New Atari Console that Ataribox?

[Inky]

I'm going to release a console called the Inkybocks

You too can get in on the pre order. Just $7,800.00, in small unmarked bills, left in locker #465 at Chicago's Union Station will get you on the list!

Or get me to the Bahamas, one of the two.

[Flojomojo]

You were one of the principals in PAC-Man, we should honor your legacy.

 

Sounds great @inky, can't wait to play! #retrorevival

[tschak909]

Everything you want to know about Atari's intentions is literally in that financial disclosure.

 

I've understood for quite some time that this whole exercise is nothing more than trying to fatten up a worthless penny stock, the aforementioned disclosure proves it.

 

-Thom

[+x=usr(1536)]

I'm going to release a console called the Inkybocks

 

You too can get in on the pre order. Just $7,800.00, in small unmarked bills, left in locker #465 at Chicago's Union Station will get you on the list!

 

Or get me to the Bahamas, one of the two.

 

Be careful that Atari SA doesn't sue you over that name. It's awfully close to Ataribollocks, you know.

[Rane]

Wonder how long it's gonna take the true believers to crack...

[+x=usr(1536)]

Everything you want to know about Atari's intentions is literally in that financial disclosure.

 

I've understood for quite some time that this whole exercise is nothing more than trying to fatten up a worthless penny stock, the aforementioned disclosure proves it.

 

-Thom

 

Yep.

 

At this point, the AtariVCSbox is really nothing more than a 'what-if' exercise, with the biggest 'what-if' being, "what if they do actually produce it?"

 

My expctation in that event: zero effect on the worth of the company, and Chesnais gets to continue sporting that stylish albatross around his neck.

[godslabrat]

Wonder how long it's gonna take the true believers to crack...

Considering there are STILL some people who think the Coleco Chameleon just needed some more time... some people just never get it.

[Flojomojo]

At this point, the AtariVCSbox is really nothing more than a 'what-if' exercise, with the biggest 'what-if' being, "what if they do actually produce it?"

 

My expctation in that event: zero effect on the worth of the company, and Chesnais gets to continue sporting that stylish albatross around his neck.

Yeah, except now they have a very concrete answer to the other question, "exactly how much can we get away with?"

 

It's like putting something up for auction to test its real market value. Sometimes things aren't worth as much as people say they might be worth.

[Inky]

You were one of the principals in PAC-Man, we should honor your legacy.

 

Sounds great @inky, can't wait to play! #retrorevival

I too can't wait to recreate in Nassau...

 

I mean.. Carry on the legacy!

[Flojomojo]

I too can't wait to recreate in Nassau...

 

I mean.. Carry on the legacy!

The water slides in Atlantis that go thru shark tanks are really something.

 

Speaking of Shark Tank ... the cute thing about crowd funding and social media is how everything is democratized and the gatekeepers are removed. It would have been neat to watch Arzt defend their work against a truly hostile audience. Us outsider nerds? Tech journalists like El Reg? Small ball amateurs, easy to impress compared to a real venture capitalist. Atari doesn't belong in the deep end of the pool.

[cybercylon]

Considering there are STILL some people who think the Coleco Chameleon just needed some more time... some people just never get it.

 

Of course, the big difference here is that money has been collected from people, so at some point, there might be much more of a meltdown and poo rancid taco meet hitting the fan.

Edited July 6, 2018 by cybercylon

[BiffsGamingVideos]

 

The problem for Atari, if that indeed is their plan, is that the margins on games consoles are pretty much negative, even when the volumes being sold are in the tens of millions. Nintendo might make a small profit because they're really good at making world class games with weaker hardware, but Sony and Microsoft are pretty much selling at a loss most of the time.

 

The way to make big money from games consoles is in licensing the software, but Atari can't realistically do that if they're only selling 50,000 units a year. Let's face it, who is going to even port games to it, let alone make exclusives if the most they can sell is a few tens of thousand of copies? Even a good indie game can cost upwards of a million to make these days, so those sales just aren't going to cut it. While it might potentially be the case that you could put Steam on it and get some games that way, that's not going to help Atari's business case much.

