GOAT Publishing: An Open Letter to the Dreamcast Community

[cube_b3]

We've actually done very similar things in the past, so I wouldn't be surprised to see something like that happen. However, unlike the other groups that have released Dreamcast items, we also happen to be one of the largest Dreamcast dealers online (type 'Dreamcast store' in Google and see who pops up first ) so it gives us more freedom to work with various packages. We'll see how it all shakes out later

Can't wait.

While that is true when it is looked at that way, the truth is the GOAT Store is not my full time job. It is something I do for fun because I enjoy the gaming scene a lot. Gary and I manage to both hold regular full time jobs, as well as run the GOAT Store and organize the yearly Midwest Gaming Classic. And publish a few random Dreamcast games too! So, if I did this 40 hours a week, I'd be all about adding tons of stuff. But with a regular 40 hour / week job, 10 hours of commuting to that job (*sigh*), and making packages at least a couple times a week for a couple hours a time, my time gets pretty limited pretty quickly, unfortunately.

I half expected you guys to make your bread and butter from another source, but reading it officially puts things into perspective, but you know this is a sustainable bussiness. You are already into it and you should consider going the extra mile. I know saying it is actually way easier then doing it.

But take a look at Max Scharl, he started a website called Dreamcast-Petition which basically wanted Sega to continue GD-Rom production, he unsurprisingly failed at doin so however he started petitions to get other games to get released on Dreamcast which he acheived.

I also clearly remember he talked to Germany's GamePro about his discussion with Big Ben to officially release Goat Store's Feet Of Fury in England.

He slowly and gradually evolved made a partner ship with Lik-Sang started attein Game Convention with DCS/Lik-Sang Booth and then an independent booth.

He started a shitty publishing company Van Basilico who NG:Dev Team found horrible but he repackaged his company into RedSpotGames abandoned DCS and focused all his efforts into RSG, he won back NG:Dev Team and became the distirbutor of Dux and to mu surprise just announced he is publishing R4 which I was dead convinced was something you would publish and when I read that announcemen I thought Goat was finished, fortunately you announced something a few hours later, unfortunately it was R4 that had the spot light on 9/9/9 maybe it had the European time advantage but R4 made it to all Dreamcast discussions and forums.

Howeve I get it, you have lives and families etc ...
Although I would love to read your opinion on Max Scharl's evolution.

Nope, and that's very true and we totally recognize that. Gary and I have been doing a lot of talking about this recently as we add and upgrade things with the site, and I would go as far as to say that I would expect the upgrades to be done with the Dreamcast items before everything else because of a few reasons, namely I own a full collection of all variations, so we can take all the pictures of everything and get them in there. And it is our most popular category... which reminds me, we've got over $2000 in DC shipments alone coming in the next few weeks

Look forward to it.

Remember -- Gary and I were and are collectors first, and we started the GOAT Store because it was darn near impossible to understand exactly what we were paying for from places and what we would receive exactly, and we wanted to have people understand exactly what they were selling. Not everything works for everyone, but we have all the options. And, I have to say that I would venture to guess that I have one of the largest Dreamcast collections in the world including a bunch of weird and lucky things I've run across throughout my collecting... So, for the most part, we do know what we're talking about and can back it up. If I couldn't, then I shouldn't be in business!

Also, in the near future (I literally had emailed Gary with this yesterday), expect to see new Dreamcast categories on our site featuring import games, demo discs and collectibles! Like I said, it's all getting better, and we're doing a massive transformation of the site that started now about 5 months ago that we're about halfway through, but we're really happy with where it is going!

God Bless.

Although I would like to see your Dreamcast/Video Game collection could you share photos of it or something?

[goatdan]

I half expected you guys to make your bread and butter from another source, but reading it officially puts things into perspective, but you know this is a sustainable bussiness. You are already into it and you should consider going the extra mile. I know saying it is actually way easier then doing it.

But take a look at Max Scharl, he started a website called Dreamcast-Petition which basically wanted Sega to continue GD-Rom production, he unsurprisingly failed at doin so however he started petitions to get other games to get released on Dreamcast which he acheived.

I also clearly remember he talked to Germany's GamePro about his discussion with Big Ben to officially release Goat Store's Feet Of Fury in England.

He slowly and gradually evolved made a partner ship with Lik-Sang started attein Game Convention with DCS/Lik-Sang Booth and then an independent booth.

