Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Shock! In-game ads do NOT work…

Check this out:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/30886/Report_Microsofts_InGame_Ad_Unit_Massive_Shutting_Down_This_Month.php

It looks like Microsoft paid over $200 million for an ad business that doesn’t make any money. I am SO amazed to hear that. Hold on…no I’m not.

Advertising is EVERWHERE. I’ve seen it on the back of bus tickets, on steps, and even on peoples clothes. You know the ONLY major potential location for ads we don’t actually get any? To my mind, it’s in the pages of books. Imagine turning the page of a novel and getting an ad for pepsi. It’s laughable. Novels are about being immersed in a new world. The objective is to forget about pepsi, car insurance and washing powder for the duration of the story. The same is true of most games.

Ads in the middle of games suck, and always have. There are so many problems associated with them, I haven’t sufficient time to list them. And yes, there are ads in TV shows and TV movies, and this is why DVD box sets are so popular. People HATE the ads.

Surely I am not the only one who saw this coming a light year away? All those constant shill news-stories about how ‘gamers LOVE in-game ads’ made it 100% obvious it was a business case disaster :D

I’m back from holiday :D

Getting bigger?

GSB, and positech could be bigger than they are. I only have so much time, and frankly I’m knackered :D. I have no time to work on anything but the campaign game now. Ideally, there would be an ipad port of the game, idally there would be a game for the iphone, designed as a mini-game version. I just can’t do this stuff. Ideally the game would have a version that works on netbooks properly…

Maybe the solution is to find a few more ‘strategic’ partners like I have with redmarblegames, who do the mainstream mac port. There is also the possibility in the longer term of doing a GSB 2, or also maybe doing a spinoff game. A naval or land battle version, for example. This is all separate from my vague ever-changing plans for ‘Game 4’.

Gratuitous Space Battles is my most succesful game to date. It represents the clearest opportunity since I quit mainstream game dev, to increase the size of the company, and actually employ or strike deals with people to work alongside me. Do I want to do that?

I really don’t know. I wouldn’t be doing it for the money. I’m not convinced it would be more profitable anyway, but more because it’s taking me years to make a game, and I’d like to make a lot more. Maybe one day I’ll find the exact right people to make games on a fixed contract, or to even employ. I can’t help thinking that I’m being a bit too timid. You can only grow a company so much by increasing your ad budget and sticking with one employee.

I have a little sideline project that’s an experiment which will start in a few days. Not a big deal though. Not a revenue earner, either…

Hmmm…..

Gratuitous DLC Experiment

Ok, first things first, let me announce the release of a new race for Gratuitous Space Battles. They are called the nomads, and you can see more info here, and watch a video of them here (or below). And you can even go buy the new DLC here.

The idea for the nomads are a sort of retro-future race, suggesting a species that has been around a loooong time. They are travellers, and fighting purely for sport. They don’t come with any new technology or weapon types, but they do have a few extra tweaked ship modules. Also, there are not new singleplayer missions, this is just a race for you to use in existing scenarios, or in challenges.

Here is an embedded video showing off the new ships:

Now comes the slightl wacky bit. I’m selling this DLC for $5.99, just like all the previous races were, and there is no change there. If you are a long time GSB plauyer and just want the new race, then go buy it, it’s $5.99. That gets you the standard version of the DLC. There is also a ‘discount’ version of the DLC. The difference between the two is that one is $5.99 and one is $2.99. That’s it.

Obviously the standard one costs more, and I get more money as the developer. The discount one costs you less, and I get less. There will be updated stats on the page here showing who bought what.

It’s entirely up to you, which one you buy. You decide. I would obviously prefer you bought the standard one. Nobody will ever know what version you bought, the files are identical. This is a bit of a sudden manic experiment to see what happens. If you genuinely have very very little money and would have waited months hoping for a bundle or a sale, then you could make an argument you could get the discount one. If you frankly, *do* have the money to spare and would buy it anyway if there was only the $5.99 option, I’m asking you to do that.

This might make me look really stupid, but I’m prepared to risk it. I like trying new stuff in business. I think it will be interesting either way. Also, the DLC is more about promoting the game and making a bigger range of ships, so there is more variety. None of these expansions are really aiming to make money, the core game does that. ( I hope!)

Anyway, it should be interesting. If you find the time to tweet, facebook like, link to, blog or otherwise promote this experiment, I’d appreciate it. It could be interesting.

Cheers,

The current positech plan (posiplan?)

I see no harm in making my immediate future plans public.

In no specific order this is what I have coming up:

1) Release of the 1.47 patch to all partners (valve etc). I did this this morning.
2) Release of the new Race (The Nomads) On my site, in a slightly strange way (details to follow) then on the partner sites when I know it works ok. Teasing screen:

3) Talk to Steam and other partners about selling the Mac copy of GSB.
4) Pre-order / beta access and eventual release of the GSB campaign game.
5) Game IV.

This should last me a good few months. Hopefully the money lasts a good few months too. Ha!

In amongst all this, I’ll be taking the first holiday (only a week) since I moved house, and it will be my Birthday. I also have a visit from a  structural engineer today to tell me if my roof can hold up solar panels or not. I will be mr sad face if he says it cannot.

Nobody wants my money

I’m interested in two new games, that I might like. Patrician IV and Starcraft 2. Neither game has demos. If they do, they don’t want me to find them. So I spent the money on an Iain M Banks novel and some archery target pins instead.

It’s like these companies owners are scared customers might find out what their product is actually like.

I’m not. Try some free demos. if you don’t like them, you won’t like my games. It’s easy:

http://www.positech.co.uk/gratuitousspacebattles/demo.html

http://www.positech.co.uk/democracy2/demo.html

http://www.positech.co.uk/kudos2/demo.html