 

We've been over this here.

1) I agree. You sell the system at cost and then make the money on the games. That is why I keep saying they should not have it open Linux. Have the Atari UI store and get 30% of whatever is sold there. If it's on steam, Atari gets nothing.

2) Porting a game is easy. If using Unity, then just export to Linux. You might have to change the controllers or something but really easy.

3) Indie games do not cost a million to make. The company I work for is in final states of having a distubutor releasing it. (I met with them last night BTW. We have met several times and have an agreement on the principals.). So far we have spent like $200. If people work for no cost and take a cut of the profits (which everyone does these days), then the amount to do a game is almost nothing.

Edited July 6, 2018 by BiffsGamingVideos

[BiffsGamingVideos]

 

Of course, the big difference here is that money has been collected from people, so at some point, there might be much more of a meltdown and poo rancid taco meet hitting the fan.

 

Gamestop collects money from people months in advance for titles. People pay for a product they doesn't exist. That's how GTA can sell $815 million in 1 day and 1 BILLION in 3 days. There are a lot of companies that sell products before they are finished. Granted I think Atari did this way to soon but a lot of companies do this.

[godslabrat]

Gamestop collects money from people months in advance for titles.

 

...No.

 

...Not that GameStop should be the gold standard for how to run a business, but a token amount for a deposit is not hundreds in advance, paid in full.

 

 

 

Granted I think Atari did this way to soon but a lot of companies do this

 

The point of the conversations was not IF they should do it, or when, but whether Atari needed to. They did. They need that money to produce the console. Atari does not have the money to produce the console on their own, and are unwilling to spend what they do have to push the process along. Therefore, in saying that the crowdfunding was about "the crowd, not the funding" or that "the Ataribox is coming no matter what'...

 

They. Lied.

 

 

Now, you can say you don't care if they lied, or it's just business, or whatever your preferred flavor of apologetics might be... but get off this high horse that Atari has some grand plan that we're not privvy to, and that we're all just "guessing". It's very clear what's going on, and to interpret the Atari VCS as anything more than a cash grab by a desperate IP vulture is to adopt a consipiracy theory that's only missing lizard people and chemtrails.

Edited July 6, 2018 by godslabrat

[Flojomojo]

You sell the system at cost and then make the money on the games. That is why I keep saying they should not have it open Linux. Have the Atari UI store and get 30% of whatever is sold there. If it's on steam, Atari gets nothing.

We can call this the OUYA dilemma.

 

OUYA had a free demo for everything they sold in their store. A lot of popular apps, such as game emulators, were free to keep. They allowed side loading, but didn't make it overly easy. You could root it and add Google Play, but that was harder still.

 

If Ouya had allowed Google Play, they might have attracted more users, who could run software they purchased elsewhere, without having to pay twice. In this scenario, analogous to Steam on AtariBox, Ouya wouldn't make any money.

 

Since they forced all purchases through their store, the appeal of the hardware and ecosystem was somewhat diminished, especially since the most polished games were available elsewhere (Google Play, Steam, etc). In this scenario, analogous to what you are proposing, Ouya didn't make any money.

 

Either way, AtariBox is pretty much a one-and-done "console," if we really want to call it that.

[pacman000]

"It's very clear what's going on, and to interpret the Atari VCS as anything more than a cash grab by a desperate IP vulture is to adopt a consipiracy theory that's only missing lizard people and chemtrails."

Maybe Atari is owned by Lizard People & they're using Chemtrails to convince people to invest!

[toiletunes]

There is a difference between Gamestopper taking a deposit for GTA, and Ataribox taking $300 for something they plan to create at some later date.

 

It's more like someone asking you to pay $85 in advance for a Harry Hard Hat remake without being able to tell you what platform it's for. If you pay $95, I'll throw in the custom bomb-digggety box with woodgrain spine, complete with wells and blistles!

