Vault Dweller said:
MountainWest said:
The future of RPGs relies heavily on the whims of a Canadian millionaire with a mysterious past and a predilection for sarcastic comments. That's pretty darn good in a world with no more than six and a half billion people.
As for the potential sales, I highly doubt that the game will sell more than 5-10k copies, and that's if I'm lucky. Online publishing costs are 15-30%. Divide the rest by 4 people and 3 years, and you'll get something like 10-15k a year. Better than nothing, I suppose, but hardly enough to "go big".
It's also good to remember that Zero-Sum's Prelude was a great game, which didn't stop ZS from going out of business. Sure, the game is barely playable now, but it was perfectly playable when it was released.
I think you are wrong. First, if I never read your year in review I would've never heard about PtD in time to buy it. And if I didn't frequent rpgdot I would've never heard of your year in review. How many people heard of AoD from rpgvault/ign? AoD will have much more exposure, same as BHG.
Also, there is a direct correlation between graphics and sales. SO if spiderweb sells 5k a game, and nwn 1 mil, and we graph sales and graphics, that would set you around 250k sales, or at least 100k.
But we halve that because graphic whoreness knows no bounds. Then halve that agin because people are stupid and get 25k units sold. Then halve that because people are inherently gay and get 12.5k units sold.
If you sell the game for $30 thats a sum of 375k. Multiply that by .25 (seems right after expenses, including distribution, seeing as the 4 team members aren't getting the same share, right?) Then you make about 94k, divided by 3 and get 31k a year.
Now, thats the first game. If you make part 2 and 3, the team goes down to 2, and part 2 comes out within 1.5 years and has the same sales, and we'll say you make 33% this time. Same with 3. Now you gross 82.5k a year for 2 and 3.
Of course, Canada will want a good chunk of that to help old people wait 4 weeks for a free doctor appointment, so thats still highball. But the profit of this game comes from the long term view of a trilogy. We benefit by having more games, you benefit from living the life of a high roller big shit.
The perfect action plan would be to higher a new engine programmer, and your your artists/modellers/animators/whetever working on the assets of the ship game. You come up with the design by posting a little less, while you are working on the design of AoD 2 and 3. Now in you have a different release in 2-3 years that increases your market. Then when they are done they start working on a whole new engine with brand new assets. Everyone is gainfully employed and busy, and making a paycheck, while building skills and making their resume look fancy.
Effeciency of scale and scope, and economics of scale and scope (somewhat). You need a 5 year and ten year plan. Most starts ups are not profitable in the short term. I think you should make me president of Irontower, or at least beta test AoD.
