Plan for Jeff Tunnell

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Jeremy Alessi   (Mar 29, 2005 at 21:42 GMT)

Ouch ...

Wasn't the total amount of wholesale $516,000 for a total loss of of about ($3,634,000) instead of only $51,600 for wholesale?

Still ... much agreed you can't just throw good tools, money, and a franchise at a project and expect the game to rock. Sure it'll help but you definitely need an inspired group of people make it magic.

Clint S. Brewer   (Mar 29, 2005 at 21:45 GMT)

12 * 43000 = 51600 ?

:)
edit: ah hah Jeremey the quick strikes again
Edited on Mar 29, 2005 21:46 GMT

Jeff Tunnell   (Mar 29, 2005 at 21:49 GMT)

DoH! Oh well, even with correct math, the loss is huge.

Logan Foster   (Mar 29, 2005 at 21:54 GMT)

Jeff you forgot the cost of a Havok Physics Engine liscense in your totals too.

Michael Cozzolino   (Mar 29, 2005 at 21:59 GMT)

It's a shame if it kills the franchise though. We shall see.

Jeremy Alessi   (Mar 29, 2005 at 22:03 GMT)

If only they'd developed the game on a budget ... $516,000 would be great if they'd only spent even $100,000 on the game's development. Development tools are really over inflated when you consider they paid more than the game made just for the tools used to make it.

Gonzo T. Clown   (Mar 29, 2005 at 22:35 GMT)

Think they would sell me the Tribes name now that they are done with it? LOL


I hate to see the Dynamix legacy end up like this, but I do feel that VU got exactly what they deserved.

Jay Barnson   (Mar 29, 2005 at 22:43 GMT)

Most likely, this is going to go into someone's books as proof that "PC Gaming is dead." Even though you don't have to go far (Half Life 2) to refute it.

One day the bean-counters may realize that you can't make videogames on an assembly line.

Dan MacDonald   (Mar 29, 2005 at 22:48 GMT)

I thought something must be up when they canceled the planned and all future uptdates/patches to the title. That's quite the (loss) ;)

Peter Dwyer   (Mar 29, 2005 at 22:56 GMT)

:o)

Timothy Aste   (Mar 29, 2005 at 23:05 GMT)

Wow, oddly enough Zach, Robert, Alex and myself were talking about this very exact thing at lunch today. :)

Pat Wilson   (Mar 29, 2005 at 23:10 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Jeff has taken over my case of Rabies for the time being.

Brian Wells   (Mar 30, 2005 at 00:39 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

<rant><rave>

I cannot understand how anyone can make a game with an engine that costs nearly a million dollars alone, then expect to make money. First you have to pay people to make the game itself, which can take years. Then you have to box it and market it. You have to sell hundreds of thousands of copies to break even. I think the game industry is trying to do what Hollywood does.

The problem is that if a movie fails the studio can recoup some money in DVD sales and rental fees. Games don't have that secondary income. They have the bargain bin at EB Games. I can't understand why anyone releases a game that requires stores. Everyone has a cable modem or DSL these days it seems. Why make a box, print a manual and stamp a CD?

I am not saying that it is not possible to make a great PC game and make money this way. I just think that it is already a rarity in today's market. People just aren

Brian Wells   (Mar 30, 2005 at 00:45 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

P.S. Tribes 1 was a big part of my life. At 17 I was deflowered as my Tribes dedicated server ran in the background humming...the warmth of my Creative Blaster Voodoo card radiating accross the room...it brings back memories.

RIP old friend... *sob*

Pug ConDoin   (Mar 30, 2005 at 01:03 GMT)

Tribes1 was great but starsiege was my true love for pc games. Thentribes2 was a dessaster crashed on update and played like crap. After full patching and having the t2c mod added it was better but still not great.

Tribes:V I like as a game. Though Unlike alot of old tribesers I didnt want or expect a clone of tribes1/2 I was hoping for a game that was diffrent but incorporated the tribes parts that to me made tribes fun. The jetpack and skiing and inv stations and such where what made tribes so fun to me.

I love t:v skiing its a blast and so much better IMHO then tribes1/2. The problems I have with it are mainly due to the fact that most of the maps are FAR to small when they didnt need to be. Unreal tech can deal with far larger maps, This is a FACT. IG/VUG wanted the game to be IN YOU FACE. Thats not tribes.....

I have no problem with unreal tech or torq or any game engin for that matter. The farcry engin is pretty kool if you system can coap(seen it choke a system at 800x600 that could run t:v at 1280x1024 maxed out.)

the worst flaw in t:v was the marketing and time of relice. You dont put out a tribes game against a doom/quake/halflife or even bf type game. They will win tribes is a niche game even t:v isnt main stream really. And you dont confuse the marketing. Eather market it as a sp game or an mp game not the muddled crap they did. Also they didnt put the name out for shit. Nobody i know that wasnt into xmp/tribes/unreal community had a clue about it.

