High end contractors do not get money up front, your second sentence had been 100% correct IME, Bank would walk thru with us every 2 weeks and release money for paying subs , I still consult for a company that i did work for , for over 20 years , No money was up front Ever..
But you cannot walk in there door without a 5mill home to do ,and financing locked up..( ive done homes up to 38 mill) unless you are a previous client , Was just out to visit a former clients home that is a getting a 1.4 mill Garage on the property..
We do alot of work for celebs , Sports Stars , and Goverment officials , ive even met Buffet at one clients home..At a party when the house was complete , that was a 23 mill home in 08 .. The homes generally take 2.5 to 3 years to complete ..
But on topic , ive gotten into discussions here with MJ and called him out on some of the Warhammer issues that he fell short on .. Its a very long thread .. I also said he could not dleiver CU in a timely manner and when he does it will not have all the features and clases he has sold the public .. I still stand by that
LOL, I feel some serious pity for anyone that reads that, and thinks they will be able to vvvcommission a multi-million dollar project without paying a deposit.
That's hilarious.
But back on Topic.
Personally, I think MJ is just going to be another fine example of why Devs should not waste their time, or risk their reputation, interacting with the community.
They should hire PR reps that can sanitize everything before it goes public.
Well , its different ,in most cases, the money is paid to the Bank( the Bank inspects progress bi-weekly ime) , the bank releases the money as i said ....
For anyone that didn't get what just went down, in case you plan to commission a multi-year multi-million dollar project.
What @Scorchien is talking about, is the client secured the complete amount for the whole project through the bank as an act of good faith before the project even started, thus ensured to the contractor the money was there and they would get paid, as per their agreement, then the bank paid the money as according to the agreement with the Contractor to get the job completed.
In simple terms, they means the client took out a loan and paid the whole thing upfront.
Now I am wondering if game investors do the same thing, not the crowd fund hoards, but the big money, I wonder if they do the same. Like, when they claim they will give X amount to a company, do they secure it through a loan, and then pay them intermittently?
I always thought they got the lump sum up-front, but, now I am not so sure. I mean the CrowdFund is up-front, so they have to manage that, and make it work and what have you, but the Big money may be a lot more trickle in, to make sure they don't spend the mount they were secured too quickly and frivolously.
Well that got me wondering.. does anyone actually know?
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
I always thought they got the lump sum up-front, but, now I am not so sure. I mean the CrowdFund is up-front, so they have to manage that, and make it work and what have you, but the Big money may be a lot more trickle in, to make sure they don't spend the mount they were secured too quickly and frivolously.
Well that got me wondering.. does anyone actually know?
In my (limited) experience in the industry, you rarely, if ever, get any lump sum up front when you are working with publishers.
Everything is instead tied to milestones. Those milestones are agreed-upon in advance, and locked in writing with legal parties on both sides agreeing to the terms and signing off on everything before a single penny is transferred.
The first one is up front, generally speaking. From there, it is on the developer to hit those milestones if they want additional payments.
We've had offers of between 2 to 3 million USD from various publishers. Every single one had milestones attached, and the increments offered were in the ballpark of 250k-300k per milestone. (Side note: we've turned them all down, as they all wanted us to go free to play and put microtransactions in our game).
Investors are different. Speaking from our own personal experience, any time an investor has come on board with us they give us their investment up front in its entirety.
The other note regarding construction of high-end properties is right up my ballpark, since I was in the high-end marble and granite industry for 15+ years as a third generation contractor.
All projects are different. Many of the projects I worked on over the years were paid based on milestones. Very few (maybe 8 in 15 years) received the money entirely up-front, and as I recall the ONLY times I got money up front were for private residential projects.
Commercial projects require you to be licensed and bonded (look it up) and there are SCORES of legalities put in place by the bank or whoever is putting up the money for the project. The more money involved, the more paperwork, the more milestones and legalities.
I always thought they got the lump sum up-front, but, now I am not so sure. I mean the CrowdFund is up-front, so they have to manage that, and make it work and what have you, but the Big money may be a lot more trickle in, to make sure they don't spend the mount they were secured too quickly and frivolously.
