Re: Any new happenings, unique games to play?
You might have a look at tube sim too. I don't think a train simulation game has been made with stops and rules to obey etc before.
Hi Burak,
Thanks man, you nailed it, this is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for, and instantly fel in love with both Tube Sim and more so Park Boss! I'm having a blast with them both. It's been years since I've played something where I go "this actually has me addicted," LOL. Thanks for the pointer. You've made someone's day today.
TDV is one of the games which a large number of people involved in, and I'm really interested to know how the journey of the development project was.
This is a great question and I'll explain the best I can. I would draft up actual contracts for testers, sound designers and voice actors and actresses to sign. These contracts would detail when and how the person would get paid and all that. From the beginning I avoided creating a culture where the person worked for free; instead, he or she understood that they'd get paid when the project generated revenue. The benefit to having actual contracts is twofold; firstly, both the employee and entity are put at ease because for the employee, he or she knows that the entity has a legal obligation to pay, and the entity knows that in turn, the employee must deliver their work to hold their side of the deal; and secondly, it helps to draw a clear picture of what's to come. No one's left floundering and guessing, and there's a clear path ahead.
The issue with most commercial titles and probably why they aren't successful is that the developer thinks too much about the end goal: releasing the product, and doesn't focus that much time on the moving parts of the project, namely how to reward those who participated. Giving a free copy is fine, but what if the person doesn't want to play the game; they're just contributing their time and energy to see the developer succeed?
If we want innovation and to be taken seriously, we must treat our projects seriously. For example, when BPC shut down, I began the painstaking process of refunding all the people who had asked for a refund on account of the closure, within the specified deadline. I write "painstaking" because some of the Email addresses were outdated, so I had to hunt some people down. The people on contract were actually getting paid before the project shut down, and they clearly understood that these payments would stop on account of the closure, because their payments were a function of income.
In other words, if we want to thrive, we have to start treating what we do as businesses and not just hobby projects; that is, if we want to go commercial. Of course free and open-source titles are a different story, but what I'm writing here applies to commercial titles only. Too many times I've known developers to literally bank off of sales from their games, while their employees get a nice little mention in the credits. And while that might work for people who are tight, it tends to have a demoralizing effect overall, because the industry heads into a crash. You lose good talent because you don't pay for it; and yet, no one has come out and said that developing audiogames makes you no money, because it's not true. Audiogames can, and do, make you money. (I flew to Reno, Nevada in 2011 purely funding by BPCPrograms as part of a business trip, for example.) But to realize that funding, you have to, at some point, treat your commercial project as what it is: commercial.
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