Edited July 6, 2018 by toiletunes

[Flojomojo]

There is a difference between Gamestopper taking a deposit for GTA, and Ataribox taking $300 for something they plan to create at some later date.

 

Another difference is that Gamestop [correctly] allows you to cancel a pre-order if you change your mind. That's because it's a transaction, not a "contribution."

 

P.S. check out the "church with the Atari logo"

[bojay1997]

 

We've been over this here.

1) I agree. You sell the system at cost and then make the money on the games. That is why I keep saying they should not have it open Linux. Have the Atari UI store and get 30% of whatever is sold there. If it's on steam, Atari gets nothing.

2) Porting a game is easy. If using Unity, then just export to Linux. You might have to change the controllers or something but really easy.

3) Indie games do not cost a million to make. The company I work for is in final states of having a distubutor releasing it. (I met with them last night BTW. We have met several times and have an agreement on the principals.). So far we have spent like $200. If people work for no cost and take a cut of the profits (which everyone does these days), then the amount to do a game is almost nothing.

1) This would have resulted in far fewer consoles being presold as one of the major selling points is the belief among backers that even if Atari just delivers the hardware and nothing else, they will at least have a relatively cheap Linux box that can be used with existing titles outside of the Atari UI store.

 

2) Porting a game is far from easy. If you use any plugins or custom libraries, many are not supported in Linux and those that are function differently. Doing a Linux conversion of a simple game in Unity can take weeks or months assuming you know what you're doing.

 

3) Many indie games cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to make when you consider all the gainful employment people are giving up to work for free in the hope of getting a return that often doesn't materialize. You should spend some time reading post mortems on various forums and websites so you understand what the marketplace is really like out there. Unless your time is worth far less than minimum wage, it cost you far more than $200 to make that game even if it was super simple. Most indie games sell very few copies and most developers figure out pretty quickly that they would have been better off working for another company as an employee or contractor with that time when they calculate what it really cost them in lost salary to create that game "for free".

[bojay1997]

 

Another difference is that Gamestop [correctly] allows you to cancel a pre-order if you change your mind. That's because it's a transaction, not a "contribution."

 

P.S. check out the "church with the Atari logo"

Yep and Gamestop only collects a $5 deposit in store and nothing if you preorder online. Amazon and Best Buy similarly don't charge for preorders until they ship.

[Rane]

2) Porting a game is far from easy. If you use any plugins or custom libraries, many are not supported in Linux and those that are function differently. Doing a Linux conversion of a simple game in Unity can take weeks or months assuming you know what you're doing.

I think you're vastly overstating how hard it is to port a game to Linux, especially a Unity one.

Edited July 6, 2018 by Rane

[pacman000]

http://kidologist.com/2009/10/19/the-church-with-the-atari-logo/

 

Oh! I get it; it's a cross in a road!

 

Better watch out for someone's lawyers...

[BiffsGamingVideos]

2) Porting a game is far from easy. If you use any plugins or custom libraries, many are not supported in Linux and those that are function differently. Doing a Linux conversion of a simple game in Unity can take weeks or months assuming you know what you're doing.

 

3) Many indie games cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to make when you consider all the gainful employment people are giving up to work for free in the hope of getting a return that often doesn't materialize. You should spend some time reading post mortems on various forums and websites so you understand what the marketplace is really like out there. Unless your time is worth far less than minimum wage, it cost you far more than $200 to make that game even if it was super simple. Most indie games sell very few copies and most developers figure out pretty quickly that they would have been better off working for another company as an employee or contractor with that time when they calculate what it really cost them in lost salary to create that game "for free".

 

I don't know where you got the Linux plug-ins don't work thing but of the games I have designed or worked on, the most for Unity was to was change the controller inputs. Now for a STORE (not a different platform) when doing android for the play store and amazon we had to use directives in the code. That way when you downloaded form the Amazon store you got a screen for amazon. When you downloaded form play store you got a screenshot for play store. You might have info from 5 years ago or something. Which plug-ins are you referring to exactly and what games have you designed so I can go check them out?