He started a shitty publishing company Van Basilico who NG:Dev Team found horrible but he repackaged his company into RedSpotGames abandoned DCS and focused all his efforts into RSG, he won back NG:Dev Team and became the distirbutor of Dux and to mu surprise just announced he is publishing R4 which I was dead convinced was something you would publish and when I read that announcemen I thought Goat was finished, fortunately you announced something a few hours later, unfortunately it was R4 that had the spot light on 9/9/9 maybe it had the European time advantage but R4 made it to all Dreamcast discussions and forums.

Howeve I get it, you have lives and families etc ...
Although I would love to read your opinion on Max Scharl's evolution.

It's two different situations. I mean, here's the GOAT Store in a nutshell (*very* bullet pointed):

- We started in 1997 with the intent to program Atari Lynx games under another company.
- We got screwed by that company and had about $2000 in Atari Lynx games we had paid for.
- Started the GOAT Store to sell the Atari Lynx games and random bits of our collection.
- Expanded the GOAT Store to carry more systems.
- Hosted Atari Jaguar Festival in 2001 -- Most successful "Jagfest" ever
- Morphed Jagfest into the Midwest Classic in 2002.
- Found out about the Dreamcast development community at the MWC in 02.
- Published FoF at the MWC in 03.
- Drew over 1500 people to the 04 Midwest Gaming Classic.
- Published three games in 05.
- Continue to run both the MGC and the GOAT Store today. Last year, the MGC had over 3600 paid attendance over the two day event run, which makes it one of the largest gaming conventions to feature retro games and / or pinball in the world.

So the thing is, with what you said about Max's evolution above, he basically started as a person doing a petition, and evolved into an online publisher who has released two titles with a third on the way and developed relationships with some other outlets for those games.

We started as a company that was going to program a game that ends up being one of the largest online retailers of classic video games, runs of of the largest all-encompassing electronic gaming conventions in the world, and has released four titles with a fifth on the way.

Also, just for the record, we had a spectacular working relationship with Lik-Sang before they closed. I also maintain relationships with tons of different companies around the world. If you look at http://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/, you'll see that we have or have had official public relationships with Sony, Atlus, the SciFi (now SyFy) Channel, Six Flags, Sega Gameworks, Stern Pinball and lots of other folks.

I'm not trying to make it sound like his accomplishments aren't amazing, but we both took totally different paths to get where we are, and quite frankly we focus on things differently. If Gary and I shut down the GOAT Store and the Midwest Gaming Classic just to do publishing, we could put a ton of effort into it -- but we would also lose one of the best retailers for Dreamcast games out there, and the GOAT Store and MGC help fund the publishing we do. Unlike what Max has said publicly recently about not being able to afford a bomb, if Irides bombs (and it won't because it is amazing), we will still be solid enough to make future publishing decisions.

Also, our announcement wasn't carried as widely as R4 for a variety of reasons, but the biggest thing (and I *wish* I was making this up) is that I damn near poked my eye out on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend and I was confined to bed rest and not supposed to do anything with a computer on the date of the announcement, or in the days before or after. Everything I typed I did with my eyes closed, no kidding. I had no ability to really get media together before the announcement, nor promote it well afterward. I'm back on my feet now (with major permanent damage to my left eye, sadly), and we're regrouping behind the scenes to do a much stronger promotional push in the upcoming weeks. But it has also left me a little behind on, well, everything, so it won't be like tomorrow. But we have a strategy that I think will work really well, and we're already putting it into place.

So anyway, again, hopefully this gives you some insight into what we all do. I never care to hide it because it is a hobby I love. There is not enough money in any of our activities to do them otherwise!

God Bless.

Although I would like to see your Dreamcast/Video Game collection could you share photos of it or something?

Honestly, it's not set up in a way to easily take pictures of it. I have way too much stuff going on in my basement between my own collections (including pinball machines), most of the GOAT Store's inventory and everything else, so they aren't displayed cool or anything. The nutshell is:

- Every US release and all variations (All Stars, Not For Resale discs, Limited Editions)
- About 100ish PAL releases (I work on this little by little)
- About 50 Japanese releases (including some ultra rare, awesome sample discs)
- A bunch of the PAL white label demos
- DC consoles -- Demo one (no modem!), Regular one, Sports one
- DC accessories including all US Controller variations and "Millenium" import controllers
- DC magazines w/ Demo Discs
- Single game US demos (probably the toughest thing to find)
- The original (and ultra ultra rare) DC Devvers discs like DC Tonic, Midwest Classic Demo Disc (only about 50 existed) and Sounds of Fury (FoF music promo).

I wish I had time to play them more!

[Christluu]

Can you plan a limited edition for Irides ?

[cube_b3]

- We started in 1997 with the intent to program Atari Lynx games under another company.
- We got screwed by that company and had about $2000 in Atari Lynx games we had paid for.
- Started the GOAT Store to sell the Atari Lynx games and random bits of our collection.
- Expanded the GOAT Store to carry more systems.
- Hosted Atari Jaguar Festival in 2001 -- Most successful "Jagfest" ever
- Morphed Jagfest into the Midwest Classic in 2002.
- Found out about the Dreamcast development community at the MWC in 02.
- Published FoF at the MWC in 03.
- Drew over 1500 people to the 04 Midwest Gaming Classic.
- Published three games in 05.
- Continue to run both the MGC and the GOAT Store today.
- And then you vanished for years leaving the field empty.

Goat Store didn't have a turbulent start you guys started proper where as Max started Van Basilco or something which needless to say was a horible horrible disaster a bizzarre name and a website only in German and poor marketing.

We started as a company that was going to program a game that ends up being one of the largest online retailers of classic video games, runs of of the largest all-encompassing electronic gaming conventions in the world, and has released four titles with a fifth on the way.

I'm not trying to make it sound like his accomplishments aren't amazing, but we both took totally different paths to get where we are, and quite frankly we focus on things differently. If Gary and I shut down the GOAT Store and the Midwest Gaming Classic just to do publishing, we could put a ton of effort into it -- but we would also lose one of the best retailers for Dreamcast games out there, and the GOAT Store and MGC help fund the publishing we do. Unlike what Max has said publicly recently about not being able to afford a bomb, if Irides bombs (and it won't because it is amazing), we will still be solid enough to make future publishing decisions.

You remind of modern psychlogy founding figres William James Vs Wilhelm Wundt coincidentally James is America an Wundt German, both rivals till the end but made immortal contributions to the field.

Also, our announcement wasn't carried as widely as R4 for a variety of reasons, but the biggest thing (and I *wish* I was making this up) is that I damn near poked my eye out on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend and I was confined to bed rest and not supposed to do anything with a computer on the date of the announcement, or in the days before or after. Everything I typed I did with my eyes closed, no kidding. I had no ability to really get media together before the announcement, nor promote it well afterward. I'm back on my feet now (with major permanent damage to my left eye, sadly), and we're regrouping behind the scenes to do a much stronger promotional push in the upcoming weeks. But it has also left me a little behind on, well, everything, so it won't be like tomorrow. But we have a strategy that I think will work really well, and we're already putting it into place.

So anyway, again, hopefully this gives you some insight into what we all do. I never care to hide it because it is a hobby I love. There is not enough money in any of our activities to do them otherwise!

God Bless and do take care of your eye, brother what happend to you sounds bad.

- DC magazines w/ Demo Discs

If you have all issues with Demo Discs I am SOOO Intrested in buying them all, I know you with your contacts can buy them again as well.

P.S. Where did Max make his public commet he never posts on his own DCS and it sucks! He is abandondte site and loaded it wih crazy Adverts.

[goatdan]

Can you plan a limited edition for Irides ?

There is a chance of such a thing. We are working with a few different things right now, although no promises.

The truth of the matter is that if we made a limited run of say, 100 discs, it would cost us just as much to print those 100 discs as if we printed 500... so, based on where we think sales will land, we may end up doing just one run.

We'll see.

[goatdan]

- And then you vanished for years leaving the field empty.

Goat Store didn't have a turbulent start you guys started proper where as Max started Van Basilco or something which needless to say was a horible horrible disaster a bizzarre name and a website only in German and poor marketing.

I wanted to discuss the bottom thing that you added in for me (that I didn't say) first, then I'll talk about the second part.

There was at absolutely no point that we "vanished" at all. The GOAT Store was open straight until just recently. Every year, 2006-2009, we have held the Midwest Gaming Classic.

The belief that we vanished was due to some miscommunications that went on with some of our Dreamcast projects, which as I've already said earlier in this thread were probably my fault for not poking people more often, but that isn't my management style. We continued to stay in contact with multiple people throughout the time, and my email address is always open.

