Crowdsourcing a new CPC game

[Joseman]

Maybe one day I'll get to do a decent CPC game with 16 colours in it.
[...]and was thinking of jumping back onto the CPC next, so who knows!

Please please do it! will be amazing if original coders start doing new games for our beloved CPC, really a dream come true if this happens!

[ivarf]

Thanks guys, and as my ex co-workers Brian said, when you were given a job to do, and a time to do it, it was because the advertising department had set a date for it's release, and they were prepped ready to push it in all the magazines etc, so if you were late, as they were scheduled slots they released in, so you didn't just mess up slightly, it cost the company a HUGE amount of advertising money also, and as Bri said, there were others who would have just taken over your work, a lot of coders and artists did get dropped if they weren't quick enough!


As for taking the time to do a decent CPC version of my games, I've said this in a few interviews, I was pushing for time so that I could do a decent CPC version, but alas, I wasn't the boss at Special FX, and they obviously had deadlines set by Ocean also, and because I was working on 2 ports, not 1 like most other coders, I wasn't allowed the extra time, because as I stated above, they had release slots to hit.


Maybe one day I'll get to do a decent CPC game with 16 colours in it.


I've just finished Dragon's Lair for the Acorn Atom, and was thinking of jumping back onto the CPC next, so who knows!

How much money would we need to rise to get you coding 7 hours a week for the CPC or +/GX4000? I am sure good artist here can help with the sound and graphics. I have fantasies about a small team working for me coding new games or improving on the Spectrum and C64 originals :p More of the best 8-bit arcade ports would be nice too.


I would allow ports to other 8-bit systems, but you would be very short of time for those ports. And if they look/play to good on those other systems, I reserve the right to cann those ports

[Joseman]

I have fantasies about a small team working for me coding new games ...

Working for the community!!

I don't know how many members are active on this forum (and other forums), but i think that with little contributions of everyone we can get a big amount of money...

The problem is that any cpc user has his (different) ideas for the use of this money... one will like to have new version of out run, another of Street Fighter II, another some scumm game...

It's not as easy as it seems....

[ivarf]

Working for me! I have planned a GX4000 cartridge of Outrun coast to coast, 4-5 copies for me and my norwegian Amstrad friends. The game will very likely suck big time, but we won't tell. The game will catch insane prices on ebay. But still we will not sell. Later, maybe a budget release of Street Fighter II.

[Trebmint]

Working for the community!!

I don't know how many members are active on this forum (and other forums), but i think that with little contributions of everyone we can get a big amount of money...

The problem is that any cpc user has his (different) ideas for the use of this money... one will like to have new version of out run, another of Street Fighter II, another some scumm game...

It's not as easy as it seems....

It would be amazing if somehow we were as a community able to financially support cpc projects, but I doubt many people feel that way TBH. The attitude seems to be that you should code for free, and while that is fine it does mean we'll be limited to small games that can be done part time.
I'm not sure what the potential sales of a game would be 100-300 games perhaps, and that's just not enough at say £15-20-ish each to be viable beyond one or two titles. I must admit however the idea that we could have one of the well known z80 coders of the time working 100% on an Amstrad title again is fascinating.

[ivarf]

and I would definitely force my coders to finish Sorcery plus for the Amstrad plus AND GX4000

[Brian Beuken]

How much money would we need to rise to get you coding 7 hours a week for the CPC or +/GX4000? I am sure good artist here can help with the sound and graphics. I have fantasies about a small team working for me coding new games or improving on the Spectrum and C64 originals :p More of the best 8-bit arcade ports would be nice too.


I would allow ports to other 8-bit systems, but you would be very short of time for those ports. And if they look/play to good on those other systems, I reserve the right to cann those ports

I am currently doing a project for the Colecovision, there is a very small but dedicated market for new games on that console so while its not something I can retire on, it does give me a bit of pocket money for my insane guitar collecting habit.. I can't say I'm having the best time as the console is really basic but it will make some money as the carts are already pre-sold.

I want to ask a serious question, maybe Baggers would like to know this too... Is there a market?
When all said and done, Jim and I are still professional game developers, we make our living doing this, though these days I work on PS4's and Wii's I would still like to make a few games of my old favourite CPC... But I'd need to get an income for it, not much, but something to pay me for my time and put a bit of cash in the business account when I'm not working on a big project.

How many would pay, say £10 for a new original game? Is there enough interest from the community to fund the cost of a coder, artist and sound guy to get into this in any kind of serious way?

[Nich]

I'm not sure what the potential sales of a game would be 100-300 games perhaps, and that's just not enough at say £15-20-ish each to be viable beyond one or two titles.

Bear in mind that Orion Prime, which was widely publicised within the CPC community, sold 175 copies across three different languages - so selling 300 copies of a new CPC game would be rather optimistic in my opinion.