Blah i hope vug chokes and dies.....

Treb Connell (formerlyMasterTreb   (Mar 30, 2005 at 01:46 GMT)

they should of used torque. lol

Gonzo T. Clown   (Mar 30, 2005 at 02:29 GMT)

They couldn't use Torque. They had a multi-million dollar budget and every executive knows you can't hand over millions of dollars to people you don't know(Torque SDK owners) to program a game. You have to hire an established studio that has millions in payroll, utilities, equipment, and taxes to pay. That's the way it works. If you have millions to spend, you find the best way to get the least from it. Hell, the $100.00 price tag is enough to tell any "Smart Executive" that you need to stay a mile away from Torque. After all, what could you possiby get for $100.00 bucks? LOL

Adam deGrandis   (Mar 30, 2005 at 03:38 GMT)

Quote:

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I hate to see the Dynamix legacy end up like this, but I do feel that VU got exactly what they deserved.

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My thoughts exactly.

I do feel bad for the devs though. I was never keeping tabs on the game as it was being produced, but I can only imagine they got an insane raping from the higher ups through the entire process... And the end result is a game no one is buying. That just sucks.

Jeff Wilkinson   (Mar 30, 2005 at 03:39 GMT)

Its funny how Starsiege: 2845 is now using TSE

Just my two cents

Michael Cozzolino   (Mar 30, 2005 at 04:03 GMT)

Don't forget the Tribes mod "Renegades" is too.

Jay Barnson   (Mar 30, 2005 at 04:05 GMT)

Quote:

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I cannot understand how anyone can make a game with an engine that costs nearly a million dollars alone, then expect to make money.

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The model that the industry is using now is that a couple of hits carry all the other games that lose money.

Of course, something that fails QUITE this spectacularly (like Daikatana - which I think also sold only 40K copies after a MUCH bigger investment) can sink a company.

Jason "nuvem" Kozak   (Mar 30, 2005 at 04:52 GMT)

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The model that the industry is using now is that a couple of hits carry all the other games that lose money.

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In other words, they're gambling with the jobs of every person they employ.

Charlie Malbaurn   (Mar 30, 2005 at 05:29 GMT)

Regardless of the loss, it's still got to be hard to see something that you created get taken over and turned into a giant turd.

Brian Wells   (Mar 30, 2005 at 07:18 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

What about Duke Nukem Forever? I wonder how it will be when it comes out?

Hehehehe

Mark Shurtliff   (Mar 30, 2005 at 08:18 GMT)

Thanks for that analysis Jeff, I was sort of holding my breath for T:V to come around with a patch that was more 'community friendly' but my only regret now is that I paid $50 in support of that franchise release instead of $19.99 which it's hardly worth now.

The Dynamix team showed what game support should be like with T1 and I'm sorry I only paid the early 2000 price of $39 instead of $100 that work of gameplay art deserved.
Edited on Mar 30, 2005 08:20 GMT

Euan Gamble   (Mar 30, 2005 at 11:22 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Yikes!

Sven "RaCooN" Knie   (Mar 30, 2005 at 15:30 GMT)

@Jeff,
are this sale units only for the US market or for the whole world ? The game also was sold in europe (but it seems with the same success in Germany => amazon Germany kicked it already out of there list).

So if the units are not for the whole world, you have to add some more units (but also add some more money to the marketing).

overall it's still a financial bankrupt.

Josh Williams   (Mar 30, 2005 at 18:13 GMT)

Sven, worldwide it appears it sold 75K copies through February, a decent chunk of which were discounted.
Edited on Mar 30, 2005 18:13 GMT

Pug ConDoin   (Mar 30, 2005 at 18:59 GMT)

"Jeff Wilkinson (Mar 30, 2005 at 03:39 GMT)
Its funny how Starsiege: 2845 is now using TSE

Just my two cents"

Jeff they would use unreal 2k4 as orignaly planned but VUG wouldnt let them. The problem isnt unreal its the "enhancments"they made to unreal. with all they did to the engin they might as well have started from scrach.....

Phil Carlisle   (Mar 30, 2005 at 19:15 GMT)

From what I recall, Tribes 2 wasnt a huge "hit" either, but definitely made 43k sales look silly.

I agree though, Jeff's completely right. You cant use a "formula". People looked at T:V and saw that:

1) It wasnt "tribes", it had a new engine, new developers, bigger budget etc
2) It played differently

I'm sure it would have actually done better if it had used Torque. I'm not just saying that, I dont mean technically it wasnt good, but the perception was already there from the beginning that Tribes and the engine that creates tribes is kind of interchangable.