As a general rule, I do not post on message boards anywhere anymore regularly (except, actually a pinball one), and am extremely infrequent at the other boards -- like maybe once or twice a year. The reason why is simple -- I found myself spending 2-5 hours *a day* catching up on the various message boards I was following instead of doing other stuff that I could have been doing. When I posted the Open Letter originally, I tried following it everywhere I posted it to reply to questions or whatever to be fair to the Dreamcast community that I really enjoy, and to make sure that things were explained fully. Until someone alerted me to it, I hadn't been following this thread. Now I am.

This is absolutely no different then how I have acted in anything else that I have done in the past few years. Unfortunately, my error was to announce the games when I did. It diverted a lot of developers attention away from their games, it gave everyone lofty expectations that were unrealistic to reach, and it was not good. Since I am not going to generate news until I have a 98% complete product in hand, it may have looked like we went silent, but that simply wasn't the case. It was just a bad announcement.

As for turbulence, we were undeniably screwed by another company that basically forced us to do something with a huge load of Lynx games we had been stuck with, so we ended up starting the GOAT Store. At the time we started, I don't think we started with huge flair or great marketing or anything like that. We just have worked on everything we do as much as possible throughout the years since then, and I think (and your comments suggest) that we're pretty polished now about how we do things.

But regardless, my point is simply that to compare us as a company which does multiple things to another company that is focused on doing only one thing isn't necessarily the fairest way to look at it. That's all that I'm saying. Not to say that I think that we do anything worse than anyone else -- in fact, I would hope (as would any self respecting business-man) that we do things better. It is just when we are spread amongst lots of different stuff, and our management style isn't to force news when we got ourselves in trouble for that already (Inhabs / Maqiupai delays), we simply focus on other parts.

Like I said above, I can honestly say that GOAT Store Publishing is a labor of love, and by FAR the least profitable (most unprofitable?) "division" of the things we do... but we will keep doing it as long as we believe the games we are publishing are spectacular and worthy of a retail release. And like I said, we have more on the way

You remind of modern psychlogy founding figres William James Vs Wilhelm Wundt coincidentally James is America an Wundt German, both rivals till the end but made immortal contributions to the field.

I wouldn't call us rivals with them, at least not really. Dreamcast Publishing isn't a big enough market to really be rivals with one another.

God Bless and do take care of your eye, brother what happend to you sounds bad.

I actually got amazing news at the doctors appointments I had both yesterday and today, so there is a chance I could make a full recovery... but it will probably be about three months before we know. Regardless, that does wonders to raise one's spirits!

- DC magazines w/ Demo Discs

If you have all issues with Demo Discs I am SOOO Intrested in buying them all, I know you with your contacts can buy them again as well.

I have some of the issues in stock, but I don't think we'd bundle them as some of them (the later ones, especially the magazines themselves) are SO much harder to find than the earlier ones.

I'm working on getting that stuff done. You may have seen we have added Import categories for the Dreamcast recently

P.S. Where did Max make his public commet he never posts on his own DCS and it sucks! He is abandondte site and loaded it wih crazy Adverts.

Here is where I think I saw it first:

http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showth ... p?t=242049

And I quote from the quote on that post:

As long as the scene is supporting us and the games are selling, we can bring new [commercial indie games for Dreamcast] on the market. But only a few 100 units less, and we'll lose our shirt on this.

If we sell a "few 100 units less", but I believe another game is good enough to come to market, I'll be happy to bring it to market. We lost *thousands* of dollars on Inhabitants / Maqiupai -- *thousands* -- and we still brought them to market, and we were still willing to bring games out after that. And it wasn't S+F or JMDs faults -- it was a series of legal wranglings and pressing issues that caused us to spend all this money. After the first time and we failed, I could have easily washed my hands of it all and said we can't afford to publish these games. In fact, at $14.90 if we sell out of the whole run of both titles, we will *still* have lost money. And we were *okay* with that because we said that we would do it.

We do it because we love it. And because we believe in the games we are publishing. And for the record, that is also why I don't consider us rivals with RedSpotGames. Rivals would be two groups going for the same goal -- his goal is to make money, while also bringing out new games. That's also the GOAT Store's main idea -- to make money while supplying collectors and retro gamers with stuff, but we think of GOAT Store Publishing as different:

GOAT Store Publishing's goal is to bring out spectacular titles by independent developers that deserve to get noticed, with Gary and I acting as publishers and helping them along. The reason why we're willing to do this like we are is because this is how Gary and I once thought we would break into the business -- in sixth grade, we figured out how to program pretty nice looking Apple ][e games and were trying to figure out a way to become programmers and publishers. This is sort of living our dream, if you will -- just with way more advanced and awesome games.

The Midwest Gaming Classic's goal is to bring the fun of electronic gaming -- including showing people everything we both like (PINBALL!) to the masses. It is also not very good at making money, but we do it because we have such fun throwing a huge party every year, which is sort of what it is to us.

So, like I said above, we're not really rivals -- we're both doing this for different reasons. And Gary and I know that ours is naive, but at the same time we're okay with that

[D_Venin]

I am new, please excuse my english.

GOATDAN, I can say that I was some of the first DC gamers in France that bought Feet Of Fury and Cool Herders, Inhabitants and Maquipai and really like the games. I saved Money to buy all new 10 new GOAT STORE games but have been very disappointed. It seems confusing because I do not understand how you can talk about 10 new games for DC coming out if you do not have contracts with the developer. I read many things that going on the DC Scene and I always see you talking lots. Why have you not made contract with developer before you annouce games? This is very disappointing. I understand you have family and privat stuff you care about and sorry for your eye but this is a un-professional way to make business. It seems all like excuse.

Always new annouces, I am wondering why you did not answer to the previous question about Radium. I was excited about Radium but all I hear about it is silence. I really do not know to pre order Irides or not. What happens of Radium?

I do not understand your last statement too. Why did you loose Rushrush Rally Racing? Developer need to sign contract and need security. It all sound like they found it elsewhere. If developer decide another way it surely is not their fault.

I also contacted two developer after you annouce 10 games because I was excited. They did not even know that you are going to bring out the games! This was not a communication error I am sure.

[Maturion]

I really appreciate what you're doing, Dan, and I really want to thank you for all your efforts you put into this. But however, I think you have to find a Europe- and/or Japan-based retailer to distribute your games outside of North America. It's really hard to buy Irides if you don't own PayPal. For example, on my own Dreamcast site, SEGA-DC.DE, probarbly the biggest German DC website, we have had tons of people being interested in buying Irides, but however, in the end only very few of them actually pre-ordered it. Most of them just had no possibility to pay for Irides. If you don't have PayPal, it's hardly possible to buy it - and especially in Europe PayPal is still not that popular as it might be over in America. However, we still have strong Dreamcast communities here.

Irides is really a nice game, I already played it on the iPhone, please make it easier for us Europeans to buy it! We really want to support you, but at the moment it is very hard for us to do that.

[impetus]

I think a lot of folks who are critical of Dan do not realize how vaporous and unpredictable the nature of homebrew development is. The dev-teams making these games (often just a couple of friends) are inexperienced hobbyists who can be put off by any number of personal or professional obstacles. It's a miracle that ANY games have been produced in this fashion, and a testament to Dan and to teams like S+F Software or Cryptic Allusion who could realize that vision.

[D_Venin]

IMPETUS, I wonder why it work with Red Spot Games then. GOATDAN annouce games years before. Only small games amount will be done at all. Rushrush Rally Racing was annouce years before also, but nothing than words happend. Red Spot Games annouces only 1,5 month before it is done and makes lot marketing. Trailers. Advertising. No delay.

Why did they get the same developer and same game working and GOATDAN does not? I just do not understand. This is no way professional.

[Quzar]

IMPETUS, I wonder why it work with Red Spot Games then. GOATDAN annouce games years before. Only small games amount will be done at all. Rushrush Rally Racing was annouce years before also, but nothing than words happend. Red Spot Games annouces only 1,5 month before it is done and makes lot marketing. Trailers. Advertising. No delay.

Why did they get the same developer and same game working and GOATDAN does not? I just do not understand. This is no way professional.

It's not like Max showed up to the senile team and just finished all the work they hadn't done yet. During all that time they were finishing it. RedSpot's 'secret' is to simply not discuss projects until they are absolutely ready.

[goatdan]

I am new, please excuse my english.

GOATDAN, I can say that I was some of the first DC gamers in France that bought Feet Of Fury and Cool Herders, Inhabitants and Maquipai and really like the games. I saved Money to buy all new 10 new GOAT STORE games but have been very disappointed. It seems confusing because I do not understand how you can talk about 10 new games for DC coming out if you do not have contracts with the developer. I read many things that going on the DC Scene and I always see you talking lots. Why have you not made contract with developer before you annouce games? This is very disappointing. I understand you have family and privat stuff you care about and sorry for your eye but this is a un-professional way to make business. It seems all like excuse.

Uhm... okay? We announced 10 new games in 2006 that were being worked on. They all were being worked on. I had multiple contacts with every single developer before that point talking about the release of their games. There was NO point that I ever announced that we would be publishing a game without talking to the developer. That would be incredibly stupid.

