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General: $1 Million Top Secret Prize
Szark
News ManagerMember Posts: 4,420
Acclaim Games has announced that they will be offering a prize package of up to $1 million plus royalties to the winning development team on their "Top Secret" MMO project.
Los Angeles (September 7, 2007) -- Acclaim Games is pleased to present the biggest gaming prize ever in a $1 million game development competition for the "Top Secret" Project, directed by superstar game director David Perry. Teams of indie, mod, professional, amateur & student game developers can enter a once-in-a-lifetime competition to develop a real MMO game, get an industry standard development deal, and earn royalties on the title. Teams will manage their projects and resources at ModCenter (http://www.modcenter.com), a developer site recently launched by IGN Entertainment. ModCenter, will provide free tools for the teams participating in the "Top Secret" $1 million game development competition.
The total prize package is worth up to $1 million, plus royalties, to the winning development team. As part of this cash prize, Acclaim will pay the licensing fees for any commercially available video game engine in the world, thereby removing one of the biggest obstacles preventing many talented developers from releasing professional products.
"The 'Top Secret' team is where the concept of Web 2.0 meets the video game industry. We've had close to 50,000 people sign up to help design this game. The best participant will win a future Acclaim title to direct," says David Perry, Game's Director. "With so many people involved, this is already the biggest team in history. I am directing the project, but this game is going to be designed by the community, produced by the community and developed by the community."
The basic core of the game has already been designed and is a ground-breaking new kind of beast racing game that doesn’t stop at racing alone. The “Top Secret” design includes the ability to breed and collect beasts, fight in player versus player battles, and explore an expanding world.
IGN’s ModCenter will provide online project management and tracking tools for all “Top Secret” development teams for free. Teams will manage their projects at www.modcenter.com where they can organize tasks, track bugs, store source code, and communicate with team members. This also allows teams to become “virtual,” meaning that individuals around the world can join together to form new virtual teams and still work on the same project.
“Giving users the power and tools to create one-of-a-kind development projects aligns directly with why IGN created ModCenter in the first place,” said Jamie Berger, SVP Consumer Products & Technology for IGN Entertainment. “Joining with Acclaim and David Perry on this groundbreaking project builds on IGN‘s commitment with ModCenter to support the creation of new and unique game concepts from within the gaming community.”
ModCenter was built by IGN around the SourceForge toolset by CollabNet (http://www.collab.net) and is completely free to use. ModCenter is aimed specifically at modification and independent game development. The new site provides project management utilities, industry educational resources and promotional services to the development community. Utilities include a bug-tracking system, project discussion forums, source code repositories, a wiki system, document storage and an internal file release system, all controlled via a project administration area.
The competition is open to any developer worldwide who is technically qualified to create the game. It will be published by Acclaim.
Users can sign up to participate in the “Top Secret” Project for free by visiting http://topsecret.acclaim.com. Go to www.modcenter.com to start your team’s project now.
Read the full release here.
Comments
Well, a million dollars is alot more interesting than the previous "prize" lol. Guess will have to see how it goes.
Anyone know how to mod a game? :P
"The best participant will win a future Acclaim title to direct"
Isn't £1m the funding, and a job at Acclaim the prize?
I'm a bit suspect of the prize actually, surely they wouldn't grant the job of Game Director to the 'best participant' who is potentially a coder-type, as opposed to a design-type or even a PR-type which is what I'd peg for the real purpose of the Game Director.
But all the same, I'll be looking into this, shame the game sounds kinda bland 'pokemon-the-mmo' from the description here.
I tried to participate in this. The ideas thrown out at the time were horrid. The game isn't even going to be a true MMORPG, just an MMO. More along the same lines as David Perry's other game Dance. Just a 2D chat room with some instanced Racing.
I felt pretty decieved by all of this and the rampant favoritism that was going on. I hope some one does eventually get the prize, but I'd take everything coming out of that project with a grain of salt.
Hello everyone Allow me to take a few minutes to clear up what seems to be some confusion. There are Currently 3 contest going on over at project top secret the Director contest which the project started with. A contest run in conjunction with Daz3D which is an art contest. And the newly anounced Dev contest . Hope this helps.
I went and read all their stuff, and this isnt a 2d lobby game. Their design page has it as a 3d world with cities and towns, NPCs, quests, trading etc, and the main focus on racing mounts like the WoW ones.