Well that got me wondering.. does anyone actually know?
In my (limited) experience in the industry, you rarely, if ever, get any lump sum up front when you are working with publishers.
Everything is instead tied to milestones. Those milestones are agreed-upon in advance, and locked in writing with legal parties on both sides agreeing to the terms and signing off on everything before a single penny is transferred.
The first one is up front, generally speaking. From there, it is on the developer to hit those milestones if they want additional payments.
We've had offers of between 2 to 3 million USD from various publishers. Every single one had milestones attached, and the increments offered were in the ballpark of 250k-300k per milestone. (Side note: we've turned them all down, as they all wanted us to go free to play and put microtransactions in our game).
Investors are different. Speaking from our own personal experience, any time an investor has come on board with us they give us their investment up front in its entirety.
The other note regarding construction of high-end properties is right up my ballpark, since I was in the high-end marble and granite industry for 15+ years as a third generation contractor.
All projects are different. Many of the projects I worked on over the years were paid based on milestones. Very few (maybe 8 in 15 years) received the money entirely up-front, and as I recall the ONLY times I got money up front were for private residential projects.
Commercial projects require you to be licensed and bonded (look it up) and there are SCORES of legalities put in place by the bank or whoever is putting up the money for the project. The more money involved, the more paperwork, the more milestones and legalities.
This is awesome and informative.. thank you !
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
This is just one example of how Jacobs is talking to people who don't support him in the comments to the Massively article. I'll let you make up your own mind as to whether this is how the head of a company should be interacting with the public.
Mark Jacobs
Thanks OC for once again, doing that lying thing you do so well.
You’ve been saying for years, when you are going to livestream and we did. And yet, even though we showed what are engine can do and Eliot got to play it live himself (and he commented on it), you’re ignoring that just to shitpost me and CU and our engine.
I hope you’re getting paid to do this, at least part of my job is to talk to the community. You spend a lot of your time shitposting me, other games, and anybody who dares to question SC. At least I’m making two game and an engine. What are you contributing to the world OC?
Oh yeah, I almost forgot, you’re WKing SC, attacking anybody who disagrees with on their threads and me/CU here.
Yeah, big accomplishment. You must be so proud.
Cya!
Should really add some context for Oleg's posts. He did nothing but troll in those comments, to the point where the staff went in and locked both of his comment chains because of how trolly he was being.
It should come as no surprise to see people lose their patience, we all do it.
Err, people who are the face of a company cannot ever afford themselves the luxury of a public outburst.
CEO of my employer is known to have his moments "internally" but he has never shown such externally, could do extraordinary damage to the firm's reputation. (and the value of his millions of stock shares/options of course)
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Commercial projects require you to be licensed and bonded (look it up) and there are SCORES of legalities put in place by the bank or whoever is putting up the money for the project. The more money involved, the more paperwork, the more milestones and legalities.
My job is very project based. Every year or so we put out RFQ/RFPs to have new automation created for us. These are custom designed with extensive software components. These projects range from low 7 - mid 8 figures. Normal payment structure is X% down within 45 days of contract signing, X% at design sign off, X% at factory acceptance, x% at shipping and X% at acceptance.
Now, where it gets interesting is that I always insist on language that requires them to hit the specs and timelines we agree to. If they are late there are penalties that kick in. If the product does not meet the performance specs outlined in the contract we insist on the option to have them take it back for a full refund or negotiate a discount based on the actual delivered specs. We just went through the exercise of having someone come and collect their $1.4M automation as it could not meet the rates we required. To be fair, we usually try to maintain good relations and only go to the contract after all alternatives are explored, but in my world, you are expected to do what you say, roughly when you say you will do it.
So I think we can all throw out our own experiences and all industries are very different. Expectations are shaped by the market. It takes two sides to tango and while no one person can change the market. Markets can and do change over time based on supply and demand. The more money is thrown at people with no accountability, the more frequently it will happen.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
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"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Dev's today need to have a really thick skin, especially those that are doing this crowd funding stuff.
