[gerula]

How about something set in a technological stage similar to the Bronze/Iron Age? Humans as the only sentient species, tribal culture with only small settlements (no nations or kingdoms), mythical episteme, magic (if available) in form of mysticism, the best weapon in the game would be a simple steel sword?

Or maybe a post-apocalyptic world? But not the nuclear wasteland stuff from Fallout, more like: Nature has reclaimed the land. The ruins of the old cities are overgrown with plants and trees and people are back to living like in the Middle Ages. Maybe there's no "real" magic but the old technology from the past (as far as it is still working) is considered "magic". Technology and magic are basically the same anyway (in full compliance with Clarke's third law).

But personally, I can go for the G1 style of fantasy. I can live with a few cliché elements. I just don't want the entire game/setting to be completely cliché-based - as it was in R2. What matters more to be is that the setting/game world is well founded by a rich lore. I don't want a game world that's just as much formed out as was absolutely necessary for the game and everything else is a big white blank space. It should be a rich, large and complex universe with a living world, where the story of the game is just one little piece in a much larger puzzle.

Bottom line: I don't care if there is a species called "elves" in the game. But if there are elves, I want to hear about their history, their culture, their political standing, their religion and so on and so forth. Replace "elves" with "orcs", "lizardmen", "humans", "blobs of goo" and you get my meaning.

wow foob, you make me drool mate ...hope someone from pb are reading this forum

[Zocky]

Implying a sci-fi story has a better chance to be completely new and fresh.

What? I have seen many scifi games and many fantasy games. Right now, i find scifi games much more intresting and therefor, would prefer futuristic (scifi or not, whatever) rpg.....wether you call that scifi or fantasy, i don't care...while rpg's mostly look very similar. AGain, atleast to me. So i don't know what's your problem. You don't like futurstic or scifi settings? Totally fine with me, but i do prefer futuristic settings....

[Bastardo]

I like sci-fi.

[Zocky]

ok atleast we agree on something. :P

[Maladiq]

Let's assume this. Let's say the Piranhas need 2500 euros/month/person as salary (which I think is a bit above what they make now). Let's assume they would need 4 years to develop a title. That means:

2500*30*12*4 = 3.600.000 euros.

Let's assume they would need an additional 400k for licenses. That goes to 4 mil euros. Let's say they will sell 500k copies @ 40 euros. That means they would get 20 million in return. Minus taxes, minus the distributor's share, that means they still get 10 mill in return. They would get plenty of money to return the credit to the bank, even at a very high interest, and there would still be money to share around, or even fund the next project.

[Zocky]

Yes, but you are basicly only counting the wages, and even then you aren't counting for example outsourcing, wich i'm pretty sure was done in r2), but no marketing, no bills (you have to work at certain place, and you have electricity bills and such), and no any other expanses (and in game dev, you usually have a lot of those).....So i'd expect numbers to be way higher then 4mils...

And 500k is quite a lot aswell...weren't g2 sold at arround 250-300k range?

[Maladiq]

Yes, but you are basicly only counting the wages, and even then you aren't counting for example outsourcing, wich i'm pretty sure was done in r2), but no marketing, no bills (you have to work at certain place, and you have electricity bills and such), and no any other expanses (and in game dev, you usually have a lot of those).....So i'd expect numbers to be way higher then 4mils...

Well, I didn't count marketing, but that could be done via Steam and GOG for free, since it's their interest to sell as many copies as well. Plus, they are Piranha FUCKING Bytes, IGN and other sites will write articles about their new projects for free.

About other costs, PB have a house where they work, they own it, and the power bill can't be THAT high that it would be impossible for them to chip in.

Gothic 3 has sold 500 k copies. R1 about as much.

[foobar]

That calculation is a little bit off. Employee on-costs are a big factor in Germany. You can roughly estimate that if someone gets 1.500 € (before taxes!) as salary then the costs for the employer are about 3.000 €.

