Question

[Marc-Andre Liberatore]

Hi all.

My name is Marc-Andre Liberatore, I am 27 yrs old and living in Montreal Quebec, Canada.

I am a real estate developper and on the side a huge fan of Ultima 7 and Ultima Online... But ultima 7 is the ultimate in my opinion.

Anyways, the reason why I write you this email is because I have a pending question that I would like to know if some of you could help me with.

Richard Garriott has mentioned once that one of the drawbacks of the game industry is that the more technology becomes evolved , the less depth we can find in games, because so much is invested in the new eye catching technology which is expensive ... and therefore less is invested in the depth and length of a game.

So in conclusion, we don't have any ultima 7 type games out there coming out. With the exception maybe of Morrowind at some levels.

So my question is the following:
- understanding that there is a small market of probably a couple of tens of thousands of people out there who love Ultima 7 type games, why not invest in creating a new game like ultima 7 , instead of recreating Ultima 7?
why not focus on creating something new with the same basic concept and market it as such? I would love to invest in such a project and market it... but then comes the next question... how much would it cost to create such a game , using the good old technology it used?

Thanks for taking the time, and thanks for investing your time in bringing ultima 7 back to life.

Marc-Andre Liberatore

[drcode]

I think we've all wondered this at times. It's the same for adventure games: Why doesn't anyone create new titles like the old LucasArts and Sierra games?

For the large companies, the answer is probably that they know that those games won't be big sellers. Games have gone mainstream, and eye-candy is necessary if you want a hit, just as it is with movies and television.

As for why no small company has created an old-style game: It's a fairly costly endeavor. Even if you get the software for free (ie, Exult), you still have to develop a lot of artwork (and music), create a huge map, and write a large script for the plot. Then there's testing and marketing. If you could do this with 4 people in a year's time, with each making $50K, that's $200K; and then you'd have to sell 10,000 copies at $20 to break even. Now, that's not an impossible task (I think Exult's had about that many downloads), but it's not the sort of risk most of us can take.

[Andrea B Previtera]

There's a partially risk-free way that one could always try, expecially with the portability displayed by the exult engine and similar projects: do it for free, share the profits. Imagine the said 4 people agreeing that they'll "work" for free and share the revenue. Now, there are thousands of potential script writers - graphic artists - musicians and more out there, who have a real job which is not really what they wanted to do in their life. Glued together by a project such as this, they can express themselve artistically and potentially get some money for it.

Exult has been downloaded thousands times and it wasn't promoted at all. No "marketing", no banners, no ads, nothing. Just word of mouth and a few scattered links here and there among the rpg community. Also, 99% of the people who download Exult, have already played Ultima 7. Finally, you have to *own* U7 to play exult. Original content + no need to own something else + marketing would probably equal to 10 times the downloads and 30% or so of the demo players would buy the final product.

Just my two eurocents

[Marc-Andre Liberatore]

Hi and thanks for answering the question guyz.

I have a new question and comment that basically sums up both of your generous answers.

- You mentioned 4 people could build a game like U7... is that really the case?
I haven't been using that much development technology ever since QBasic, back in the days... I know a bit of UnrealED but that's it!

Do you think you could explain a bit more what those 4 people would be doing throughout the year? (what would be their role, in the development?)

Now for the second part, the fact that people work for less money, but share the profits is the way a lot of projects are done. But, at the same time, people have lives to live and they need to be comfortable, so it would be interesting to say "everyone gets 25k or 30k a year, and we share the profits in the end, maybe not equally , but we still do in a fair way" That's a good way to share and minimies the risk.


Thanks a lot guyz, I really appreciate it.

When I have the time, i'll try to learn as much as I can about Exult (the engine) and see what I can understand.

Cheers

Marc-Andre Liberatore

[TdI]

>Do you think you could explain a bit more what those 4 people would be doing throughout the year? (what would be their role, in the development?)

Ideally and giving an existing game engine (like Exult) you'd need at least a good writer, for the conversations, story and plot, a coder, to implement everything the writer wants, and an artist, to create all the artwork.

If working with a 3D-Engine you'd also need a 3D-modeller.

If you're creating your very own game engine, you'd need more coders.

This is how I'd put it. Three specialists bare minimum for 2D-game. Four for a 3D-game with existing engine.

If you want to keep the public posted and require a neat website that is regularly updated, it wouldn't hurt to have a web-designer on board.

And last but not least, if these people are going to work on their spare time, make sure they are superhumanly motivated.

[Thomas]

There's a few online games out there (not sure if it's proper to mention their names on here, so I won't...email me instead) that are being developed by some of the old developers from Ultima 7, 7.5, and Ultima 8. One is p2p and 2d Isometrical and the other one is in development - not sure on the status of the development - I am pretty sure it's closed beta though.

Two of the names include Jason "Lothgar" Ely and Doug "Zarquon" Gesler. I'm more partial to Jason's work though.