The $1mill prize is for a team to actually build the game. But its not actually $1mill in cash, you get $100,000 in cash, then they use the rest to buy you the game engine license of your choice. Which tbh is a pretty big deal. The reason most modders dont get to move from modteam to development team is because the licenses cost almost a million to buy. Once acclaim buy you that license, they effectively convert you overnight from a group of mates messing around with a mod, to a fully funded development studio. Plus they are offering industry standard payments for the length of your involvement, which could be years, depending on how long the game runs.
The more I read, the more interesting it sounds. But I still dont see anything about a 2d lobby game lol. Hell, I'd go for the Unreal 3 engine and make a full 3d world for them lol
David Perry....of 2Moons fame :P This has success written all over it. Guy hasnt made anything decent since Earthworm Jim for christs sake.
This is 100% hype and 0% substance. Considering the author, you can almost guarentee this game will be shakey if it ever sees the light of day.
http://www.videogameteam.com/wiki/index.php?title=Design_Doc_Sept_2007
There is a direct link to the Current Design Document for the game. And theres more to come.
Just as in many other forums, the voices that shout the loudest were only heard with this project. But remember, take everything you hear coming out of this project with a grain of salt. While it may seem cool, it's mostly hype. This game, at least originally, will most probably be RMT, via the Acclaim coin system. Remember, its an MMO, not an MMORPG, like you're acustomed to.
"Touch the M&Ms on my desk and you're fired from the design team."
"No really! You're fired!"
"Oh, you brought a refill. You're promoted."
Well then how is it that Perry and Ack!Lame! get away with making outrageous BS statements that this was going to be a "crowd-sourced" game made by the contributions of "50,000 designers" ???Perry makes up a different horseshyt story every week and sheeple just lap it up without question.
Perry makes up a different horseshyt story every week and sheeple just lap it up without question.
I believe Perry said 100,000 would be allowed to participate if the numbers climbed that high. His statement at AGDC was that 35K had signed up. How many are left I have no idea (and frankly don't care), but from the looks of the forums, anyone who wishes can take part. You can give people an opportunity, and if they choose not to take it, it's whose fault? I went to Modcenter to check out their statement, and it's obvious their support is legitimate. So your point is what? You hate Acclaim? You hate Perry? You're an indy but have had better offers? All of the above?
"Touch the M&Ms on my desk and you're fired from the design team."
"No really! You're fired!"
"Oh, you brought a refill. You're promoted."
My point is that Duke Nukem Forever will be released on the Phantom console before this "groundbreaking" mmog is ever even finished let alone published. And yes i hate hucksters like Perry and others whose careers are built on decieving customers.
Perry's career was built on creating Shiny Entertainment and selling over $1Billion worth of titles such as Matrix, Earthworm Jim, MDK, Paperboy and Aladdin. How exactly is this "built on decieving customers" ?
Reading about the project, the community there has clearly made progress, has created the design for the game, and now Acclaim are taking that design and starting the development process, and spending alot of money on what those people have come up with. Personally, that says a hell of alot about their committment to their members, alot more than most game companies. When's the last time you saw SOE, Blizzard or Turbine spending over a million to add something their community asked for?
Finally, remember that most MMO's these days take 5 years to make. This projects been running for 8 months so far, so they are well on target, and miles away from your prediction.
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
Perry's career was built on creating Shiny Entertainment and selling over $1Billion worth of titles such as Matrix, Earthworm Jim, MDK, Paperboy and Aladdin. How exactly is this "built on decieving customers" ?
Reading about the project, the community there has clearly made progress, has created the design for the game, and now Acclaim are taking that design and starting the development process, and spending alot of money on what those people have come up with. Personally, that says a hell of alot about their committment to their members, alot more than most game companies. When's the last time you saw SOE, Blizzard or Turbine spending over a million to add something their community asked for?
Finally, remember that most MMO's these days take 5 years to make. This projects been running for 8 months so far, so they are well on target, and miles away from your prediction.
Matrix games sucked, and his good titles are over 10 years old. He has been doing nothing but BSing his way through the industry ever since, thats how. Hell give me 20 years in the industry and "unlimited chances" like these guys get and I'll sell a billion worth of crap.
Also you forgot to explain how this project turned from a community affair into a contest for individual dev teams.
Didn't Perry say he wanted the entire project to be wrapped up and out there within 12 to 18 months of its start date? That alone to me cried havoc that he didnt know what he was doing at all.. And also didn't he lose his entire development team about 2 months in?
This 'project' has taken so many turns for the worse since it's somewhat hyped beginning I almost cant believe its still going