Started by Peter Teal on 23 November 2012 • 35,532 views
[quote data-userid="55" data-postid="78422"]
Are Codemasters out of the loop?
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My understanding (which is not canonical, so don't take this as gospel) is that Codies retain part ownership of the IP, but they've agreed not to interfere with each other's business.
[quote data-userid="90" data-postid="78427"]
I may be reading a different thread to you, but I didn’t think there was any negativity on this forum to this project, after all, this is the right and best place for support!
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Apologies, I didn't explain myself very well! The negativity I was referring to was more from journalists and indie game developers. I've seen editors of well known websites spouting complete untruths, and indie developers sniping on Twitter. It's all very unnecessary IMO.
Sorry for any offence caused![quote data-userid="90" data-postid="78427"]
One area that you haven’t touched on, and one that I believe you are in a very good position to comment on, is the amount required. You have independently released Clover, a very nice polished game. Did this cost £350K to bring to market? I very much doubt it cost anywhere near this amount (in the nicest possible way) as this figure would make independent publishing nigh on impossible. So, is the £350K required reasonable? I appreciate that, of course, if you had a budget of £1million, you could easily spend it on making the game, but would the extra cash really make a lot of difference? I realise that the Olivers will have costed what they want to produce, but my feeling is that they would have more chance of success compromising some areas with a lower budget, for example in the graphics. This may be one area where the game could cut corners, as lets face it, the graphics aren’t the reason we love Dizzy games, and are still all these years later more than happy playing DizzyAge games with Spectrum style graphics 30 years on. After all, a lot of Apps market their ‘Retro Graphics’ as a plus point! Gameplay is king, as our eggy friend has showed us for all that time!
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Clover made a huge loss, and was funded through a redundancy payment. The only real outlay was for my rent and food bills, but even then cost tens of thousands. We were living in central London, when really I should've moved somewhere much cheaper. The main cost in Dizzy Returns will be quality staff, and that experience makes all the difference between something amateurish and something polished.
For the scope of the game they're planning, I'd say £350k is reasonable. Ian Hardingham from Mode 7 Games, creator of the IGF-award-winning Frozen Synapse pointed out a budget twice that size wouldn't be unreasonable. To put it in context, for a mid-tier Xbox 360/PS3 game you're talking about an 8-figure budget.[quote data-userid="395" data-postid="78429"]
While I would love to see a new Dizzy game, there are numerous reasons why I will not be supporting this project.
Firstly, £350,000 is a LOT of money. If you expect the public to part with that amount for something as trivial as a cartoon game, then you need to supply full details of how this money will be spent. The information on the site does not go into any real detail. Is this merely a means to fund a mid-life crisis?
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I agree that more detail in the plans would be a great move, but a cartoon game is no more trivial than any other sort of game. Games with narrative and designed-by-hand puzzles require a lot of content and design time.
Then there is the fact an established company is using kickstarter. Is this a way around costs, licensing, taxes etc? I always thought of kickstarter as a way for up and coming producers and amateurs to get a project off the ground. It is similar to how all the corporations jumped on eBay years ago, which ruined it for the independent seller.
There are no tax or financial benefits to use Kickstarter above and beyond any other form of investment. In fact, it's less efficient that setting up a new venture and getting investment via the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme.
Then there are the supported platforms. This is just my own personal preference, I do not own, and never intend on owning, any Apple devices. I prefer to play games on games machines, and while I do use emulators on the PC, I find the PC not ideally suited to gaming. I also cannot believe the game is not being considered for Android.
Other platforms are stretch goals. BlitzTech engine should make it reasonably straightforward to port to Android, but that will require more polish time, which will require more money, but people are already objecting to the amount being asked for.
Sorry for coming across overly cynical, but where large amounts of money is concerned it is the only way to be in this country.
I can't blame you, and that's why I'm doing my best to dispel the misunderstandings people have.
I would be happy to pledge some money if I hadn't already pledged big on another classic game revival. Why do these things always seem to happen all at once? I hope that the Oliver Twins can reach their lofty goal...I wish I still had some extra money to give. {dizzy}:frown:
[quote data-userid="975" data-postid="78452"]
They really should have aimed for PSN and XBLA instead of iOS.
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Sadly this isn't possible. A developer can't release a game on XBLA or PSN without a publishing agreement with somebody, be that a traditional third-party publisher or MGS/Sony themselves. Each publisher is allotted a certain number of release slots which they can use to publish. These are decided years in advance (games take a long time to make!) and so getting one on an ad-hoc basis is quite unlikely.
Porting to XBLA and PSN would be trivial for Blitz as they've done tens of games for those platforms, and Blitz Tech will run virtually everywhere. However, they can't ask money for a promise that they can't keep.
[quote data-userid="3" data-postid="78459"]
Hmm, still on 21k and the pledges are slowly grinding to a halt :sad: I still think the deadline should be moved to a further date, especially with christmas on the way.
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I'm not certain, but I don't think Kickstarter allows you to do that.
:x_x:
R.I.P
Poor Dizzy :sad: Seems like the public/fans have spoken and nobody wants to see a Dizzy game.
[quote data-userid="55" data-postid="78487"]
:x_x:
R.I.P
Poor Dizzy :sad: Seems like the public/fans have spoken and nobody wants to see a Dizzy game.
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Not true, just there wasnt enough support with such a short space of time. EVERYBODY wants to see a new Dizzy game. :tongue: