Mr. Jones wrote:If I remember correctly, FoF was mentioned on /. before the final version was "commercially" released, and I think that Cool Herders and the port of Quake was also mentioned in EGM as part of their DC: Life after Death article. My point? The exposure was there before FoF was sold as a commercial product.
The /. article is here:
http://games.slashdot.org/games/03/05/2 ... 27&tid=186
The article was announced approximately one week before the game was released, and it was available for pre-purchase already.
The article in EGM also mentioned Cool Herders and Bloop, as were suggested by me (amongst some other stuff that they looked at) to the EGM editor that wrote that article as some other cool Dreamcast stuff. I was very involved with getting FoF into EGM.
My point is that the exposure wasn't really there until we had a physical product that could back us up.
Please, don't get me wrong. I appreciate what GOAT Store Publishing is doing. As I said previously, I fully intend to support both you and the homebrew developers by picking the next release up when I get my next DC import game. I would absolutely love to see the Dreamcast have an almost Atari-like renaissance, where one or two folks can sit down, and create a game that people are genuinely interested enough in to pay for.
Thus is actually the problem with the Dreamcast. An Atari release generally sells less than 100 copies. You can produce a handful of games at a time, instead of being stuck with a huge number. With Dreamcast production, you *must* press at least 1000 copies of a game. It means that there is a HUGE barrier for entry into creating professionally pressed games, and that the game quality really needs to be high. Development time for a Dreamcast game therefore would, in theory, take much longer to complete because of this fact.
If I took the time to complete an entire game, I would want my game to both be seen by as many people as possible, and I would like to get some sort of return on my investment. Obviously, there is a conflict there as you can't easily get the best of both worlds. All that we're doing is providing the option for a real pressing if the parties are interested.
However, if I was to dedicate time and energy into developing and producing software for the Dreamcast, it would be for two reasons: personal enjoyment/education, and portfolio fodder. I'm sure many of the devvers here would like nothing better than to have a development house see their work, and say "Hey, we were impressed with X on your DC effort, and wanted to know if you'd be interested in a programming position at our company." And I'm just wary of the amount of people (at this time) who would be interested in purchasing a game from someone that they don't know, as opposed to a free download.
I understand where you are coming from, but at the same point I think that it would be just as effective to state that your game was actually pressed and published. Again, it is mostly a personal preference, and I can fully understand a person going either way on it.
EDIT: Oh, and when/where is this Midwest Gaming thingy being held? I'm in Minnesota, and I'd love to see what other wares are being put on display!
Milwaukee, Wisconsin on May 22nd and 23rd. You can check out more information at
http://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/
We've got a few surprises up our sleeves in the way of Dreamcast games being developed. I think a lot of people will be really surprised to see what is back on