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Inside: The start of a new company and its initial plan

by Charles D'Arienzo · in General Discussion · 07/16/2001 (10:26 am) · 5 replies

here id like to give the lowdown of what we are doing and get some feedback from people who have had some kind of experence in this industry in one form or the other.

to begin with i and my team have been working together for about 1 year and a half via the internet. as of last month we got our hands on lithtech for a 12 month trial and for all intents and purposes we love the engine.

at the end of the 12 month trial we either have to stop working on it, renegotiate the trial time or pay the 250K.

we are hoping to renegotiate the trial time till we have a demo of our game ready and find a publisher thereby being able to afford the linsence of lithtech.

does this sound like a viable business plan to some of you who have been around longer and have had experence in these matters? or is it way off base?
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bob
#1
07/16/2001 (11:37 am)
I was just talking with the LithTech people and they have several pay options. Probably the best is the one specifically for small development companies, you put 10k down on the engine and you get everything except the distribution rights. You aren't obligated to pay the rest until you have a finalized publisher deal. And say you don't find you aren't obligated to pay the rest, but you can't use it anymore either. they also said depending on certain options you pick the base liscense fee is anywhere from 50k to 250k so I assume if you don't need a lot of support then you get it a lot cheaper. Hope that helps. But yes I would try to get your evaluation extended....beats paying any day. Also in case you didn't know (I didn't know this at first) I asked them about creating demos with the evaluation to show publishers and investors and they said that you can create as many demos as you want, you just can't distribute them. So you'd have to tell the publishers that they can look, but not touch :)

Oh yeah, I forgot to ask, what do you think of the engine? My company is considering the evaluation so I was wondering what do you like/dislike about it.

Frederick
#2
07/16/2001 (2:11 pm)
There (was) an offering for the lith from real.com if I remember correct.
$500 down, but they get the distribution rights and theres little/no help from monolith for it.

Personaly I always thought it wasent worth the price they put on it, but thats just my opinion.

Charles D'Arienzo
#3
07/16/2001 (2:17 pm)
we just began diving into it so we are not sure what the limitations are but all in all we love it.
David, who does audio, loves the audio editor. has some nifty features.
i personally love their level editor. while im a total newbie with it (and the way you control your 3d view really bites) all in all its super powerful.
in the LT dev mailing list some of the developers there are talking about maps ranging from 1 to 2 kilometers.
as far as i can tell it follows the same basic principles as world craft from HL but is much more powerful and versatile(sp)
the animator Hugo said about model edit "wow, i can get the models and the animations done so quickly. i love this thing"
what it comes down to is that their tools are great, their support is great, the developer community is great, and the engine is better than ok but not perfect :D

Frederick
#4
07/16/2001 (6:16 pm)
I hear its improved loads since the days of shogo.
as I understand ALien VS predator 2 is shipping with a new version of the engin.

if what I remember is correct, I think your full lisence setup includes you in that upgrade(?)
if so, it might not be such a bad deal if you can turn a profit on it.

Charles D'Arienzo
#5
07/16/2001 (6:48 pm)
yeah, we have gone from 3.0 to 3.1 so far