We still see torque games and mentally think of tribes right?

And the whole box thing gave me a giggle. I've seen some REALLY naff boxes coming from our publishers over the years. The better (and more savvy) developers these days take control of those kind of things.

Dont leave that crap to chance! get a professional!

Sometimes, the team making the game ARE the soul of the game. Change the team, the soul is lost.

Michael Cozzolino   (Mar 30, 2005 at 20:33 GMT)

I still don't understand what the hell they were thinking with the TV Inventory station setup. It was so slow and clunky.

Eli McClanahan   (Mar 30, 2005 at 21:17 GMT)

Honestly, Tribes 2 was the best-selling game of the series. It didn't have the highest peak player base though, and it lost a lot of it when the game wouldn't even work out of the box, but Starsiege: Tribes' success was derived mainly through its heavy pirating. It was popular because it was free to most of Europe. Seems like T:V hasn't even been released in Europe yet.

And Starsiege: 2845 wasn't able to run on the "T:V Engine" because they basically streamlined the whole thing for Tribes. How they're going to make another game with it (Swat 4, for instance), who knows. With so little room to work with, changing the game around so radically for something like walking vehicles just wasn't functional. Then again, neither was UT2K3's version. There were numerous trials in trying to work with it as well, but they were never as obvious because development wasn't far enough along to run into them yet. I imagine if 2845 had never gained as much "hype," if you want to call it that, as it has now, the project would have died sometime late last year or lost its scope, if not earlier, simply because of limitations. Thankfully, the game has enough momentum behind it now to garner freelance support for yet another engine switch (the game was originally planned as a BF1942 mod, then a UT2K4 mod, then a T:V mod, then finally, a TSE game).

Point being, there's nothing wrong with T:V's code perse, it's just too well-made, you could say. With 2845 peering through Irrational's window the whole time, I'm surprised they didn't do more to help the 2845 staff. They'd have to have known what streamlining the code would have done, not only to Starsiege but also to any other mods. What surprises me now is that they touted T:V as being extremely mod-friendly when it first started development, even knowing the huge amount of client-side limitations UT2K3's engine already imposed.

Dave Meddish   (Mar 30, 2005 at 22:56 GMT)

Quote:

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Sometimes, the team making the game ARE the soul of the game. Change the team, the soul is lost.

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Wish Vivendi had figured that out before they killed Dynamix.

Ed Johnson   (Mar 31, 2005 at 04:36 GMT)

Re: Duke Nukem Forever... someone make it with Torque.. that'd be so easy lol

Paul Dana   (Mar 31, 2005 at 14:43 GMT)

As a programmer type it is still SO hard for me to grasp all these huge millions being thrown down the drain. You'd think ppl with that much money to invest would do better playing roulette or black jack.

Tyler Frans   (Mar 31, 2005 at 15:42 GMT)

Not suprised really, especially when marketing had such heavy input on the game's direction at the start.

Vashner   (Mar 31, 2005 at 18:01 GMT)

You know.. I wonder what kind of financial impact hacking / warez had on Vengence?
This is a huge problem. I think console games fair better at least in the states from copies.

Like for instance. Codemasters Operation Flashpoint. Very good reliable and popular foreign
FPS. But it's HACKed to hell and back. As far as the warez cracked versions going around.

Chris Labombard   (Apr 01, 2005 at 01:07 GMT)

40,000 might be low for them... but I would love to sell 40K copies of my game...

Matt Benfall   (Apr 01, 2005 at 16:42 GMT)

"As a programmer type it is still SO hard for me to grasp all these huge millions being thrown down the drain. You'd think ppl with that much money to invest would do better playing roulette or black jack."

Well, if you play BlackJack by the book and counting the cards, you stand with a 51% chance of winning. Maybe they would do better?

Bryce "Cogburn" Weiner   (Apr 01, 2005 at 19:28 GMT)

@Paul:

Perhaps we're naive, but I totally agree with you.

Go to a local college and find some interested undergrad art students. If you wave $20 per peice for artwork for your game, plus credits, I doubt you will have many that say no. Raw undirected talent comes surprisingly cheap. HIRE an art company (locally) and you could probably have ALL the artwork generated for $50-$75k.

Say you don't have a programmer. There's a big cost. You'll need two (engine + script)... but you can still wave $25k per year at some younger guys and get people who will code on thier own time at home because they love it.

OMG Torque License! $150.

Ok... Splurge and get a tiny office in some office park... $30k per annum.

Music? Go back to the college music department and look for that wierd guy that loves the Macintosh. $100 per tune .

Maybe I'm just used to dumpster diving... But give me $1,000,000 and I'll give you 3 games.

