Lawn Dart Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 I'm sure SQUAD didn't just appear on scene and produce an awesome game on it's first try. What else have you guys produced that we can play? ;D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrknox Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 Of course, I don't know, but I'd assume this is squads first game. Harv is just THAT good ;D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarvesteR Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 This actually is our first game project. Squad started out as an interactive marketing company. I was hired as part of the in-house development team, and we developed software and hardware for interactive installations. Some of those were almost games. Now, the company wants to get out of marketing (thankfully), and they were very enthusiastic about KSP when I pitched the idea to them. They gave me the go-ahead, and 7 months later, well, here we are But yeah, I'm still in a daze here, no one expected that our first project would be received like this! Cheers and Thanks! :thumbup: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baldr Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 Being original pays off in gaming land , Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawn Dart Posted July 27, 2011 Author Share Posted July 27, 2011 I was thinking about this game yesterday. In my more than 25 years of computer gaming (Intellivision FTW! ;D ), I think this is one of the few games I've played that didn't require you to shoot anyone, blow something up etc to have fun. Simcity is the only other one that comes to mind, and that got boring real quick if you didn't introduce tornados or some disaster. I wish my kids were old enough to play (oldest is 5), this game would be a hoot for middle school and high school kids to learn about rockets, physics etc. My wife even thought it was a cool idea, and her idea of a fun game is Majjong. I laugh just thinking about the Kermans and all of the crazy launch attempts. Good job! I can't wait to see what further refinements will bring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naiba Posted July 27, 2011 Share Posted July 27, 2011 Being original pays off in gaming land ,Pity none of the major publishers believe this. > Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baldr Posted July 27, 2011 Share Posted July 27, 2011 Pity none of the major publishers believe this. >They pick proven concepts to avoid financial risks as much as possible. Mirrors Edge is a example of publishers taking the risk (and turned out to be well worth it), pretty original and fun game. You also have Victoria 2, with a pretty epic story:DevelopmentThe decision to create Victoria II was influenced by voting on the Paradox Interactive forums and debate within the company. The CEO of Paradox Interactive, Fredrik Wester, publicly announced his belief that the game would never see a profit while other members of the company such as Johan Andersson were confident it would be profitable. To this end Wester promised that if the game did indeed make a profit he would shave his head and post the pictures onto the forum.[13] This belief stemmed from the first game's lackluster sales numbers. It was revealed in a German interview with Frederik that 70,000 copies would need to be sold in order for Victoria II to be profitable.[14] On 17 June, Jessica Chobot from IGN shaved it off for him.[15] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrknox Posted July 27, 2011 Share Posted July 27, 2011 Welcome to the business of gaming. Turns out... it's a business. As unfortunate as that is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarvesteR Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 Yeah, it's a business like any other, but I've always had the feeling that gamers everywhere (like me) were thirsty for something new again.When games were first getting started, insane ideas were the name of the game... sadly, it seems that overtime the big gaming companies lost their nerve, and the mainstream gaming industry seems to be going into a standstill... all we see is more iterations of the same 'tried-and-true' concepts, with some graphical improvements here and there, but we're still playing the same games from 15 years ago.All my favorite games now are either Indies, simulators, or games that are about 10 years old or more now... I remember a time when I walked into a game store, and I was forced to pick out but a few of the many great games, since I couldn't afford them all... now, it's a rare day when a game draws my attention... I think I buy around 1 or 2 games a year now... Back then it used to be dozens (and I had less cash).Maybe I've grown picky as I got older, but I have a strong feeling that it was the games themselves that have gotten less interesting.Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt'n Skunky Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 They pick proven concepts to avoid financial risks as much as possible. This is why the gaming industry has slowly tanked over the years and why indies are able to survive by staying small. Game companies are usually founded by gamer/developer types that understand gamers and what they want. Once it reaches a critical mass, the bean counters move in and destroy the company by making the profit more important that the game which leads to shitty games and less profits. Unfortunately, bean counters do NOT understand gamers or the gaming industry outside of the business concept making them incapable of correcting the course of a ship going down the tubes.Skunky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrknox Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 This is why the gaming industry has slowly tanked over the years and why indies are able to survive by staying small. Game companies are usually founded by gamer/developer types that understand gamers and what they want. Once it reaches a critical mass, the bean counters move in and destroy the company by making the profit more important that the game which leads to shitty games and less profits. Unfortunately, bean counters do NOT understand gamers or the gaming industry outside of the business concept making them incapable of correcting the course of a ship going down the tubes.SkunkyWell one can argue that they do understand. People still love these generic copies of generic copies. They not only have a target safe zone, they also have a target audience willing to take it. There are large amounts of people that are still going crazy of Halo 4 and MW3. That's not only the state of companies, but the state of consumers right now. It's a symbiotic relationship. These companies are not making games that no one wants, and the reason that they CAN avoid financial risk every single time, is because people will take it. Every. Single. Time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt'n Skunky Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 I never said they were making games that didn't sell. Just because I'm making steaming turds, doesn't mean I can't find people that will buy them. And as long as people keep buying steaming turds, the companies will continue to make and sell steaming turds.This is why I don't buy games for the most part. After checking them out *cough* and finding they were steaming turds, I know I can save my money. KSP is a game I will buy because I like it and it runs on my PC. With the inability to get a refund when buying a game, I need to know I will like it AND it will run on my PC. At $50 or more a pop, I can't afford to buy steaming turds!Skunky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softweir Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 By 'check them out' I assume you mean 'I watch a friend play his legal copy on a machine almost identical to mine and decide if I like the look'?Or should I report this to the moderators? ;P (Seriously - say that on the Egosoft forums and you'd get a lot of moderator notice.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moach Posted July 28, 2011 Share Posted July 28, 2011 and then it's 'blah' games down out throats and DRM up our opposite orifices... then they thinks it's bad when Cap'n Patchy comes along and saves the day i find this highly educational:best way to prevent piracy, IMHO - is to make a GOOD game - that people will WANNA buy (not coerced by heavy advertisement) - make it run well on their PC's, price it correctly (ever more rare, these days)- and go out and actually speak to the users as real people, instead of a faceless corporation....people are less inclined to 'stealing' from someone they know is just another guy working hard at something.... corporations, meh - they've got too much money already...the fact that my brother HarvesteR here bothers to come down and spend some of his otherwise insanely busy time responding to users face-to-face (as much as an online forum goes, that is...), goes a long way in showing that the people making KSP are actually real humans, set on a goal they feel strongly about - not corporate drones working on some inane marketing-research derived project that no-one really 'loves', personally....so yeah... DRM, bad! - good game, good! ;Dif anything else - users can be encouraged to go the 'right way' and buy the game if they realize there are desirable things they would miss out on, should they opt for less honorable means of acquisition... any game that goes online, already has a large headstart on this, since it's viable to check for copyright correctness in a non-intrusive way then... preventing patch-people from using multiplayer or other web-based featuresin the other hand, forcing people to connect in order to play, whether they want to or not - that's just foul....bottomline - don't treat every user as a potential thief - and most will likely not become one... whenever big companies realize this, we'll be a lot more advanced as a civilization :... and back to topic - yeah, it's Squad's first game :cheers: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greatorder Posted July 29, 2011 Share Posted July 29, 2011 first game?bloody good job. spiffing, if I say so myself! good job old bean! [/end posh talk] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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