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General Discussion / Re:So, how much it's gonna cost?
« on: March 22, 2003, 04:55:59 AM »I would rather he did decide on a case-by-case basis.
I haven't even discussed my game with Mnemonic yet, but I do trust he's making the engine just for the enjoyment of it, or he wouldn't have it available on a free basis even for non-commercial, not-for-profit use. From what I know so far, he is a reasonable and considerate person.
If you are making a series of adventure games that you plan to sell, then you might want to make a realistic projection of how many people are likely to buy your games, and work out what your costs will be, and *then* talk to Mnemonic. (That's why I haven't talked to him yet about payment, besides which the first parts of the game are free, and I won't know what the interest is for the paid parts until after the free ones are released.)
If you're just doing it for fun, then you're probably not going to be making much money anyway.
If you want a price, talk to Mnemonic, don't try to force him to say one price which won't work for all other cases, and which may ruin it for those of us who can't pay what you would consider reasonable.
Well, what you've just said already implies he's gonna charge too much. But wait, if I did have such kind of money I'd probably go after the TLJ engine or something like that. Now, how he's gonna decide "on a case-by-case basis" if there is no any case yet? And AFTER the game is made what would prevent him to impose ANY charges? What options would I have if I don't like the price, trash everything and start from the scratch with some other engine? He's saying he's not dreaming of becoming filthy rich, so what he's dreaming of? Becoming not-that-filthy rich? If so, I'll just be looking elsewhere since I'm indeed not going to make tons of money (if any) from that project.
As I already said, Sludge costs $50. 3D GameStudio (commertial edition) costs $200 - well, it might be not specifically designed for adventure games but it would certainly do the trick and sa far as I can tell, it's more advanced than WME. None include any royalties etc. (BTW, does that "on a case-by-case basis" means I'd have to pay separately for EVERY game I made and every time the price will be "renegotiated"?) So let me tell you what _I_ believe is reasonable price: $100. That includes all future bugfixes, free udates for .X versons, and a limited email support for a couple of months. I don't think that such price would ruin anybody's plans. But if it ruins Mnemonic's plans... Well, greed is one of the mortal sins. If he does do it for fun and not for money he should be happy people are actually using his stuff. But if it's a purely commercial enterprise, I prefer to deal with it as with commertial enterprise - negotiate everything upfront because I know that the only thing they want is to rob me.
Lastly, about "commercial" use. It's not clear at all what "commercial" actually mean. The problem is adventure games are usually too big to be downloaded. And even if you find such enthusiasts you'll still end up with a huge net traffic bills. Thus, in ANY case you'll have to chage SOMETHING just to cover your delivery expences. You might also want to cover some of your other expences like 3D-modelling software, etc. You still are making games to make games, but would Mr.Mnemonic be REASONABLE enough to consider it non-commercial use? I'm not sure at all. So it's likely that ANY more or less decent game - whatever the author's intentions were - will turn out to be a "commercial" project, subject to UNKNOWN royalties. Which might FORCE author to rise the price to indeed a commercial level.