Marketing and distribution costs not withstanding. ;)
Edited on Apr 01, 2005 19:29 GMT

Gonzo T. Clown   (Apr 02, 2005 at 00:13 GMT)

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Wish Vivendi had figured that out before they killed Dynamix.

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They didn't kill Dynamix. They just forced it to assume a new identity. I hear you can find it lurking around here.

Jeff Wilkinson   (Apr 02, 2005 at 01:15 GMT)

@ Gonzo

That is so true

Joseph R.   (Apr 02, 2005 at 11:49 GMT)

"Wish Vivendi had figured that out before they killed Dynamix."
Just curious, did Ken Cron have anything to do with that?

Ray Depew   (Apr 05, 2005 at 20:26 GMT)

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The model that the industry is using now is that a couple of hits carry all the other games that lose money.

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It's a classic model, used in many industries. HP's been operating that way for years, and look where it's gotten them.

Charlie Malbaurn   (Apr 09, 2005 at 00:36 GMT)

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HP's been operating that way for years, and look where it's gotten them.

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God I hope thats sarcasim

Ray Depew   (Apr 09, 2005 at 16:14 GMT)

Nope. I used to work for HP.

Their HP-UX business segment never operated in the black, and all the other businesses paid the light bills for the HP-UX divisions for decades.

Since the late 1980s, printers have been their "hit game" that carried all the other "games." HP used printer profits to finance all their other businesses. When HP split off their no-longer-profitable non-computer divisions and acquired Compaq, printers still kept the rest of the businesses afloat, even though both PC and HP-UX businesses were losing both money and market share.

And HP have been unable or unwilling to capitalize on the small-market successes that they have had, like calculators and optical mice, for two examples.

I could go on, but this is Jeff's .plan, not alt.why.hp.keeps.getting.worse.

Joshua "RegularX" Birk   (Apr 12, 2005 at 19:56 GMT)

While I more or less agree with the concept, it should be noted that I very much doubt many people purchase an Unreal license with the idea of making all their money back on a single game these days. Remember, the license goes to the studio - not to the product, so that's money that they can recoup with later titles. Irrational Games also released SWAT 4 just recently, which also used the Unreal engine, and I would imagine they'll continue using it for later titles.

Course, that doesn't begin to offset the rise in development and production costs, so it's not entirely relevant.

Benjamin Bradley   (Apr 13, 2005 at 04:54 GMT)

Am I reading the unreal license wrong, cause it looks like the $750,000 cost is for one product on the PC (plus $100,000 for each additional platform)

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A non-refundable, non-recoupable license fee paid on execution of agreement: US $750,000 for one of the available platforms, plus US $100,000 for each additional platform. No royalty is due on any revenue from the product.

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The word "product" is NOT plural and so therefore makes me believe that for every game that ships with the unreal engine requires an individual license.

Viktor Kuropyatnik   (Apr 13, 2005 at 08:02 GMT)   Resource Rating: 3

When developers buying Unreal engine license, they get not only source of engine, they get "brend" and this can gain more potential customers.
PS: Couter Strike was developed by 2 programmers and 4 artists, 1 full year of beta testing and they got a Hit. I dont think thet they spend more than 500k $.
Games based on multipayer need more time for beta. Who knows how long was beta for T:Vengeance?

Benjamin Bradley   (Apr 13, 2005 at 19:36 GMT)

Counter Strike was a mod... guess who pocketed most of the profits.... and the answer isn't the Counter Strike guys... and if your answer was Valve... you are correct.
Edited on Apr 14, 2005 16:02 GMT

Scott Youngblood   (Apr 27, 2005 at 00:22 GMT)   Resource Rating: 1

Maybe a better solution for the TV:Developers would have been to threaten to quit and not finish the game. Then blackmail them (sierra) for more money and rights to do something else with the engine after they were done.

Matt Vitelli   (May 17, 2005 at 22:24 GMT)

Wow! Just goes to show that even with some of the best technology available doesn't mean the game is good. I haven't played the new Tribes, but I think that the old Tribes games are the best. Just goes to show that an indie game with a smaller budget and a small team can still pull off a job better that some of these commercial games available. Like Red Ninja for instance. That game was horrible. It handled like a 5 year old who just to drink 5 red bulls. Oh yeah! And Counter Strike. That game had a very small team like listed above, but it was really fun! Most of these new games out there haven't been very good. There are too many FPSes that handle horribly. There are also way too many crappy RPGs out there that are total rip-offs of Final Fantasy. Weird games can also be fun though. Katamari Damacy was one of the weirdest games where you really wonder, what were those developers smoking?!? But, that game was also one of the best games I've ever played. I guess I was wrong about Garage Games. I think it's safe to say that all of the games out here are fairly good and are fun.

-Matt

PS. I think it would be cool to at least have one game here with some FMV's and some prerendered CG elements. My game is going to have them!

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