 

The average Steam indie game sells like 22,000 copies at around $10 each (with no advertising. With advertising it's in the 60,000- 100,000 range.). Steam takes 30%. So that's $220,000 * .70 = $154,000. Even if 3 people worked on the title for a year that's still over 51k for the year's work each. And really, it's probably just 1 guy who might freelance out the graphics work if anything. You can get music cuts, models,, pugins and tons of stuff dirt cheap on the asset stores. So no need to hire audio anymore. And that's just Steam and not platforms or android or iOS or anything else. Oh yeah, when sales bottom out, then they have sales. So a $10 game would sell for $5 or $3.33. The profit is low but they could sell 100,000 - 150,000 or more copies. That basically doubles the net profits.

 

Here are some articles from Steam Spy you should read up on. These are really good articles from a data miner who went deeper into the analytics. Anyone here that really want to know how games on Steam work, these are it. Really good reads.

https://galyonk.in/steam-in-2017-129c0e6be260

https://galyonk.in/the-indie-games-are-too-damn-cheap-11b8652fad16

https://galyonk.in/pricing-on-steam-67d1e040b543

 

The reason indies fail is NO ADVERTISING! The have to get a distributor to work on getting the word out months in advance.

Edited July 6, 2018 by BiffsGamingVideos

[bojay1997]

 

I don't know where you got the Linux plug-ins don't work thing but of the games I have designed or worked on, the most for Unity was to was change the controller inputs. Now for a STORE (not a different platform) when doing android for the play store and amazon we had to use directives in the code. That way when you downloaded form the Amazon store you got a screen for amazon. When you downloaded form play store you got a screenshot for play store. You might have info from 5 years ago or something. Which plug-ins are you referring to exactly and what games have you designed so I can go check them out?

 

The average Steam indie game sells like 22,000 copies at around $10 each (with no advertising. With advertising it's in the 60,000- 100,000 range.). Steam takes 30%. So that's $220,000 * .70 = $154,000. Even if 3 people worked on the title for a year that's still over 51k for the year's work each. And really, it's probably just 1 guy who might freelance out the graphics work if anything. You can get music cuts, models,, pugins and tons of stuff dirt cheap on the asset stores. So no need to hire audio anymore. And that's just Steam and not platforms or android or iOS or anything else. Oh yeah, when sales bottom out, then they have sales. So a $10 game would sell for $5 or $3.33. The profit is low but they could sell 100,000 - 150,000 or more copies. That basically doubles the net profits.

 

Here are some articles from Steam Spy you should read up on. These are really good articles from a data miner who went deeper into the analytics. Anyone here that really want to know how games on Steam work, these are it. Really good reads.

https://galyonk.in/steam-in-2017-129c0e6be260

https://galyonk.in/the-indie-games-are-too-damn-cheap-11b8652fad16

https://galyonk.in/pricing-on-steam-67d1e040b543

 

The reason indies fail is NO ADVERTISING! The have to get a distributor to work on getting the word out months in advance.

I never said Linux plug-ins. Most developers still work in Windows for development and it's the Windows libraries and plug-ins that often can't be used in Linux.

 

With regard to your business plan, it's frankly laughable. I am very familiar with those links and I have followed that analysis for a while now. The number you should be looking at is the mean sales and not the average as the average tends to be skewed way high by the million sellers. The mean number of owners for an indie title on Steam released in 2017 was 1500. So, even at $20 a copy, you'd be looking at well under $30K in revenue before development costs and distribution fees. That's a terrible return on the time investment unless it really is just a hobby.

 

The reason most indies fail is that there are many, many indie games released every year on Steam and other platforms and most of them are terrible. No amount of advertising is going to overcome that fact.

[godslabrat]

 

The reason most indies fail is that there are many, many indie games released every year on Steam and other platforms and most of them are terrible. No amount of advertising is going to overcome that fact.

 

You'll be laughing out the other side of your face when I become a bazillionaire on my game featuring a pixel bug that shoots MS Paint splotches at broken JPEGs. That is, once I figure out how to make him turn right.