Then there are common costs, like electricity. 30 PCs with monitors, each using about 200W for 8 hours a day for 250 working days per year makes: 200 × 30 × 8 × 250 = 12.000 kWh. Let’s say 15.000 with lights, printers and all that other stuff. With about 20¢ per kWh, we get 9.600 € in 4 years. A few other things (from coffee to furniture replacements to business trips), let’s say 20k. Some other stuff as well.

Basically, make that 5 million for costs.

Now they sell 500.000 copies for even 50 €. They’ll need a distribution (no publishing, just distribution!) deal with a publisher to get the game into the stores. From what I’ve read, of these 50 € only 15-20 arrive at the publisher. From that, they have to subtract their own costs, pay their own employees - and of course make a little profit for themselves. So let’s say in the end, 10€ arrive at PB.

Now we have made 5 million as turnover.


See the problem?

[Maladiq]

I was talking about digital distribution only, via steam and gog.

[foobar]

I was talking about digital distribution only, via steam and gog.

Then you have to reduce the sales amount because you loose a lot of customers. Even Witcher 2 sold only about 25% of its 1 Million on services such as Steam and GOG, whereas 75% were made in the retail business.

So if we assume the Piranhas would loose these 75% – heck, let’s say only 60% – of their potential customers, they would still only sell 200.000 copies. There is very little information on how much Valve charges for their services (they definitely won’t do it for free). Let’s say a 30% provision, like Apple’s AppStore. Then we have: 200.000 × 28 = 5.600.000. Might just be enough to pay for the interest.

Maybe if we combine them:

300.000 on retail with 10 Euro revenue: 3.000.000 €
200.000 via digital distri with 28 Euro revenue: 5.600.000 €

Makes a total of 8.600.000 €. Yes, that might work. If they really manage to sell that many games. The break-even would be at around 300k sales... Seems kind of a tough goal to me...

[Maladiq]

Hard, but doable. Heck, if they released a game as good as Gothic 2, I would for the first time in my life consider paying 40-50 euros just to show my support.

Yet if this option fails, what is there to be done? A publisher will keep on pushing crap in the project, as qte and dlc and no teachers and LESS ITEMS IN THE INVENTORY! TURN EVERYTHING INTO PROVISIONS. If they keep going this way they will only release crap, which doesn't sell, which in the end will turn them into the persona non-grata of the gaming world.

[foobar]

Yet if this option fails, what is there to be done?

I do not know. It’s not an easy business. It’s easy to make the publisher the evil bad guy who exploits innocent developers, but they are facing the same problems we just discussed for PB.

The big problem are the salaries, they are the major factor on the cost side. And the 1.500 € which we used for our calculation... well, let’s be honest here: In Germany, that’s not a lot of money to live from. Programmers usually make 2-3k gross per month, game designers and artists probably a bit less.

Perhaps if small studios (such as PB and others) cooperated more with each other. Why does everyone have to make their own engine (or license a big one which is expensive and takes time to familiarise)? Why don’t 3 or 4 small developers pool their resources and make one engine to use for all of their games? Perhaps even open source so that everyone can contribute and benefit at the same time?

If small developers do not have the manpower to compete with the big players, why don’t they band together? I’m sure there’s room enough for all of them in the different niche markets.

But you would have to change a lot of minds to make that happen...

[Ariogaisus]

I would love to see a game by PB, Spellbound(now Black Forest Games) and Deck 13, since their games follow the same concept most of the time.

[Delicieuxz]

Then you have to reduce the sales amount because you loose a lot of customers. Even Witcher 2 sold only about 25% of its 1 Million on services such as Steam and GOG, whereas 75% were made in the retail business.

Actually, you then drastically increase the profit. A lot of retail bought copies are lost DD sales, and it doesn't take many DD sales to compensate for lost retail sales, as well as add major profit on top.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/opinion-retail-vs-steam

In his experience, his company received about 7 times as much from a single DD sale as from a retail sale.

Then you have to reduce the sales amount because you loose a lot of customers. Even Witcher 2 sold only about 25% of its 1 Million on services such as Steam and GOG, whereas 75% were made in the retail business.