You can't really get through by just ignoring it, that is in fact how we got there in the first place. What is needed is to (re)learning how to say fuck you to your customer politely and in calm manner, not just as a result of frustruation and losing a temper.
However, it would take a much broader change to be effective - not only the devs(business) side needs to stand up and put limits to behavior that is no longer acceptable but media as well....gonna be a long haul to get there tough...if ever...
OK, I totally agree with your post so I have to ask, what did you do with the real Gdemami, we need a proof of life or something.
I have no problem with him defending himself, correcting misinformation etc, but for most leaders it's best to always take the high road when communicating a message.
Well, unless of course you are the President of the US or something.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Dev's today need to have a really thick skin, especially those that are doing this crowd funding stuff.
You can't really get through by just ignoring it, that is in fact how we got there in the first place. What is needed is to (re)learning how to say fuck you to your customer politely and in calm manner, not just as a result of frustruation and losing a temper.
However, it would take a much broader change to be effective - not only the devs(business) side needs to stand up and put limits to behavior that is no longer acceptable but media as well....gonna be a long haul to get there tough...if ever...
OK, I totally agree with your post so I have to ask, what did you do with the real Gdemami, we need a proof of life or something.
I have no problem with him defending himself, correcting misinformation etc, but for most leaders it's best to always take the high road when communicating a message.
Well, unless of course you are the President of the US or something.
What also needs to be understood is that replying magnifies the length of time it stays in front of people and also invites others to pile on. Sure if there is a riot going on you want to step in and try to calm the waters but MJ felt compelled to respond to just about every single complaint individually.
That's nuts as it just creates more and more attention to an issue you want to go away.
Sure people innately want to "defend" themselves, but when your foundation is being 5 years late on a 2 year delivery... sometimes the best course of action is just to request they use lube.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Err, people who are the face of a company cannot ever afford themselves the luxury of a public outburst.
CEO of my employer is known to have his moments "internally" but he has never shown such externally, could do extraordinary damage to the firm's reputation. (and the value of his millions of stock shares/options of course)
Guess Mark doesn't have as much to lose.
City State Entertainment is a privately owned LLC, by Mark, so, legit, he can and do whatever he wants, as long as he is willing to take the heat for it.
But as I said, this is a great example of why developers should not get involved with the gaming community. They should filter everything through a Professional PR individual or firm, to keep it all clean, neat, and sanitized for the masses.
I suppose the "masses" might complain that the developers don't interact with them, but that is the price everyone pays when too many people shit the pool.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Normal payment structure is X% down within 45 days of contract signing, X% at design sign off, X% at factory acceptance, x% at shipping and X% at acceptance.
^ This.
I'd say probably 90% of every project I've ever worked on in any industry over the professional course of my career has seen similar payment structures.
City State Entertainment is a privately owned LLC, by Mark, so, legit, he can and do whatever he wants, as long as he is willing to take the heat for it.
But as I said, this is a great example of why developers should not get involved with the gaming community. They should filter everything through a Professional PR individual or firm, to keep it all clean, neat, and sanitized for the masses.
I suppose the "masses" might complain that the developers don't interact with them, but that is the price everyone pays when too many people shit the pool.
I'm in a similar boat in that Stormhaven Studios LLC is privately owned by msyelf (and my partners) and technically I can say whatever the hell I want as long as I'm willing to take the heat for it.
So yeah, he can. And when you are someone who has personally invested millions, and have committed further millions from investors who have trusted you personally to ensure that their millions don't go to waste, you can bet there is the pressure there to reply to every single person out there, positive or negative. The first to thank, and the second to attempt to assuage the fear and doubt.
Personally, I have traditionally always responded to every comment I realistically can, positive, negative, or trollish, when there are threads related to Saga of Lucimia, because of the one golden rule: eyeballs equal sales. No matter how often I have gotten into the thick of it with trolls here, or on Massively, or on social media or elsewhere, invariably some of the eyeballs on those discussions have turned into sales.
