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Gregor_SSG -> RE: Why so expensive? (6/10/2007 5:41:53 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Executioner Five
Was wondering why this reissue is $50 for download--seems like an awful lot for a remodeling of an older game.
Let me explain by way of an analogy with making a movie, which I'll divide into three parts, idea, screenplay and implementation.
The idea is easy and essentially worthless. Try going up to a published author saying that you've got a great idea, all they need to do is write it for you and you'll split the profits. If they don't hit you they'll laugh in your face.
The next is design, which in movie terms is a screenplay. It's hard to get right and all too easy to get wrong, and only a few people can do it. SSG is extremely luck to have Ian Trout, a man with a superb design record, design Carriers at War.
However, in movie terms, this is like having a finished screenplay. Hollywood landfills are full to bursting with unmade screenplays because, crucial as it is, the screenplay is only a starting point
The bulk of the work, and almost all the budget in both a movie and a game goes on the implementation. You know how much that involves for a movie, just look at the credits.
For a game, it's countless, endless hours of programming, testing, comparing, refining, redoing and tweaking. Plus more countless hours of graphical creation and animation. Then someone moves a button and you start all over again. As I've said before, SSG hardly ever has internal disagreements over major design questions, but the conflicts over a single button can be epic. If you look closely at the game options you might spot one that was put in simply because we couldn't agree, so had to implement both options!
So the new Carriers at War started with the equivalent of a finished screenplay. We got some data files from the old game, but nothing else. Everything else was done from scratch and the time that we did save we just spent on making the game better anyway, so I think we're entitled to ask for a new game price for what is essentially a new game.
Gregor
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