Gallenite and SOE

[Dashal]

The post by Lum is a month old now but I just re-read it and had to share. I'm posting it here because I dont know where else to put it and Scott replied to it a bit further down:

f13.net forums - MMO budgets and development times

This book is out of print and about 5-7 years out of date but still has a lot of insights into what goes into backend MMO production, if you can find it.

Here's a more cynical take on Margalis' point. Note that all of this HAS ACTUALLY HAPPENED in various places. I'm not making ANY of this up.

Designer Guy plays PopularGameOfTheMoment, wipes on a bad pull, curses, says "crap, I know even I can do better than those idiots! Screw it, I'm gonna do it."

Designer Guy's friend with a trust fund says "OK", hiring begins.

About 6 months later GameCo, flush with $2 million in venture capital from Trust Fund Guy, opens up a shiny new office in downtown Frobozz. Aeron chairs and 22" LCD monitors for everyone! Designer Guy's other friend, Bob, is hired on as CEO because he smiles a lot and talks pretty. Hiring continues.

Bob does the rounds of game publishers, explaining their great idea for this totally original game that will smack everyone in the face. The usual MMO publishers snicker and pass, because Bob's company bought Aeron chairs and LCD monitors before actually making a working prototype. However Bob finds a kindred soul in a publisher, Activariplay, who wants to break into the MMO industry, because hey, how hard can it be! GameCo gets 5 million more funding and some vague milestones over the next few years. Hiring continues.

About 6 months after Activariplay's cash infusion, Designer Guy is somewhat worried that they still don't have a working prototype. This is because they haven't yet been able to find *any* server programmers, because anyone with any multiplayer game server experience at all is immediately issued 40 houris and all the opium they can smoke and chained to a desk by the first game company to find them. There also isn't a working client because Client Programmer Guy thinks licensing client tech is for babies and he is positive he can write his own 3D engine from scratch, just like that punk Carmack.

A year after Activariplay's investment, the first milestone is due. The collective staff of Gameco spends two weeks frantically injecting amphetamines so as to avoid sleep and trying to get ANYTHING up and running at all. Their milestone presentation consists of some NC-17 concept art by Art Guy One, a few half-assed character renders Art Guy Two managed to outsource, and an hour long Powerpoint presentation by Designer Guy where he tries to describe his vision for his game through sheer force of will. Activariplay declines to fund Gameco any further, mainly because all the Gameco principals are visibly twitching from all the amphetamines.

Bob goes back to TrustFundGuy and offers him a 40% stake in the company in exchange for more funding. Bob and DesignerGuy do the publisher rounds again. Hiring continues, although anyone with any experience at all in the gaming industry takes one look at Gameco's flush office and no actual work, talks to a few of the cynical artists smoking in the back, and run away in terror. DesignerGuy proclaims that the entire MMO industry is corrupt and incestuous anyway and begins recruiting kids fresh out of college. (The smarter ones of those do some due diligence and pass on Gameco too.)

Another year passes. It's now been three years, GameCo has burned through about $15 million of other people's money, and all they have to show for it is a lot of mildly pornographic concept art, character renders done by artists working on buffing up their portfolio for applying to real companies, and various fragments of a 3D rendering engine done by Client Programmer Guy who is still convinced he can write his own 3D engine Any Day Now. GameCo is now out of money and Bob and DesignerGuy have thousand yard stares on the few days they come into the office.

Big Bad MMO Publisher, who has seen the Gameco story many times before, swoops in and says that they'll assume GameCo's debts, pay off Trust Fund Guy, and fund GameCo's game, in exchange for outright ownership of all of GameCo's assets and IP. Bob, who just wants the nightmare to end, doesn't bother consulting anyone else and signs on the bottom line. BBMP promptly fires all the artists and Client Programmer Guy, parachutes in a deeply experienced and deeply cynical development team in the home office, and informs the shell-shocked yet somehow still employed Designer Guy that his brilliant and innovative MMO design, thanks to production realities, is being scaled back to "just like BBMP's other products, but with a few more pixel shaders". Designer Guy contemplates suicide or more drugs, and settles on more drugs.