I don't know who would say such a thing, but whomever it would be is flat out lying. In fact, of the games:

Adventure Game 1 [working title] - S+F Productions, we had already published one of their other games.
Age of the Beast: Special Edition
Amnesia: Psychic Spelunker [working title] - A game that I was developing the storyline for with a developer.
Blocks2: Master of Blocks - Irides
DCASTLE
Donk - Cryptic Allusion, did Feet of Fury with us.
Feet of Fury 2 - Ditto the above.
Fightoon [working title]
Feuer Frei
GOAT Games - Clearly something I was involved in.
R3K [working title] - Gary and my's property, being developed by someone else.
Yumi: Samurai Warrior

So, of the remaining five games listed above, Fightoon was talked about in this thread, Feuer Frei was renamed but was indirectly involved with another development team, DCASTLE we demoed a version of in 2004, and Yumi was presented by the developer at the Midwest Gaming Classic. And I guarantee that I spoke multiple times with Senile Team about various things.

So I don't know who would have been pretending to not know about this stuff. The developers certainly knew.

Always new annouces, I am wondering why you did not answer to the previous question about Radium. I was excited about Radium but all I hear about it is silence. I really do not know to pre order Irides or not. What happens of Radium?

Always new annouces? The only thing we announced past the above announcement was Radium, and that was done like it was for some particular reasons that were out of our hands. And sorry, but because I respect the developer I'm only going to give you silence beyond that.

You can make up whatever you want about me being an idiot about it and I'd rather you do that. I feel my position is to let the developers do whatever they need to.

I do not understand your last statement too. Why did you loose Rushrush Rally Racing? Developer need to sign contract and need security. It all sound like they found it elsewhere. If developer decide another way it surely is not their fault.

I don't have any idea what you're trying to say here.

I also contacted two developer after you annouce 10 games because I was excited. They did not even know that you are going to bring out the games! This was not a communication error I am sure.

See the above. People had to be making things up, as the announcement was definitely with solid information on my part that I can back up.

[goatdan]

I really appreciate what you're doing, Dan, and I really want to thank you for all your efforts you put into this. But however, I think you have to find a Europe- and/or Japan-based retailer to distribute your games outside of North America. It's really hard to buy Irides if you don't own PayPal. For example, on my own Dreamcast site, SEGA-DC.DE, probarbly the biggest German DC website, we have had tons of people being interested in buying Irides, but however, in the end only very few of them actually pre-ordered it. Most of them just had no possibility to pay for Irides. If you don't have PayPal, it's hardly possible to buy it - and especially in Europe PayPal is still not that popular as it might be over in America. However, we still have strong Dreamcast communities here.

Irides is really a nice game, I already played it on the iPhone, please make it easier for us Europeans to buy it! We really want to support you, but at the moment it is very hard for us to do that.

We have had multiple European distributors in the past. The only reason we haven't launched Irides as a project for overseas to pre-order is we want to be able to guarantee a ship date to them before we do. I would very much expect to see it at various places overseas once it is released! Also, if you (or anyone) has a place that you think would carry that you want to have us look into or contact, send me the site and I'll be happy to contact them about carrying our products!

[goatdan]

I think a lot of folks who are critical of Dan do not realize how vaporous and unpredictable the nature of homebrew development is. The dev-teams making these games (often just a couple of friends) are inexperienced hobbyists who can be put off by any number of personal or professional obstacles. It's a miracle that ANY games have been produced in this fashion, and a testament to Dan and to teams like S+F Software or Cryptic Allusion who could realize that vision.

This is exactly right, and like I said -- the error that I had done was announcing things earlier and thinking that because of the amazing experiences we had had with developers like Cryptic Allusion, S+F, JMD and HarmlessLion that we would have that sort of experience with everyone... but the truth is like I said, things come up. And when things come up for a hobbyist development that you are not expecting to make tons of money on, things come up and your life changes.

I still talk with many people who developed games with us or were working on them, and everyone's lives have just changed. People have kids, or they got a new job and had to move, or they decided to focus on something else for some reason. None of it is bad, in fact, it is to be expected with any normal person. While this isn't what I would call homebrew, as ultimately the games have not been produced in that way, the development teams are often small and doing this as a second or third or fourth job. I can't blame them for anything.

