Gas Powered Games New Project

the map editor looks nice, shame we dont have it for ds series, the game look like it would be fun but the 1.1 million price tag i cant see them getting, wonder what they do with the money if it dont get enuff?

According to the Kickstarter faq you only pay if they reach the funding amount by the due date. Seeing GPG only has 11 days left and they're only 38% of the way there, they're pushing the wheelbarrow uphill. There's various rewards depending on how much you pledge from a digital copy of the game for $20 to an invitation to the launch party and all rewards below that for $10,000.

Incidentally the proposed launch date for Wildman is March 2014 should they be successfull in obtaining funding.

meh waste of time. gpg shud have just released the source code for ds and the community will turn it into the way it shud have been right from the start. not this buggy and modding unfriendly crap we call ds2 and sheety crap we call ds3 plus the vaporware that was space siege.

That would have been great as the engine could have been modified and extended but will never happen as GPG sold the IP rights to the Dungeon Siege series to Square-Enix and there's never been a more anti mod scene developer than them. I love many of their games but none of them support modding to any extent except for Final Fantasy VII and to a lesser extent VIII and that's only because of the hard work of a few dedicated and obsessed fans.

Some modders did extend the capablities of the DS1 engine through dll extensions but nothing like that was ever done with DS2 as far as I'm aware.

Incidentally GPG are in serious trouble with Wildman. With only 9 days to go they're only 40% of the way to the funding cutoff. In these cash strapped times it may have propoved to be a serious mistake and may end up with the demise of GPG.

that is probably for the best. just liquidate the company and retire on the cash. i've found my new ds in skyrim.

tho dont get me wrong. i wish gpg cud distribute its content more like valve/steam. that way, u dont have to rely on a publisher also but unfortunately not every1 can pull a valve maneuver. so now, they are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

would have to agree, gpg needs to fold. i actually bought skyrim and yes its the best elder scrolls game to date, i even made a couple simple mods, but the game wasnt for me, my new ds now is star wars the old republic.

The problem is that GPG has to have a game first to distribute it that way. That's why they're going through Kickstarter to try to raise the money to make the game. As far as I know Valve/Steam don't fund external projects they just distribute them digitally which avoids a lot of hassles like physical copies of the games, boxes, self space, retailer costs, etc. Valve were successfull enough to be able to self fund their own projects and also create the Steam digital distribution network but they are very much unique in that aspect.

The traditional publisher model means that they loan the developer money to make the game which the developer then has to pay back from the 30% cut of the royalities they make. So for example with Wildman; GPG would have to sell enough games to pay back the 1.1 million dollar advance from the publisher before they start making money from the game.

As this article describes
http://games.on.net/2013/01/legal-opinion-why-are-draconian-publishers-driving-developers-to-kickstarter/ its even worst than that as publishers can have complete control over a game, can often subtract marketing costs from the developer royalities and even the power to terminate game development at any time. They can also sometimes insist that royalities a developer makes from one game is used to fund the next game from that developer.

Is it any wonder that we're getting stuck with so many sequels and their derivatives from a few successfull developers? Like Call of Duty and Pokemon. Even Dungeon Siege got to number 3 and Skyrim is number 5 in the Elder Scroll series.

Maybe this is why so many poor and bug ridden games are made, the developers are simply rushed into finishing an incomplete game or maybe their hearts aren't really in it. Perhaps the publisher model system is simply broken and on the way out considering how many have folded in the past few years. I know I'm using digital distribution networks like GOG and steam more now than buying boxed copies.

this situation kinda reminds me of youtube music stars and the music industry. many a youtube music talent have said that they rejected lucrative recording contract offers from famous music labels. they said this was because they know how the music industry works. so it was better for their music as a whole not to jump into the recording label bandwagon.

the publisher model IS broken from anecdotal evidence. i can remember that giant publisher that folded a few years back during the financial crisis. vivendi was it called? cant remember... i only know that they are one of the "draconian titan" publishers... as in a developer's worst nightmare to talk to. they were also a lawsuit troll iirc.

i actually dont want gpg to fold but with all the nonsense these days, its better to cut off the cancer before it grows bigger. im surprised only one giant label went bust. i thought the video game industry bubble wud burst harder taking several publishers along with it. ea one of them i was hoping.

sadly, the devs are simply rushed and micro-managed here and there to meet milestone deadlines and as a result their hearts arent in it aka burnout, i think... so its a combination of both that turns into a vicious cycle.

there are only a handful of games now that are as good as the ones pre-year 2000. e.g. good ol commander keen and wolfenstein 3d. keke~ :mrgreen:

duke nukem forever is an example of a game being screwed left right and center by crappy publishers who mess with a dev's funding. a terrible pity its all about the $ these days. what about the storyline? what about the gameplay?

as has been proven many times in the movie industry. the best way to have a successful and great movie is to have one with a great story.

this is also cross applicable to the video game industry. what happened to all the games with an epic story? we only get photorealistic pr0n (as in photorealistic textures) in games these days cuz that is the only brute force way they know to entice consumers. where is the innovation of an epic story and great gameplay? an epic story helps with the immersion factor and indirectly contributes to better gameplay.

thus, we can conclude that the publisher model is broken and stifling real talent and innovation due to so many crappy and bug ridden games being made in the past year 2000 or later.

here's an interesting food for thought: how many of us ds modders here on std wud be famous game makers by now if the system werent so retarded?