So if we assume the Piranhas would loose these 75% – heck, let’s say only 60% – of their potential customers, they would still only sell 200.000 copies.

Lol. It's realistically more like 5-10% of their potential customers, and it's more than made up for by the vastly greater profit received from DD. Many who would have bought it in store would instead buy it online, where a single purchase is equal in profit to many retail purchases.

[Maladiq]

Perhaps if small studios (such as PB and others) cooperated more with each other. Why does everyone has to make their own engine (or license a big one which is expensive and take time to familiarise)? Why don’t 3 or 4 small developers pool their resources and make one engine to use for all of their games? Perhaps even open source so that everyone can contribute and benefit at the same time?

+1000000 to that

Lol. It's realistically more like 5-10% of their potential customers, and it's more than made up for by the vastly greater profit received from DD. Many who would have bought it in store would instead buy it online, where a single purchase is equal in profit to many retail purchases.

I am a big fan of the boxed versions of games since I enjoy putting them on the shelves. However, it is not the lack of a physical box that would stop me from buying a digital only game, it would be the DRM. If the Piranhas would release their next project on Steam as well as on GOG, I would buy the GOG version without a hesitation (provided it is of great quality and there are certain GOG bonuses, such as the soundtrack, artworks, dev commentary and so on, nothing which would cost any money). Risen 1 was a good game. However it wasn't worth imo 50 euros. It was a game that one would wait to drop to 10-15 euros before buying. However, a game of Gothic 2's caliber would lighten my pockets without a doubt

[foobar]

Actually, you then drastically increase the profit.

Profit per unit. Which I already took into account.

A lot of retail bought copies are lost DD sales

Which is basically confirms that most people prefer the retail market and only use digital distribution when they have no alternative. Retail market is still strong in many countries (including Germany). And it’s not like digital distribution is flawless whereas retail has no future. Both have unique quirks and advantages.

[Dino]

I'm sorry that I'm skipping 5 pages of posts but I really can't read that much so feel free to ignore my stuff if I'm interuping any discussion.

So here's what I think on the topic:

Okay so... Piranha Bytes... the creators of my personal all time favorite game Gothic 1 and its sequel gothic 2... good stuff, good stuff. The issues with those games are nowhere near enough to drag down the rest of how incredible those two gems are.
Then came gothic 3 which was quite the huge disappointment for me personally. I can say a lot of shitty things about it but I won't, I'll just mention that it took 6 years of COMMUNITY patching to make the game like how it should have been on release date, so there.

And then PB was gone...

Right of the blue they show up with Risen. The game felt like it had potential, like they were only testing the new grounds and how well they can measure up to the newer RPGs and stuff. Okay so... the majority seemed to like it more or less and were waiting for the announced sequel to show up, Risen 2 Dark Waters. And from what I've heard* it didn't go smooth... things weren't that good.

So I don't get it... why did PB get so sidetracked? Why didn't they take what was already good from their previous games and just upgrade it? Why did they have to go on ahead and change so much stuff? It's a mistake I see in a lot of games nowadays. If it's good and it works just don't change it. Really, don't.

To sum it up this is what I think should be done: It doesn't matter if PB decide to continue the gothic series, or risen, or try an entirely new game. What matters is that they should take what's best from their previous games and add up to that. No reason replacing something flawless.

*I have still not played the game myself due to the fact that my purse is devoid of currency

[Ariogaisus]

To sum up Dino's post: "Don't fix what ain't broke."

[Zocky]

Hm, dino, you should really be a bit more specific. One might think that you are asking PB why aren't they doing whta EA is doing; realease same crap every single year (fifa series)...

I do agree, there are few things that should be there. because they were alredy in 10 years old game (swmming, climbing), but i would like to hear why exactly do you have in mind?

[Maladiq]

Here is an idea. Use the same engine, the same fighting/thieving etc systems and so on, and just keep adding features instead of rebuilding them from scrap.