[goatdan]

IMPETUS, I wonder why it work with Red Spot Games then. GOATDAN annouce games years before. Only small games amount will be done at all. Rushrush Rally Racing was annouce years before also, but nothing than words happend. Red Spot Games annouces only 1,5 month before it is done and makes lot marketing. Trailers. Advertising. No delay.

Why did they get the same developer and same game working and GOATDAN does not? I just do not understand. This is no way professional.

I'm starting to think you just joined to troll this topic, as your points don't make any sense. Your point here seems to be "The GOAT Store announced Rush Rush Rally Racing, but then didn't publish it immediately after announcing it. RedSpot announces it and has a date for it right away, so clearly the GOAT Store didn't know how to make the game.

Do you understand how game development works? It doesn't happen in a month and a half. R4 was announced by us at a point that we all thought that it was very close to completion. Guess what -- the developers had stuff come up in life, so it's release got pushed off.

Blocks2 was announced by us at a point in time we thought it was getting pretty close to completion. Guess what -- the developer had stuff come up in life, so it's release has been pushed off until now. And DAMN is it a great game. Because we aren't going to push them to release crap games just so we have something to release.

So, were we really professional with the release of Irides? I don't get your comments at all. Yeah, it sucks that we're not going to have 9234590213 new games come out this year. Yeah, it sucks I was so ambitious as to announce them all. But we do what we can when we can, and if you don't like it -- get a newer console with games that come out weekly to worry about. And, unless I'm crazy, new games get delayed all the time for various reasons... and those developers are ONLY getting paid to make those games.

I think that our developers are some of the most AMAZING people in the world, and if you want to argue that because they aren't doing full time Dreamcast development, they aren't very good, I'll just tell you flat out -- you're wrong.

[goatdan]

It's not like Max showed up to the senile team and just finished all the work they hadn't done yet. During all that time they were finishing it. RedSpot's 'secret' is to simply not discuss projects until they are absolutely ready.

Which they -- or *anyone* -- could have realized was the best strategy after we got burned by doing it the other way before.

...and, like I've said before, you will only see updates when there is something to update. I'm certain I could share a whole bunch of stuff I know about a whole bunch of different projects that have been being worked on, but the fact is that if I show you a game that looks 90% complete, it may still take a year to polish up and finish. And then, apparently, some people would call me unprofessional for allowing the developer to take the time to finish it.

Whatever. Like I said -- we'll release information as we all feel comfortable to do it. And I will continue to not bad mouth any developer who we have had a project from not come through.

Oh, and for the poster who started this mini-thread, as for how much "talking" you have seen me do -- I check in on this message board. The GOAT Store has up information about Irides, since it will be out very soon. Beyond that, unless you're talking pinball with me, I don't post *anywhere* on a regular basis to do *any* talking, so I have no idea what you're talking about. And when we have information, we'll be happy to share it... but until then, I'm not able to talk about it.

[JMD]

I still talk with many people who developed games with us or were working on them, and everyone's lives have just changed. People have kids, or they got a new job and had to move, or they decided to focus on something else for some reason. None of it is bad, in fact, it is to be expected with any normal person. While this isn't what I would call homebrew, as ultimately the games have not been produced in that way, the development teams are often small and doing this as a second or third or fourth job. I can't blame them for anything.

Hello,

First, I apologize for my English. Don't really talk since my DC days, so I post the same in French too, in my native language.

Dan’s always been nice with us and I still like being in contact by email with him, many years after Maqiupai.
Making a game for Dreamcast, nice enough to be sold, needed a lot of time and a great ‘real life’ time investment.
All of this for so little feedbacks and rewards.

In order to finish Maqiupai, I had to pose days off at my job and only sleep a few hours per night to be ready for the deadline.
It’s not always easy with a family.

Dan lost money with Maqiupai and I won a ridiculous ratio $/Hour : I just didn’t made Maqiupai for this.
I’m enough 'original' (crazy ?) to do that kind of things. It was a kid dream.

But all this work only for that … I don’t think I will do a commercial game again but I’m so proud of Maqiupai !
It was great that someone like Dan support me to the end because without him, I think I would have left.

So I know it’s really hard to bring a game and I don’t even speak about earning money.

Let us be happy of what we have even if all isn’t perfect : passions of this kind are rare


JMD



----------------------------------------------------------------------

Dan a toujours été correct avec nous et j’apprécie les échanges par mails que je continu a avoir, des années après la sortie de Maqiupai.
Comme il disait, développer un jeu suffisamment ‘propre’ pour être vendu nécessite un temps très important et un investissement personnel qui est souvent peu récompensé.
Pour que Mapiupai puisse sortir, j’ai posé des congés et passé des nuits blanches pour respecter les deadlines. Pas toujours facile quand on a une famille.