That being said, at some point it becomes too exhaustive to try and keep up with every little troll out there. A man's gotta sleep. And there is also sanity to consider. You swim in that shit-filled pool for too long, and no matter how much you might want to stay above you'll eventually sink to the same level as the turds that float there.
I love me a good debate. But at some point you have to just move on, as there are other, far more pressing matters to attend to.
Like finishing your goddamn game.
Having some inkling of what he's going through, and as a fellow studio owner, I think their decision to simultaneously develop a side product in order to drive more investor dollars AND help make the end game better is, at the very least on the paperwork side of things, a smart business decision. Even if, yes, it pisses off a certain section of your community who will blame you for "taking too long".
Because being able to release TWO products using the same assets/engine, with the potential for TWO revenue streams, and being able to bring in more investment money to flesh out the team with even more folks, isn't a bad thing.
Some additional insight: we have had potential investors ask us about simultaneously developing a free to play, microtransaction-based, mobile version of Saga of Lucimia. We've quickly shut that idea down. Not because it wouldn't be awesome to have an additional, lucrative income stream, but because there is no way in hell I want to go the route that Mark is taking. I'm stretched thin enough being the sole author of the book series on top of drafting the tabletop version of the game on top of being the CEO of a small studio on top of being the creative director of an indie MMORPG and being the lead writer and working on VFX and handling all of our social media and video production and marketing and and and and and.
I just can't put any more irons in the fire. I'm maxed out. And sure, having someone offer to give us seven figures *sounds* amazing, but the thought of building an entirely other team and needing to oversee that gives me the cold sweats.
So no thanks. I'll focus on the one game for now. When we launch, and if we're successful, then I'll consider things like single player spinoffs, mobile spinoffs, console ports, and beyond.
But kudos to Mark for attempting to make it all work. That's some breakneck maneuvering.
Commercial projects require you to be licensed and bonded (look it up) and there are SCORES of legalities put in place by the bank or whoever is putting up the money for the project. The more money involved, the more paperwork, the more milestones and legalities.
Exceptionally informative breakdown of contracting financials. Thanks for that. I may never actually have a use to know that, but now I have that bit of ammunition in my bag.
As for the quoted paragraph, I have to add, "... then the bank pays to put its name all over the nice, new ballpark, then gets bought out and renamed." Feel free to toss that in, if you ever have to regurgitate the whole contractor/financing thing again.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Hold on. Dude announced a new MMO and he's not close to even done with CU?
Well, it's a tower defense game. That uses the engine that they developed with crowdfunding money for CU. And then used that engine to sell a new game to outside investors when CU is still absolutely nowhere near completion. And it's going to be developed and released before CU releases. But don't worry, this is actually going to speed up the development of CU. And even if the new game flops, CU will still be released. We have Mark Jacob's word on it, and when has he been wrong before? Other than on how long it would take to develop CU (by years), how much money it would cost (by millions), where they should establish their studio, and how hard it would be to hire developers. Other than that, he's pretty much been spot on.
He is making claims on how this new game has helped speed up CU because of being able to hire more employees.Umm how about NO,your spending time on another game so you are losing ground as fast as you gain it.
Furthermore your a crowd funded game but your going after investors,that means you are exploiting people for free money because the investors will rake in a % cut while the simple backer get nothing,how is that fair? IMO if you are using investors you have no right to take money from innocent by standers.The whole idea of crowd funding was because you need the money.
Want to know what these games are doing,they are using your money to build prototypes to sell to investors,in other words a full on SCAM,i mean scum.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
He is making claims on how this new game has helped speed up CU because of being able to hire more employees.Umm how about NO,your spending time on another game so you are losing ground as fast as you gain it.
Furthermore your a crowd funded game but your going after investors,that means you are exploiting people for free money because the investors will rake in a % cut while the simple backer get nothing,how is that fair? IMO if you are using investors you have no right to take money from innocent by standers.The whole idea of crowd funding was because you need the money.
Want to know what these games are doing,they are using your money to build prototypes to sell to investors,in other words a full on SCAM,i mean scum.
Well, there's a reason people are calling it Scamelot Unchained.
