Alien Swarm Made The 4th Place In Ut Contest!

[BlackThief]

I just read that the guys from BlackCat games made the 4th place with Alien Swarm in the "Make something Unreal"-Contest! Congrats !! http://www.unrealtournament.com/ut2003/ct_...s/ct_mods.php#4

 

The pretty awesome mod "Red Orchestra" won the 1st price --> 50.000 $ !

http://www.redorchestra.clanservers.com/

Edited January 25, 2005 by BlackThief

[oDDity]

Damn, it's a pity id don't run a contest like that, we could all use a portion of 50,000 , eh?

[BlackThief]

well maybe id will run a contest like that someday

[modetwo]

The pretty awesome mod "Red Orchestra" won the 1st price --> 50.000 $ !

That's really nothing compared to the other prize they won; "A coveted Unreal Engine commercial license worth approximately $350,000".

 

They can actually release a full retail game now.

[BlackThief]

yeah right - forgot to mention that

[Fingernail]

Jeez, imagine if we got that...

 

A D3 equivalent, I mean.

[Renzatic]

Id has never been too keen on contests in the past and it doesn't look like they'll be changing their stance anytime soon.

 

It would be damn nice to win a licensed commercial release of the Doom 3 engine..valued at a cool million. It'd be the woot moment to end all woot moments.

[oDDity]

That's really nothing compared to the other prize they won; "A coveted Unreal Engine commercial license worth approximately $350,000".

 

They can actually release a full retail game now.

Yeah, but they still need a publisher, and the chances of making any money on the venture are pretty small unless it's a superb game.

[modetwo]

Yeah, but they still need a publisher, and the chances of making any money on the venture are pretty small unless it's a superb game.

They just won the MSUC contest. I'm not saying that publishers will stand in line waiting for them, but I doubt they would haven any problems getting one.

 

I haven't played the MOD myself, but they probably know what they're doing. Seeing that they can win such a contest with a MOD, guess what they could do with an Unreal engine. They can do whatever they like with it, and they've even got money to hire professionals.

 

Beats me if they'll get there, but chances are that they will.

[Ishtvan]

Anything with iron sights automatically has my vote.

[sparhawk]

I haven't played the MOD myself, but they probably know what they're doing. Seeing that they can win such a contest with a MOD, guess what they could do with an Unreal engine.

Guess it is a difference creating a game for fun or as a professional.

[oDDity]

Yes, for a start you'd have your publisher constantly on your back. Their only concern is making money for their shareholders. You also suddenly have pressure to make something great where before there was no expectation at all.

[sparhawk]

Not to mention deadlines, status meetings, milestone builds for your publisher, demo builds for your publisher, budget, market analysis, etc, etc.

[modetwo]

Not to mention deadlines, status meetings, milestone builds for your publisher, demo builds for your publisher, budget, market analysis, etc, etc.

 

Of course it is a difference, but do you really think they'll keep on making a free mod with a $350.k Unreal license on their hands? Read this interview, they're already looking in to it: http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=28885

 

I'm not hyping this, it's just what I think they'll do. We'll see.

 

This thread should be split. - On-topic: I was glad to see the BCG devs' work pay off once again.

[oDDity]

YEs, good luck to them

[Guest Guest]

Yep, mod authors are in sort of a bad position:

 

On the one hand, they can produce (under adverse conditions) work that is important and innovative, and could even achieve mass market success if on the open market.

 

On the other, they are constrained by the terms of the game license in that they cannot release anything even on a shareware type basis, and in fact all their hard work tends to benefit the game they're piggybacking on, and not them.

 

Answers to this are using an open-source engine, or else a new type of liencse with the likes of id and Epic that involved a payment of royalties from profits made rather than a one off fee.

 

I also suspect that distribution models that avoid capitalist publishers are desirable - certainly with the Internet and increasing broadband. For example you could have a simple model whereby you could download the entire game for free but a simple registration screen appeared every time you started the game telling you that this game should be paid for if possible.

 

You could even have 'Unpaid For Copy' or similar permanently displayed in a corner of a screen. Upon payment, a registration code is emailed, etc. Under the right conditions, a publisher might then be interested in offering a favourable deal to sell the game in stores.

 

This is a model that worked well for the collective authors of "Q" - an Italian book release a couple of years ago. It was a bestseller in Europe, despite (or because) it is also available for download (in .pdf!) on theirwebsite.

 

Tchao

[oRGy]

Er, should point out that the previous post under the pseudonym "Guest" was actually me. Forgot to log in!