Malgré ça, Dan y a perdu de l’argent et si je fais le ratio $/heures passés, ça frise le ridicule : je ne l’ai simplement pas fait pour ça.
C’était toutefois une autre époque et je suis un peu ‘original’ pour me lancer dans ce genre d’aventure. J’ai réalisé un rêve d’enfant.
Tout ça pour ça : je ne le referais sans doute pas mais j’en suis fier.
Je suis surtout heureux que quelqu’un comme Dan m’ait soutenu tout au long car j’aurais sans doute lâché l’affaire sans lui.
Bref, je comprends que ce soit particulièrement dur de sortir quelque chose et je ne parle même pas de gagner de l’argent !
Ne crachons pas dans la soupe et soyons heureux de ce que nous avons même si tout n’est pas parfait : les passions de ce type sont rare et fragiles.


JMD

[cube_b3]

Over the last few months I have come to understand Dan/Goat, I have also learned a lot about e_business and management in general.

While we all love RSG the truth is their screw ups were far more grave than Goat Publishing. The first game they released under Van Basilico (or something) bombed, NG:Dev Team were not happy with marketing and management to say the least. Nonetheless they continued doing what they do, relaunched the publishing company as RSG and well people forget their grave mistakes.

A quick reminder for those who have forgotten:

1) They took DC stuff from the community to display at Game Convention and didn't return them for months (or didn't return period).
2) They held contests that no one ever won.
3) DCS has gone down the crapper and Max doesn't care.

The only reason we look at them in a positive light is because they went forward, learned from mistakes and gradually got better.
While Trial and Error is a strong word, but they did get where they are through significant trials.

Soon, Goat Publishing will release a few games and gradually restart building momentum and then the screw up of 06/07 will be a distant memory only remembered by me and a few others for mental archival purposes.

Just let Irides get close to completion and see how things will change.

Have Faith.

P.S. Danny if you really want to build momentum and get a fresh start, you can rename GSP to Blue Goat Publishing or Blue Spot Publishing ...

[goatdan]

Over the last few months I have come to understand Dan/Goat, I have also learned a lot about e_business and management in general.

Glad I could help! Having said that, like I said before, don't compare us to RedSpotGames, it simply isn't fair. They learned from our mistakes and our own, and I'd like to think we have learned from our own too. We're two very different groups that do this for two very different reasons.

Soon, Goat Publishing will release a few games and gradually restart building momentum and then the screw up of 06/07 will be a distant memory only remembered by me and a few others for mental archival purposes.

Hopefully, yes

Just let Irides get close to completion and see how things will change.

Let's put it this way -- Irides now has an official release date which was communicated to our distribution network within the last day or two. The promotional train for the game will be starting to leave very soon also, as we are now gearing up to make that side of things happen too.

Oh yeah -- and for whomever asked for there to be a Limited Edition of Irides, it has gone from remote possibility to really for sure happening. We are going to invest the money to do it right and the details of it will be revealed soon also. A hint -- if you've pre-ordered the standard edition, you'll get the first chance at picking up the LE edition and get to hear about it first...

And the Limited Edition will be releasing on the *same day* as the Standard Edition.

Irides is a great game, I have been playing it like crazy lately (over 40 hours in the past week, easy) and I can't wait to release it!

[cube_b3]

Glad I could help! Having said that, like I said before, don't compare us to RedSpotGames, it simply isn't fair. They learned from our mistakes and our own, and I'd like to think we have learned from our own too. We're two very different groups that do this for two very different reasons.

Yes, you've drilled that into my brain quite well.

Let's put it this way -- Irides now has an official release date which was communicated to our distribution network within the last day or two. The promotional train for the game will be starting to leave very soon also, as we are now gearing up to make that side of things happen too.

Starting with a new publishing company called Blue Spot Games or Blue Goat Games .

Anyway have you guys thought of a packaging, I really dislike Goat Packaging they are not in sync.



I left 4 in it just for fun, but this is what it would've looked like if you released it.

You realize how out of place they will look in a collection, I don't even know where to file them do I keep them with Japs, Americans, Palies... what a mess this is something AVGN would rant about.

Atleast RSG followed the Jap layout so I can just file them with the Jap games.

You should look into remedying this inconvenience and also offer like printable front cover and back cover matching the new skin for the previous releases.