All continues well in the World of Tanks – matches are played and tanks are ground up. I have an extra 2.5m ready to buy a VK4502A but will hold off until I elite some of my vast holdings of tanks. And I finally had enough, burned free XP, and I don’t have to drive the flaming WOLVERINE any more
Minecraft continues to entertain, in a shared experience with my boy, who can talk about it for an hour in his stream-of-consciousness way. He actually exhausted me with it last night, and I had to go sit on my bed and relax for 15 mins after being treated to his analyses & questions for half an hour. My game is most about collecting resources and hoarding food. His game is trying not to lose his house (again!) and figuring out if zombies can break through windows set into the side of a hill.
I brushed the dust off of my Civilization games as well. At release I only played half-a-dozen Civilization 5 games before quitting with the vague complaint of “It’s not fun”. Will be finishing this game I started last night, and after taking out Ramses I hope I’m successful. There are a ton of achievements on Steam I haven’t yet earned !
Read more about the 38 studios implosion and got to thinking about the many problems inherent with PC games. I don’t own a console, not since the ’80s at least, and apparently the bigger companies who make games get their money from them. That’s fine to a certain degree. I remember PC games bringing in the big money, and I didn’t like what it did to the industry. Now it’s a more specialized/boutique industry and that suits me just fine.
In a vague sense I’ve heard about Kickstarter for several months, but I read about a project last week that made me think a bit more about the service. If you – like me – aren’t exactly aware of it, Kickstarter is a methodology for coming up with a project idea, and getting crowd funding. Your project has to hit on the entertainment/art end of the spectrum, which game software is a natural fit for. You state the amount that needs to be pledged (Like, $1,000) for your project to be accomplished. If you hit that level, the donors are charged and you are expected to do your project. If not enough is pledged (Like, $800 only) then no money changes hands.
It took me awhile to figure out Kickstarter the company’s angle – it’s not prominently displayed on their website. If your project is successful they get a 5% cut. Your project also pays credit card processing fees of between 3-5%. So they take a 10% max cut of funded projects, and it seems reasonable to me, not ideal but not exorbitant.
Look at this project ! Haven’t thought about Carmageddon in years.
I read the project description and everything placed onto their page by the Stainless studios guy (Nobby). What a hysterical and twisted guy. Probably part of the 80’s generation like me. I love the whole idea of an updated Carmageddon, and the money going to the development team instead of a publisher. At this point, I feel good about giving Stainless $15 and hoping for a good game.
For a contrary view I googled “how much does kickstarter charge” and this nicely written post was about tenth from the top. I do think they’re probably a bit of a pricey service, but with any overpriced service a competitor usually comes along.
With PC gaming being a bit more niche, less so aimed at you damn kids out there, and more at the grumpy young adults/ middle aged, how can you expect to get the games developed that YOU want to see ? Well – I mean – that *I* want to see ? This strikes me as a pretty good way to go about it. Why wait for angel investors and play a big money funding game, ala 38 studios ? Maybe start with the right core team and see what you can get via previous work or by having a famous developer or such.
Carmageddon Reincarnation is slated for a Feb 2013 release. This is the game I hid from small children and only played in the dead of night, with a maniacal grin on my face and understanding the whole comedic angle of the game. But the pixelated mess you see when running it on modern computers just didn’t work for me. Now, an updated version with 3d support ? Let’s see what they can put together.