[MacDeath]

cyber chicken managed to sell all its copies, recent games with real release can be somewhat assured 100-150 copies easily, if the game is good.

Orion Prime also sold more than 100 copies I think.
The recent peripherals and RAM extensions on CPC did sold about 200 copies for some of them... (X-Mem)

many graphic artists would not ask for a lot of money, if any as CPC graphicians are more devoted fans these days than moneyleeches. 


should check with Carnivac, Ced, Beb, Barjack or even many others...

here a small selection from latest french demoparty productions...

[Trebmint]

I am currently doing a project for the Colecovision, there is a very small but dedicated market for new games on that console so while its not something I can retire on, it does give me a bit of pocket money for my insane guitar collecting habit.. I can't say I'm having the best time as the console is really basic but it will make some money as the carts are already pre-sold.

I want to ask a serious question, maybe Baggers would like to know this too... Is there a market?
When all said and done, Jim and I are still professional game developers, we make our living doing this, though these days I work on PS4's and Wii's I would still like to make a few games of my old favourite CPC... But I'd need to get an income for it, not much, but something to pay me for my time and put a bit of cash in the business account when I'm not working on a big project.

How many would pay, say £10 for a new original game? Is there enough interest from the community to fund the cost of a coder, artist and sound guy to get into this in any kind of serious way?

I would say no, although I guess until you try you never know. We would need a coder to say exactly how much they'd expect to even have an idea. I seriously doubt it could be supported just by people paying £10-15 for a single copy. If would have to be stepped like a download version for £5, £15 for disk & boxed, £30 for a limited special edition & £50 for signed etc. More like a forum based kickstarter project
I'd imagine you could sell between 100-500 copies at various prices depending on content.

[Brian Beuken]

how much would depend on how long, if I could make 2-3K on it and it didn't take longer than 8-10weeks I'd be ok with that as a base figure.....

[Brian Beuken]

Bear in mind that Orion Prime, which was widely publicised within the CPC community, sold 175 copies across three different languages - so selling 300 copies of a new CPC game would be rather optimistic in my opinion.

That's good information to have, thanks..

[Trebmint]

Bear in mind that Orion Prime, which was widely publicised within the CPC community, sold 175 copies across three different languages - so selling 300 copies of a new CPC game would be rather optimistic in my opinion.

I thought Orion Prime sold more than that However I guess its not just about supporting it with sales like in the 80's, but additionally with good will and extras and limited edition stuff etc, maybe even a gx4000 version. Attach a coding name and perhaps a game franchise (if possible) then it would become in theory collectable... then somebody might be stupid enough to pay silly money for a gold signed #1 disk.

[ivarf]

I thought Orion Prime sold more than that However I guess its not just about supporting it with sales like in the 80's, but additionally with good will and extras and limited edition stuff etc, maybe even a gx4000 version. Attach a coding name and perhaps a game franchise (if possible) then it would become in theory collectable... then somebody might be stupid enough to pay silly money for a gold signed #1 disk.

not necessarily stupid, someone could be willing to "pay silly money" to support a project they believe in

[Brian Beuken]

Well talk it over, maybe start a thread....I'm certainly up for it if there is enough interest, Baggers might be too. We have a few tame artists and sound guys who we can probably get involved to, but please do consider it a commercial venture.

I noted in another thread that many of you feel that the art of making games is more important than the commercial considerations coders find themselves in...its not...I feed myself doing this, and I'm not likely to drop a well paid Vita Game for a professional client to spend months doing a badly managed game for love. But I don't mind going a small project for a couple of months that brings in something where there might be no income.

We'd also need very clear guidelines on what the game was meant to be, the target machines, etc.. 1 thing we don't do so much these days is make it up as we go along, project management and game design have come a very long way since the 8 bit days, when coders fiddled with the games to make them playable.

[Trebmint]

not necessarily stupid, someone could be willing to "pay silly money" to support a project they believe in

Perhaps if there were a 10-20 cpc users that agreed to put seed money (say £100 each) into a then to be agreed upon project. Or perhaps issue 100 shares at £50 each? Then we could put a game out to tender.
In principle I'd be willing to support a project in this way? Anyone else

[ivarf]

If we are talking about a game that would make the CPC, plus or GX4000 shine, I would seed £100

[Brian Beuken]

shine?

lol well lets just focus on bringing out some nice new games...

As a rough guestimate, you'd probably need minimum £6,000 to get a game off the ground, that would be the basic cost for coding(3K), art(2-2.5) and sound(500-1k)....assuming we can find someone cheap and fast for art and sound. So you'd need a few more than 10 seeders.