Two years later, GameCo's Game is released. F7 proclaims it a failure and epitomizing what's wrong with the game industry today. It has hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and is considered a moderate success internally, especially since it really only had a 2 year development cycle once adult management took over, but its original fans who were attracted by Designer Guy's drunken rantings on message boards feel betrayed that the dynamic virtual world promised them turned out to be yet another moving the bar from left to right while keeping the other bar from moving from right to left game. DesignerGuy and Bob quit GameCo and form RealGameCo, where the dream will never die, word, y0. They attract $3m in initial investment based on their success in producing Game (despite the fact that Game was actually produced literally in spite of both Bob or DesignerGuy) and the cycle begins again, complete with Aeron chairs.

[Lorrac]

Originally Posted by Dashal

The post by Lum is a month old now but I just re-read it and had to share. I'm posting it here because I dont know where else to put it and Scott replied to it a bit further down:

f13.net forums - MMO budgets and development times

So, this means vanguard 2 is due in 3 years time?

[Draegan]

I read that a while ago. Was pretty damn funny.

[Glaive]

Originally Posted by Cybsled

She used to have a paysite but shut it down. Maybe it would have done better if they offered it as part of The Station Pass.

She didn't shut it down because it was doing badly, she just had a falling out with the guy who did a lot of the work on it, plus she moved to Italy.

She still does modeling/photoshoots/etc.. Those pics I posted were for a German clothing company and were taken a month or two ago.

[Loftish v2]

That post from Lum isn't 100% accurate...is it?

[Dashal]

Originally Posted by Loftish v2

That post from Lum isn't 100% accurate...is it?

Gallenite (Hartsman) answers that question further down the thread I linked to.

[Quineloe]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

http://www.fohguild.org/forums/scree...-boards-5.html

Alot more 'revealing' ones in that thread.

She's actually pretty damn hot, much moreso without the heavy goth makeup.

and on what fucking page are the pics?

[ruination]

Originally Posted by Quineloe

and on what fucking page are the pics?

I was wondering this myself.

[Camerous]

Originally Posted by Quineloe

and on what fucking page are the pics?

They were in a link but they aren't there any more cause the site was taken down.

It's weird reading back on stuff like that and seeing some of the asinine shit we have argued about on here. *shakes head*

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by Quineloe

and on what fucking page are the pics?

The page I linked you fucking retard. Since I know your hands are all lubed up and unable to click on the mouse without it slipping to the floor, here:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

[Lyrical]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

The page I linked you fucking retard. Since I know your hands are all lubed up and unable to click on the mouse without it slipping to the floor, here:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

You produced those pics a little too fast. A big fan of dead-looking chicks, are we?

[Camerous]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

The page I linked you fucking retard. Since I know your hands are all lubed up and unable to click on the mouse without it slipping to the floor, here:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

I don't mean to call you out there 2bit but they are not on the page you linked. Now you may have your settings turned to allow different number of posts per page but with my settings they weren't on that page either.

Ah hell with it.. you fucking dumbass!

*grins*

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by Lyrical

You produced those pics a little too fast. A big fan of dead-looking chicks, are we?

Fast? I guess I have superhuman speed at clicking a link, rightclicking an image and selecting the link and clicking copy! Totally should join the Justice League!

And yeah, I think she is pretty hot, but the goth look isn't really my thing.

[Bongk]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

And yeah, I think she is pretty hot, but the goth look isn't really my thing.

Agreed.

[Digits]

I wish she wasn't fucking retarded and would stop having red hair. She has the pasty whore look down as best as she can get it and then she runs off and pretends shes artistic or some dumb shit unique snowflower bullshit and it makes her completely unattractive. What a fucking waste, and I'm not even talking about her lack of personality outside of being a manipulative bitch.

EDIT: Mmos are good but are difficult to create and the vast majority of people do not realize this.