Re: Loki files for banruptcy protection.

[Mark Collins <m.collins@codeplay.com>]

On Sunday 19 August 2001 05:14, you wrote:

> The computer games busines is booming - I spent last week at SigGraph where
> computer games applications have come to totally dominate the world of
> graphics.  There was a LOT of very serious talk about computer games coming
> to take over the role of TV and Cinema as the principal means of story
> telling before the end of this decade.

It's a crowded market place. So many people are trying to make a quick buck, 
and you gave several mega-developers (EA, Titus, Ubisoft and the like), so  
it's getting harder andharder to persuade people to buy your title over 
someone elses.. I'd expect a major=league crash sometime in the future.

> * We used to see "The game of the movie" - but this year, we have already
> seen at least a couple of instances of "The movie of the game".

Max Payne is next...

> * The top three games made last year each made more profit than the movie
> Titanic.

Not suprising, Titanic must have cost a fortune to produce.

> * HOWEVER, only one game in 35 ever makes a profit.
>
> Just as in the movie business, it's very hard to know in advance what games
> titles will "take off" and which will simply sink without trace.  Everyone
> knows that no matter what, the next James Bond movie will do quite well -
> and everyone knew well in advance that Quake III would turn a profit...but
> if you are an unknown - then there is a HUGE risk factor involved.

This is the eact reason there are so many clones out there. A company 
releases a game, and it becomes popular (eg. Quake, C&C). OAround this time, 
several startups are designing their "premier" titles, and see that 
[Quake|C&C] is selling really well.

"Well, why don't we just copy that?" asks the Manager.

"Hell, we can just license the technology, and have it out of the door in 6 
months", replies the technicalogy manager

Of course, this company aren't the only people to think that, so within 6 
months of a game hitting number 1, you have dozens of cheap clones which 
don't add anything to the genre. This is why so many games fail, not because 
of the consumer, but lazy developers.

> So, for Loki, if they had set out to incur the enormous expense of writing
> a new game from scratch *just* for Linux, they would bear the dual risks of
> only having a 3% chance of getting a hit *and* even when if it is a hit,
> the relatively small market of Linux users would shrink the potential
> profits by a factor of 50 or so simply because of the small user-base.
>
> Their idea (and it was basically a reasonable one) was to port games that
> were known to be successful.  That eliminates the 97% chance of coming up
> with a dud.

There is a major flaw in that premise: Linux users have different tastes to 
Windows users. I'm sure you remember the email I sent out a while back about 
what games people like to play, I think the results showed a slight trend 
towards "intelligent" games, not titles such as Deus Ex or UT.

There was a lot of hype about MindRover in the Linux press, which only adds 
weight to this theory. Kent Quirk (The original author of MindRover) had a 
good idea there, and is probably going to make shitloadsa money form the 
sequal.

> But (as you have already pointed out), people can dual-boot.  If you are a
> Linux enthusiast who is also a dedicated games player then you *HAVE* to
> dual boot (or buy only console games).  That means that the vast proportion
> of Loki's market will already have the game in the Windoze version - so
> they are now working only a small percentage of an already small percentage
> of the market.
>
> What needed to happen was for Loki to port each game as it was being
> written and release it on the same day and at the same price as the Windoze
> version and have it on the shelves of the exact same stores.

Stop quoting my slashdot article :)

> The bottom line is: Why did they fail to do that?
>
> I don't know the answer - but if I had to guess it would be that the big
> games companies are VERY busy that close to the release date and they
> simply don't have the time or energy to even THINK about talking to Loki.
>
> So we are back in the usual chicken-and-egg situation:  We need more games
> to get more Linux users.  We need more Linux users to get more games.
>
> The only way to get out of that loop is to write FREE Linux games
> ourselves...which is what I do.  The problem is that it can take 100 people

We need *high-quality* free linux games, of which there aren't veyr many. 
FlightGear, TuxKarts and the like are good, but they're not going to draw Joe 
'LeetFrag' Bloggs to Linux gaming.

> three years to write a major game - you increasingly need to hire actors to
> do the voice overs, full scale orchestra's to record the music and pay
> skilled artists to do the artwork.  Programmers make up a tiny fraction of
> those 100 people.  Most games are *programmed* by just a handful of people.

At Silicon Dreams, we were organised thus:
Each team had around 5 dedicated programmers
Each team had an average of 4 artists
Each project had a producer (some had an assistant producer (Lara *grin*))
There were several smaller teams for building technology (graphics engines 
etc)
A team of 2 musicians/sound technicians for the whole company

Some other companies have more artists assigned to a project, but usually the 
same (low) number of programmers.

> Hence having a lot of Linux software people try to write a game is a very
> tough proposition.
>
> In my two OpenSource games (Tux-A Quest for Herring and TuxKart) I was able
> to write all the software single-handed in a relatively short time - but
> getting 3D and 2D artists and musicians to throw in some effort has been
> more-or-less a dead end.

Music isn't really a problem (assuming you have no problem using Windows to 
create it). There is some excellent software available (I use Magix Music 
Studio Generation 6 for mine) and royalty-free samples available for a low 
price, so even an old Pentium can be used for that (assuming you have no 
problems with dance/techno/industrial).

Art can also be done quite easilly, if you're prepared to invest more time in 
the technology side of things (IK-type systems).

> So we end up with freeware games being things where you don't *need*
> artwork - things like Tetris (of which there are now 45 versions that run
> on Linux).
>
> My next game "The Chronicles of The Evil Overlord" is designed to need a
> minimum of artwork and make up for it with much more programmed features. 
> But I'm under no illusions about how hard that will be to do.

Steve, I'm working on a NURBS/IK character animation system for this exact 
reason (can produce lots of artwork from a single frame+script file). Contact 
me off list if you're interested in helping...

> I don't believe that.  RedHat is profitable - QED.  Linux users not only
> pay for things, they even pay for things they could theoretically download
> for free! The shelves in Fry's have about two shelf-feet of Loki games and
> about 40 shelf- feet of Linux distro's - there is a reason for that.

One of our main concerns about adding Linux support to vectorC iat work is a 
fear of piracy. While there aren't as many source for Linux-warez, the ration 
of warez-users:non-warez users is much scarier than on Windows.

> Well, I don't think they could stay in business that way.  To have to write
> 35 games from scratch just to get a statistically good chance of having a
> winner would be hard enough - but then to have to survive on the relatively
> small sales volume of the Linux community while they write the next 35...I
> don't think so.

I disagree here. Assuming Loki spend enough tme doing market research and 
design a game people want to play (You can find this out in advance, you just 
need to do a little *shudder*research*shudder*).

You still need to have a good codebase for this though, but Loki has (had?) 
some very talented coders.

> What I think MIGHT work would be to very carefully research what genre of
> game the Linux community wants - then write a game that's carefully
> targetted at exactly that.  I suspect that Linux users are generally a less
> diverse crowd than the Windoze community - so you could leverage that to
> change that one in 35 chance of hitting the money into perhaps a one in
> three.

What I said just ebfore applies here too :)

> I don't think you need dealers.  Linux people are on the Internet all the
> time. I bet most of us buy things over the web on a fairly regular basis
> and getting software that way would not be unnatural.  Distribution is
> expensive.

Actually, you're partly right there (And partly wrong). Many Linux users are 
either a) privacy freaks who won't want the Evil Credit Agencies controlling 
their lives, or b) have shit credit ratings, and can't get a CC.

However, I did a little research into the cost of self-publishing a while 
back. Assuming you can sell 2,500 units (not hard, all things considered), 
you can press CDs for at most $1 each (includes packaging).

If you generate plenty of hype (read: good marketing), you could, in theory, 
generate enough advance orders of the title to cover these costs. FOr 
example, if you sold the title for $20 a pop (online), you would only need to 
sell 250 units to cover production costs (add shipping to the order so that 
doesn't cut into your margins).

Generating publicity is a piece of piss, assuming your game has some 
"features" that people will want to use. Sites like slashdot are more than 
willing to announce the release-date of a title, and I'm sure TuxGames gets 
enough regular traffic to help with this. Hell, a company like TuxGames or 
The Linux Emporium might order enough units in advance to cover the 
production costs.

> It is - but there are LOTS of jobs in the games industry.

Not at the moment, there aren't. Remember, a lot of the larger companies are 
run by *shudder*businessmen. They read the news about the decline in the 
technology market, and they react like any other technology company would. 
Take the recent Dynamix and G.O.D. (is dead, and no one cares). games 
closures.

> No - the loss of Loki in itself is no big deal - but the publicity it's
> demise (well - it's only chapter 11 - it's not dead yet)...has generated
> will make it much harder for the next contender to get
> funding/credibility/whatever.

I recently had a "debate" (read: flamewar) with RMS about this sort of thing, 
and he made a single good point (which applies here): Get a day job. If games 
development is your passion, you can get a day job to cover development costs 
(and artists fees) until you start getting orders for the title.

Nurgle