Do also remember, that porting to other systems isn't always a simple task, if you're writing for a 128K machine, and then you have to do a 64K version there a tonne of re-scoping to do, Likewise a 64K base version, and then adding additional content means more work.
I never coded the GX4000 so what are the issues with using the cart system? Such variations in the code take time, and time is sadly money, even if we're not charging full whack.  But we could make the code available to a selected few investors via SVN or Git when complete, to allow future mods to take place....It would depend on how much of our code we want to make public I guess.

Anyway, this is starting to sound like I'm touting for business, which I kinda am, but its not business I really need that bad! I'll be interested in doing it, if there is a demand, but if not, that's fine too. Its up to you guys if there is enough interest to do it.

[Trebmint]

shine?

lol well lets just focus on bringing out some nice new games...

There are some nice new games for free, so for a wad of cash we'd probably expect something insanely impossible

[Brian Beuken]

There are some nice new games for free, so for a wad of cash we'd probably expect something insanely impossible

yeah, that does rather worry me

[Trebmint]

yeah, that does rather worry me

Yes I doubt many coders could live up to the expectations of cpc users, and I doubt very much if we could even agree a suitable project and what target it would be for... 64k... 128k.... disk only.... cart version... only cart version etc etc.
Would make a cool thread to find out though if there were enough potential backers and if we could agree harmoniously on a project and spec

[ukmarkh]

I'd back the project with £300 to do Outrun on the CPC, 128K version only though. I just want it to be nice and fast, use the car from the original Amstrad version and include music throughout. I'd also pledge £100-200 for Midnight Resistance or Final Fight on the CPC. 128K minimum though.   


The money is there, ready and waiting, but I think this would need a kickstarter, with special edition cases, signed autographs and other memorabilia. I believe there's enough old machines out there to support the development of new games.


I recently backed Shenmue, nearly £200 of investment... So c'mon! We can all do this, Kickstarter is big business... I've bought every new CPC game ever made, including Orion Prime. 

[Brian Beuken]

I'd back the project with £300 to do Outrun on the CPC, 128K version only though. I just want it to be nice and fast, use the car from the original Amstrad version and include music throughout. I'd also pledge £100-200 for Midnight Resistance or Final Fight on the CPC. 128K minimum though.   


The money is there, ready and waiting, but I think this would need a kickstarter, with special edition cases, signed autographs and other memorabilia. I believe there's enough old machines out there to support the development of new games.


I recently backed Shenmue, nearly £200 of investment... So c'mon! We can all do this, Kickstarter is big business... I've bought every new CPC game ever made, including Orion Prime.

So right away there are a few issues with this

I can't use graphics from an original game without licence owners approval, and in the case of Outrun the IP holder.  Already there's a very basic lack of understanding of the commercial realities of game development. As a pro still working in the industry I can't and won't infringe on anyone's copyright/IP so any games would need to be either original's or a clear homage existing titles.

[CraigsBar]

I'd back the project with £300 to do Outrun on the CPC, 128K version only though. I just want it to be nice and fast, use the car from the original Amstrad version and include music throughout. I'd also pledge £100-200 for Midnight Resistance or Final Fight on the CPC. 128K minimum though.   


The money is there, ready and waiting, but I think this would need a kickstarter, with special edition cases, signed autographs and other memorabilia. I believe there's enough old machines out there to support the development of new games.


I recently backed Shenmue, nearly £200 of investment... So c'mon! We can all do this, Kickstarter is big business... I've bought every new CPC game ever made, including Orion Prime.

Final Fight on the CPC is not that bad as it stands. I Bought it and never regretted it. In fact, I played it a lot and thoroughly enjoyed it. OK the Sega MegaCD version (which I also bought) is faster, slicker and more accurate to the Arcade original, But for the CPC, considering the size of the sprites, it's the "one more go" factor of the beat-em-up gameplay I find particularly impressive.


Craig

[cpc4eva]

so we going to start a new thread or just use this one ?

I think crowd funding / kick starter is the best option in raising awareness and money required and being able to have multiple formats and offers but that's just my opinion.....

Commercially viable / enough users / big enough market   build it and they will come..... the key is getting the message out to the people so it cant be just this cpcwiki forums community the reach has to be expanded far greater. So that would mean things like twitter account, fb page or group / instagram, posting on other forums and communities such as c64, speccy, Amiga, Atari, MSX etc etc etc the 8bit / 16bit world wide community is rather large

i think people / group / team whatever they want to call themselves should aim for one project at this time and expect to make a loss they shouldnt b thinking of making big dollars or spending big dollars and see just how much interest is gained from the crowd funding exercise and how many copies are going to be sold sold to get an idea for any future projects and how to develop new strategies for further projects to make them more successful / more money being made.

its a brilliant idea and cant wait to see what happens if it takes off

there's one very big hurdle the project faces and thats finding people with a real cpc machine that are going to want to buy because without the real machine then how can anyone expect to use it ? 

the flip side to that is do you make a .dsk version on a cd or usb drive to load up into an emulator ??