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What's Your Pipe Dream Games On The Jag.


Atariboy2600

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3 hours ago, Lost Dragon said:

I recently saw the Jaguar version described as the best version of Theme Park, due to having extra rides and such ( the comment was wasted on myself as i hated both Theme Park on Jaguar and Theme Hospital on PlayStation,  they just are not my thing) and the slowdown was mentioned.

 

What the reviewer seemed unaware of was the specifics behind the conversion,  as the games coder Mike Diskett explained to myself back along :

 

"Syndicate and theme park are both very simulation heavy games designed to run on a high end 486 (at the time) and even on PC suffer slow downs, without a major simplification of the game it was never going to run at a constant great framerate. With more time we could have made it run better, but I guess projected unit sales were so low it wasnt worth the business guys at Bullfrog have us spend more time and maybe make a loss on making the games.."

 

 

Now my point about chuckling at people on YT etc getting so upset about ST code being ported to the Jaguar today, is this..

 

If sales projections during the Jaguar's commercial lifespan were so low, it was not worth the time of commercial teams to write for the Jaguar from the ground up,when converting existing titles, why is there the expectation those kind enough to invest time and energy into converting games now, should take a different approach,  when only 200-300 people might be interested in buying/playing the game? 

Because homebrew/indie should work totally diffferent than the commercial game industry, mostly it does: no tight budgets, no time contraints, no pressure from publishers to keep release dates, no 24/7 crunch to get a game ready for shipping, no producers tellling devs what to do to appeal the mass consumer market and so on. Actually you have much more creative freedom when doing homebrew. Some indie games were developed over the course of 5-7 years. And most importantly, it's not a job in order to pay bills, its not about profit in the first place. 

 

Edited by agradeneu
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37 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

Because homebrew/indie should work totally diffferent than the commercial game industry, mostly it does: no tight budgets, no time contraints, no pressure from publishers to keep release dates, no 24/7 crunch to get a game ready for shipping, no producers tellling devs what to do to appeal the mass consumer market and so on. Actually you have much more creative freedom when doing homebrew. Some indie games were developed over the course of 5-7 years. And most importantly, it's not a job in order to pay bills, its not about profit in the first place. 

 

In this instance though.. the guy porting ST to Jag is also making original content.. not that there would be anything wrong with someone wanting to spend their time and passion on just learning to port code between machines.

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5 hours ago, Lost Dragon said:

 

If sales projections during the Jaguar's commercial lifespan were so low, it was not worth the time of commercial teams to write for the Jaguar from the ground up,when converting existing titles, why is there the expectation those kind enough to invest time and energy into converting games now, should take a different approach,  when only 200-300 people might be interested in buying/playing the game? 

We now know you can easily double that number for a killer app.

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5 hours ago, JagChris said:

We now know you can easily double that number for a killer app.

 

Yeah, *maybe* over several years of trickle sales after the initial launch.  Unless you are doing shitty inkjet on the cheap cases and crappy manuals and boxes, there is a significant initial cash injection required, which inevitably leaves you with large stockpiles waiting to be sold.    

 

You guys should all try and publish a game. After you've made one, of course.  Put up or shut up :)

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Sometime ago, an estimated figure of between 300 and 500 active buyers for Jaguar Homebrew was put forward and Another World was suggested as an example of top tier Jaguar Homebrew.

 

I'd be interested to hear just how many copies were actually sold and why people wanted it on Jaguar, rather than simply picking it up on the existing systems.

 

I understand it was rewritten for the Jaguar and the GPU and DSP used, now runs in 256 colours, but it's still based around the original 68000 game logic is it not?

 

No extended levels or new gameplay features, your just playing a nicer looking and sounding version of the ST/Amiga version? 

 

 

 

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Looks like Arcade Attack had the answer to my question :

 

 

How many copies of Another World for the Jaguar were released and are they still available to buy?

We published a little over 200 copies in 2013. Then, given the success and demand, we have done the same for the second run. Today, we sell the last copies using the waiting list. So in a way, it is possible to register you on the waiting list… (sign up now folks! Ed)

 

 

That kinda does tie-in with the estimate that a Triple-A homebrew title will at best sell around 500 copies and even then over repeated production runs.

 

Producers not likely to risk inital runs of over 200 copies for fear of unsold units.

 

It's a niche market by the sounds of it as i expected. 

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2 hours ago, CyranoJ said:

 

Yeah, *maybe* over several years of trickle sales after the initial launch.  Unless you are doing shitty inkjet on the cheap cases and crappy manuals and boxes, there is a significant initial cash injection required, which inevitably leaves you with large stockpiles waiting to be sold.    

 

You guys should all try and publish a game. After you've made one, of course.  Put up or shut up :)

 

Is that what happened with OOTW? Trickle sales? 

 

Or the SD card? Saint couldn't handle the near 700 in trickle sales? 

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53 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

Projections of sales are irrelevant.

Then what is relevant? Before you have actually sold a game all you have is sales projections.

 

And the evidence shows a killer app will hit the 400 mark on the Jaguar easily.

 

Out Of This World 400 units. 