He is making claims on how this new game has helped speed up CU because of being able to hire more employees.Umm how about NO,your spending time on another game so you are losing ground as fast as you gain it.
Furthermore your a crowd funded game but your going after investors,that means you are exploiting people for free money because the investors will rake in a % cut while the simple backer get nothing,how is that fair? IMO if you are using investors you have no right to take money from innocent by standers.The whole idea of crowd funding was because you need the money.
Want to know what these games are doing,they are using your money to build prototypes to sell to investors,in other words a full on SCAM,i mean scum.
Well, there's a reason people are calling it Scamelot Unchained.
Hahah why did anyone think this would turn out any different? I said this a thousand times to people over the years, Mark Jacobs could not even design and push through a simple crafting system in warhammer online and kept promissing shit over and over about it and showing crap about it and it never changed all the way up to its failure with hackers in that game. He constantly said he would get it sorted but never did.
I don't blame him. I think more social media software needs to have ways to deal with trolls or "bad apples" like Reddit has. Downvote the bastards so they are less likely to be viewed by the masses.
I do think he should stick to his own website or his own twitter/facebook rather than replying to other website comment sections.
Other than that trolls can piss off. It shouldn't matter to other people how they are handled anyway.
I don't blame him. I think more social media software needs to have ways to deal with trolls or "bad apples" like Reddit has. Downvote the bastards so they are less likely to be viewed by the masses.
I do think he should stick to his own website or his own twitter/facebook rather than replying to other website comment sections.
Other than that trolls can piss off. It shouldn't matter to other people how they are handled anyway.
Pretty much this. The best way to deal with them is not to deal with them at all. Yourself anyways.
Every game has its diehard rabid fanbase that eats up all of the crap that you put out. Chronicles of Elyria, Elite Dangerous, Ashes, Star Citizen, etc.
Those people will go to bat for the studio whether you want them to or not...soo...let them! If they convinced even one more person to buy the game, then the studio has won that fight against the troll/naysayers/realists. MJ sticking his own face into the fight though looks a lot worse then them having a white knight trolling around other game forums though because it's actually a lot harder to convince someone with a negative perception of the game that it is going to be what they want it to be when the head honcho himself, yellow teeth and all is rubbing his hands together in the potential victim's face. The ivory tower is an ivory tower for a reason after all.
100% Accurate - ^ Remember Midgard? Those guys never got balanced into DAOC. I always felt sorry for Midgard. Which was Marks favorite FOTM realm. Ask him about why he would buff a toon into the stratosphere, only to revert to another FOTM class, and he would get all huffy and defensive, then ultimately drop from chat altogether. Yes, he's ALWAYS been like that.
Err, people who are the face of a company cannot ever afford themselves the luxury of a public outburst.
CEO of my employer is known to have his moments "internally" but he has never shown such externally, could do extraordinary damage to the firm's reputation. (and the value of his millions of stock shares/options of course)
Guess Mark doesn't have as much to lose.
I think it has to do with where game developers come from. They are most likely "gamers" and have not come from a professional background.
Whenever I speak with a developer at PAX they rarely come across as "professional."
A few have but those few were more the corporate type. Paul Sage and Todd Howard are more the corporate type and always conduct themselves "professionally."
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Err, people who are the face of a company cannot ever afford themselves the luxury of a public outburst.
CEO of my employer is known to have his moments "internally" but he has never shown such externally, could do extraordinary damage to the firm's reputation. (and the value of his millions of stock shares/options of course)
Guess Mark doesn't have as much to lose.
I think it has to do with where game developers come from. They are most likely "gamers" and have not come from a professional background.
Whenever I speak with a developer at PAX they rarely come across as "professional."
A few have but those few were more the corporate type. Paul Sage and Todd Howard are more the corporate type and always conduct themselves "professionally."
Fair enough, our CEO has been raised as a "professional" since he came out of the cloning vat.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I have clients. Most people have customers or clients. And they can get on your last nerve sometime, where you want to rain FUs down on them. But you can't. Not unless you want to appear puerile and amateurish. Get a professional community manager and use them.
