making a game for fun.

#1 I think that idea is crazy. I am from Canada and that is just downright dumb. That is mixing a children's educational game of mixing DNA with a war game. Nobody would even download the free version of it. An by the way, Garage Games is doing the best they can with that engine and its license. They have worked out a pretty nice deal with a multi-billion dollar company who could have bought them out in seconds. It's not even that bad a license.

Brock

#2 Yeah I agree with Brock for the most part, GG is a huge help and are giving indies a chance. Now calling the idea downright dumb, I don't really agree with that. I don't think he's attempting to insult Canada with his game, it just makes it funny. If designed right it could be fun, you never know.

#3 Maybe ur right. I get mad when people make fun of Canada considering we rule! jk. Thatz another speech. But I still stand strong with my thought about GG.

Brock

#4 There is another game that is coming out soon that has the same gameplay idea. Build creatures from other creatures to use as an army. The name escapes me right now, and I dont think its out yet... Actually I would like to see a game where you play using Canada as the main country. I dont think anyone has done it before. (Yes, Im Canadian.) There are too many games based on USA vs. some communist country.. arg!

#5 well we americans cant take over canada. cause we got like too much class and shit to attack am ;)

why cant someone else be the hero for a change :p
(defending us from those trying-to-be-evil-for-a-change canadian like folks)

Might work.
but to make a game for the love of it, you gotta have a game that can be loved. this ones a tough sell.
why not just a quake clone or something. but free to the masses and moddable to the kazoos.

#6 hey. not knocking canada so chill out. i love canada. i live in rochester. 2 hours from toronto which i go to all the time. my business partners are canadian. i can go on and on.
anyway, it is a stupid game.
come on now, mutant animals attacking the nation of canada? its silly. its crazy. its off the wall!
thats why it'll be fun for us to make.
we could care less if anyone downloads it. it would be nice if they did but it wont matter. not gonna make a buck on it (even with the canadian exchange)

and no. i dont think v12 is a good deal. say you make an outstanding game. cool. they can take it and run with it without your permission. they can make dolls of your lead character and tshirts with your game name on it and not give you a cent.

they arnt doing anything special. the v12 front end will get stuck in the quagmire that real networks is in right now. those games are going nowhere and doing nothing.

its nice they give you an opprotunity to possiably make a buck or 2 but you will not..will not..make it into this industry and im sorry to say a hell of a lot of people here think otherwise.

"ohhh. v12. ill make a great game. someone will buy it. ill start a company. weeeeee"

wrong.

#7 Personally speaking, I'm here to make games, not sell T-shirts and "made in China" toys like some thrice-blasted-to-the-Nine-Hells-be-damned-Branson-Missouri-USA-outlet-mall. My team feels the same way. When it comes to profit, all the guys and gals here at A.M. Mark 1 care about is our software, as in the stuff we actually make. Everything else is just publicity. GG want's to take over and make some sequels? That's fine, because we're the only ones who know how the story line unfolds across our first 5 titles, meaning that anything they made wouldn't tie-in quite right. Thus making any sequels they made invalid and generally flawed :)

Yes, wether our first game does well or not, we have two sequels to it and two spin-offs of it already planned.

#8 I'm really sure that the Garage Games guys are not out to screw us... after all they will live off our good word. If word got out that they screw with the little guy, they would have some big bad problems with trying to get anyone else to join with them. The deal they present is much better than anything else out there for $100. If you dont like it then there are other options. They wont just go out and make a sequil to your game without talking to you about it first. They dont have the man power to just make games like that.

#9 you want to see what happens when Publishers have the kind of control over your intellectual property that GG wants? Take a look at the Dune: Emperor game.

If Frank Herbert could see it, he would be spinning in his grave. (He'd probably be puking over the new books his son co-wrote too, but that's another topic).

The license agreement that GG is offering is a great oppurtunity for amateur and independent developers, but it is a rose with thorns. Quite frequently what is good for the publisher isn't so good for the developers and designers of games.

The license agreement is enough to keep me away from V12. Instead, I am paying more money for an agreement I can live with. That's too bad because V12 has a lot of features I would have liked. I would even rather pay GG the extra money, but I simply will not agree to the current license.

#10 well I see your point in not using your best and most prescious designs in a situation like this. its only fair to be gaurded about your projects.

But you CAN make a game which IS somewhat original and which others can enjoy and redily understand.
Im sure outta everyone here, there must be a few screwball ideas which will engendor more favor than squad rising against the invincable canadian race :p

maybe ideas which you wouldent mind donating to the cause?

as I see it, the point of GG is to get you reckognized as a game developer(1) then get you paid for your work (2)
I dont recall reading anything about them spending to keep your public projects private :p

#11 mmmhh, I don't think the game will have any imoortance, in fact, it might just dye before it's done. That's my thought

But I am also making a game for the hell of it, actually, for a learning experience. I don't plan to sell it, as I want the public to have it and selling would probably ruin that. Anyway, if you want to check it out go to endlesstime.ipfox.com

#12 Would you rather spend $100,000+ for the Unreal or Q3 engine (and that's an underestimate)? GG is giving us a game engine for $100 that could be sold for a hundred thousand or more. How else would they make money except by the licensing?

#13 Theres always the general fear that assuming we succeed, someon else will be brought in to do the sequel.

but the reality is, that can happen with any other engin and "traditional" business setup.

#14 Just the fact that you were part of a team that made a commercially released game (assuming it wasn't a disaster). Is a serious advantage in the job market. It shows you have the capability to succeed in a very tough and competitive field. Just getting an indie game to a publisher is a big accomplishment.

I wouldn't worry about liscensing or merchandising. Unless your game takes off like unreal or tomb raider, your not likely to get merchandising deals, especially on a first release.

#15 Ive read the licence over many a time, and its actually really good if you ask me. And the people here at GG really are trying to get us the best deals possible? How do I know this? Being a long time member of the Starsiege and Tribes communities, I have been in touch with a few of them, especially Rick. Beleieve me when I say theirs a lot more than meets the eye to this.

So lets say a game gets to the shelf, what then? From what I understand you get a pretty fair share of the profit (at least 50%, I can't remember the exact number right now) and then you also get the publicity you wan't, and what of course what you really want to see: people buying your game. To me, its not so much the fact of making the money, its the pleasure of seeing someone talk about it, or buy it. Also, I think we still get full rights on all the data in the game :) That means if my teams project "Nitee Racing" goes shelf (we all wish for it deep inside) then no one else can make use the name without our permission. Or so I'm lead to believe. Finally, I don't really car if people make action figures or whatever for our game...the truth is, thier allready are toys out there...goto your local car dealer ship and I bet you will find a few :) Don't get me wrong though, I'm totally against child labor, actually I'm totally against society in general...we say that people that support child labor are the scum of society? I don't think anyone out there has a reason to talk...but thats a whole nother topic...

#16 Why not take over the whole world instead of just Canada.
It would be very funny to slice an grasshopper and owl!

#17 why not have canada take over the world? The deal GG gives seems alright for hobbyist and people who don't need to make a living of their games. But I doubt that it would work if you want game development to be your lifes work.

#18 But it gets your foot in the door.

If you can say that you produced a game from start to finish, thats like a musician that was actually in a commercially released CD. It marks you as a professional in your field.

#19 I do not buy any game designed so that the player "goes to war" with a REAL country. The reason is because I'm a huge advocate for world peace and ideas like "going to war" with real countries are the first steps in not having world peace. If the game represents Canada taken over by evil beings and the goal of the game is to liberate Canada from evil beings (a positive type game), then I could support it.