6/25/2002 07:52:34 PM|||Travis|||

Learned of two new space games now in existence.

Time of Defiance. This game has been charging players for service since it started, about 5 pounds a month. That is about 7.50 per month to test it. They only have 400 players currently, that is hardley any revenue, $3,000 a month. For that much cash they are killing too many potential users. I doubt this game will go big.

It is marketed as a MMO RTS game so there are rts like compotents. Each game takes about a month. Accounts are available for free for 5 days, then the fee takes effect and the fee will increase when they release in August, 2002. Nicely Crafted Entertainment is making it. I aint too scared.

Noble Armada was resurected from its death which occured two years ago. Fading suns is making this one. It looks like a single player strategy game with exploration as well. Not all that exciting. The web-page could use some serious work as well, I wonder if they have a publisher.

Talked with a guy from Octagon Entertainment, they are an agent similar to Sherpa. He said it was hard to negotiate a multi-publisher deal, and even more so if we have no experience. He understood the military action compotents very well, and thought our game was centered on the action. He glazed over the resource aspects of the game and did not understand the politcal aspects of the game at all. Sigh. He did reveal that he is working with Eve and S & S. That is interesting because he did not think we compete at all, which we think is completely bogus. He also mentioned Earth and Beyond as well as SWG. We agreed that E and Beyond was not going to do well, and that SWG would not appeal to gamers in other countries. He seemed excited and gave the advice to make a gameplay demo that embodies all the concepts that we want in the game, the main USP's. Nothing we did not know all ready. He then "sells" the game to the publisher and takes his cut and we get funding via milestones. Mainly this can be used for more room on the negotiation table as well as more information about out game design doc and business plan. Octagon and Sherpa are the first people to contact, then move on to people like tri-synergy who sound like they actually want to help developers rather than rip them off. Perhaps use Octagon and Sherpa to find international publishers?

I need to keep the marketing rolling. Find new gamesites and add them to the mailing lists. Get more newsletters. I need a pulse on the Media industry and find out where the news flows from and where it goes too. There are many, MANY markets that need to be exploited. First I will start with getting the emails of some key players in the high positions at IGN, Gamespot, and other big boys like that. Then feed them with updates and such when it is appropriate. If I can get a better feel for the industry..... I will know where to put the posts.

So my goals now are to get the community to 10,000 forum posts and over 1,000 users by the end of summer. More on the implementation later.

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