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Comments
What @Scorchien is talking about, is the client secured the complete amount for the whole project through the bank as an act of good faith before the project even started, thus ensured to the contractor the money was there and they would get paid, as per their agreement, then the bank paid the money as according to the agreement with the Contractor to get the job completed.
In simple terms, they means the client took out a loan and paid the whole thing upfront.
Now I am wondering if game investors do the same thing, not the crowd fund hoards, but the big money, I wonder if they do the same. Like, when they claim they will give X amount to a company, do they secure it through a loan, and then pay them intermittently?
I always thought they got the lump sum up-front, but, now I am not so sure. I mean the CrowdFund is up-front, so they have to manage that, and make it work and what have you, but the Big money may be a lot more trickle in, to make sure they don't spend the mount they were secured too quickly and frivolously.
Well that got me wondering.. does anyone actually know?
Everything is instead tied to milestones. Those milestones are agreed-upon in advance, and locked in writing with legal parties on both sides agreeing to the terms and signing off on everything before a single penny is transferred.
The first one is up front, generally speaking. From there, it is on the developer to hit those milestones if they want additional payments.
We've had offers of between 2 to 3 million USD from various publishers. Every single one had milestones attached, and the increments offered were in the ballpark of 250k-300k per milestone. (Side note: we've turned them all down, as they all wanted us to go free to play and put microtransactions in our game).
Investors are different. Speaking from our own personal experience, any time an investor has come on board with us they give us their investment up front in its entirety.
The other note regarding construction of high-end properties is right up my ballpark, since I was in the high-end marble and granite industry for 15+ years as a third generation contractor.
All projects are different. Many of the projects I worked on over the years were paid based on milestones. Very few (maybe 8 in 15 years) received the money entirely up-front, and as I recall the ONLY times I got money up front were for private residential projects.
Commercial projects require you to be licensed and bonded (look it up) and there are SCORES of legalities put in place by the bank or whoever is putting up the money for the project. The more money involved, the more paperwork, the more milestones and legalities.
CEO of my employer is known to have his moments "internally" but he has never shown such externally, could do extraordinary damage to the firm's reputation. (and the value of his millions of stock shares/options of course)
Guess Mark doesn't have as much to lose.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Now, where it gets interesting is that I always insist on language that requires them to hit the specs and timelines we agree to. If they are late there are penalties that kick in. If the product does not meet the performance specs outlined in the contract we insist on the option to have them take it back for a full refund or negotiate a discount based on the actual delivered specs. We just went through the exercise of having someone come and collect their $1.4M automation as it could not meet the rates we required. To be fair, we usually try to maintain good relations and only go to the contract after all alternatives are explored, but in my world, you are expected to do what you say, roughly when you say you will do it.
So I think we can all throw out our own experiences and all industries are very different. Expectations are shaped by the market. It takes two sides to tango and while no one person can change the market. Markets can and do change over time based on supply and demand. The more money is thrown at people with no accountability, the more frequently it will happen.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
I have no problem with him defending himself, correcting misinformation etc, but for most leaders it's best to always take the high road when communicating a message.
Well, unless of course you are the President of the US or something.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
That's nuts as it just creates more and more attention to an issue you want to go away.
Sure people innately want to "defend" themselves, but when your foundation is being 5 years late on a 2 year delivery... sometimes the best course of action is just to request they use lube.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
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But as I said, this is a great example of why developers should not get involved with the gaming community. They should filter everything through a Professional PR individual or firm, to keep it all clean, neat, and sanitized for the masses.
I suppose the "masses" might complain that the developers don't interact with them, but that is the price everyone pays when too many people shit the pool.
I'd say probably 90% of every project I've ever worked on in any industry over the professional course of my career has seen similar payment structures.
So yeah, he can. And when you are someone who has personally invested millions, and have committed further millions from investors who have trusted you personally to ensure that their millions don't go to waste, you can bet there is the pressure there to reply to every single person out there, positive or negative. The first to thank, and the second to attempt to assuage the fear and doubt.