Robinson's Requiem on CD 400+ units

 

Saint SD card nearly 700 sales as soon as the buy button went active. With more requesting it. And that's just those with $200 immediate disposable cash on hand.

 

Skunkboards still selling, last batch due to parts obsolesence. Sales must be over 1k by now.

 

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59 minutes ago, JagChris said:

Skunkboards still selling, last batch due to parts obsolesence. Sales must be over 1k by now.

 

Make a game. Get the boxes and packaging done. Sell it.

 

Use your own cash. Then come back and tell us how it went. Cool story, bro.

 

I think you'll also find most of the home brew guys coding games are doing it for the fun/love of it.   The sales/marketing side is a PITA.

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33 minutes ago, CyranoJ said:

 

Make a game. Get the boxes and packaging done. Sell it.

 

Use your own cash. Then come back and tell us how it went. Cool story, bro.

 

I think you'll also find most of the home brew guys coding games are doing it for the fun/love of it.   The sales/marketing side is a PITA.

 

A few years back I made a 3-4 dozen boxed rotary Jaguar controllers for sale(along with some patches). I thought it would take 4-6 weeks. It ended up taking 3-4 months. The cost was almost double what I expected. I am not sure I would have started if I knew how much it was going to cost (and the additional time). I fronted the entire cost and made all the controllers/boxes/patches/etc without knowing if they would sell. I admit I was a little nervous. I ended up making my money back(just barely) and had some fun. Although I did not really make money on the project, I am proud of it. My wife is glad I put most of the money back into our bank account. :)

 

I always remember that when I see new games released. No one makes any real money, mostly it is a project of love, passion and/or pride. My dinky litte project was nothing compared to some of these games being released. It shows when a project has pride behind it!  I trip my hat to all the great people who GIVE their time to make these amazing games!

 

 

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I think the Skunkboard as a cartridge format is great; I'd like to re-purpose the Skunk for home-brew custom games... I got a lot of reserved skills I haven't used in a while that I can certainly put to good use making home-brew games. I think if you make a really fun game with good quality art and music to back up the fun factor, it could pay off over a consistent long-term if people know your stuff is good. But with home-brews, it's never really about the money unless you need it, then it turns into something else... There's never really been a lot of money to be made with home-brew games unless it was really good; As a comic book and video game collector, I would shoot for both the hardcore gamer and the hardcore collector.

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12 minutes ago, CyranoJ said:

Your rotaries are fantastic! Appreciate the work you put into them!

 

Thanks CJ. Your game(Rebooteroids) fueled my excitement for the project. Although I am proud of them, making a game is on another level.

Just know most of us appreciate all the hard work you "game makers" (and distributors) put into your projects!

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1 hour ago, CyranoJ said:

 

Make a game. Get the boxes and packaging done. Sell it.

 

Use your own cash. Then come back and tell us how it went. Cool story, bro.

 

I think you'll also find most of the home brew guys coding games are doing it for the fun/love of it.   The sales/marketing side is a PITA.

 

 

I have no words. I'll just say you're absolutely correct. Hypocrite but correct.

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11 minutes ago, CyranoJ said:

 

No surprise there.  Not getting drawn into this with you.  Go argue with someone else.

My point is you don't make your own boxes. You don't make your own manuals. You don't solder your own boards (except for those release candidate carts I ASSUME) You dont invest YOUR own money. You just program the games and hand it off to others to handle. You can't really be preaching about something you don't really do. I CAN speak from experience on expenses out of pocket to do a release. Because I pay for it all. And I CAN speak about marketing and advertising. Its all very hard especially when you have groups of people launching their own ANTI-advertising campaign against your products.

 

But none of that matters. I wasn't arguing with you, I agreed with your statement

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18 minutes ago, WAVE 1 GAMES said:

My point is you don't make your own boxes. You don't make your own manuals. You don't solder your own boards (except for those release candidate carts I ASSUME) You dont invest YOUR own money. You just program the games and hand it off to others to handle. You can't really be preaching about something you don't really do. I CAN speak from experience on expenses out of pocket to do a release. Because I pay for it all. And I CAN speak about marketing and advertising. Its all very hard especially when you have groups of people launching their own ANTI-advertising campaign against your products.

 

But none of that matters. I wasn't arguing with you, I agreed with your statement

 

I wouldn't be preaching about hater campaigns, Mr Moderator of JS3...

 

I can talk about that because I know how much time, effort and cash is involved.  I have been involved in this in the past. Just because I don't do this now doesn't mean I don't know how much is involved.

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I never spread lies and false information about your games CJ. I also dont make up stories about people, I'm just not that creative nor dedicated to hatred. I do sometimes complain about your ST ports but thats just a matter of opinion. And im wishy washy about that opinion too and have been clear about that. In fact I have actually been PROMOTING AtariAge 7800 homebrews on JSIII lately. So please stop. 

 

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You don't actually correct any of the lies or remove any of the hatred that as a moderator you allow to fester there either.

 

You seem quite happy to be complicit with it, accepting no responsibility.

 

People are usually judged by the company they keep. 

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