the way I think of it. I'm 15 right now, 16 in a few months which will be when I can get a part time job. And even though most 13 - 15 year olds get paper rounds for like £10 a week, I think thats a bit shit.

It's a hobby, I learn more as I do it and it's nice to show people and get good feedback/criticism.

Character

I colored my character. What do you think? I might add more shading.

yes hes supposed to be faceless...for now.