Personally, I have traditionally always responded to every comment I realistically can, positive, negative, or trollish, when there are threads related to Saga of Lucimia, because of the one golden rule: eyeballs equal sales. No matter how often I have gotten into the thick of it with trolls here, or on Massively, or on social media or elsewhere, invariably some of the eyeballs on those discussions have turned into sales.
That being said, at some point it becomes too exhaustive to try and keep up with every little troll out there. A man's gotta sleep. And there is also sanity to consider. You swim in that shit-filled pool for too long, and no matter how much you might want to stay above you'll eventually sink to the same level as the turds that float there.
I love me a good debate. But at some point you have to just move on, as there are other, far more pressing matters to attend to.
Like finishing your goddamn game.
Having some inkling of what he's going through, and as a fellow studio owner, I think their decision to simultaneously develop a side product in order to drive more investor dollars AND help make the end game better is, at the very least on the paperwork side of things, a smart business decision. Even if, yes, it pisses off a certain section of your community who will blame you for "taking too long".
Because being able to release TWO products using the same assets/engine, with the potential for TWO revenue streams, and being able to bring in more investment money to flesh out the team with even more folks, isn't a bad thing.
Some additional insight: we have had potential investors ask us about simultaneously developing a free to play, microtransaction-based, mobile version of Saga of Lucimia. We've quickly shut that idea down. Not because it wouldn't be awesome to have an additional, lucrative income stream, but because there is no way in hell I want to go the route that Mark is taking. I'm stretched thin enough being the sole author of the book series on top of drafting the tabletop version of the game on top of being the CEO of a small studio on top of being the creative director of an indie MMORPG and being the lead writer and working on VFX and handling all of our social media and video production and marketing and and and and and.
I just can't put any more irons in the fire. I'm maxed out. And sure, having someone offer to give us seven figures *sounds* amazing, but the thought of building an entirely other team and needing to oversee that gives me the cold sweats.
So no thanks. I'll focus on the one game for now. When we launch, and if we're successful, then I'll consider things like single player spinoffs, mobile spinoffs, console ports, and beyond.
But kudos to Mark for attempting to make it all work. That's some breakneck maneuvering.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
He is making claims on how this new game has helped speed up CU because of being able to hire more employees.Umm how about NO,your spending time on another game so you are losing ground as fast as you gain it.
Furthermore your a crowd funded game but your going after investors,that means you are exploiting people for free money because the investors will rake in a % cut while the simple backer get nothing,how is that fair?
IMO if you are using investors you have no right to take money from innocent by standers.The whole idea of crowd funding was because you need the money.
Want to know what these games are doing,they are using your money to build prototypes to sell to investors,in other words a full on SCAM,i mean scum.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I do think he should stick to his own website or his own twitter/facebook rather than replying to other website comment sections.
Other than that trolls can piss off. It shouldn't matter to other people how they are handled anyway.
Every game has its diehard rabid fanbase that eats up all of the crap that you put out. Chronicles of Elyria, Elite Dangerous, Ashes, Star Citizen, etc.
Those people will go to bat for the studio whether you want them to or not...soo...let them! If they convinced even one more person to buy the game, then the studio has won that fight against the troll/naysayers/realists. MJ sticking his own face into the fight though looks a lot worse then them having a white knight trolling around other game forums though because it's actually a lot harder to convince someone with a negative perception of the game that it is going to be what they want it to be when the head honcho himself, yellow teeth and all is rubbing his hands together in the potential victim's face. The ivory tower is an ivory tower for a reason after all.
Remember Midgard? Those guys never got balanced into DAOC. I always felt sorry for Midgard. Which was Marks favorite FOTM realm. Ask him about why he would buff a toon into the stratosphere, only to revert to another FOTM class, and he would get all huffy and defensive, then ultimately drop from chat altogether. Yes, he's ALWAYS been like that.
Whenever I speak with a developer at PAX they rarely come across as "professional."
A few have but those few were more the corporate type. Paul Sage and Todd Howard are more the corporate type and always conduct themselves "professionally."
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
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