The State of SMAC 2

[Dale]

Why not?  AAA just means "we spent more money and must make more money".

Because you don't have the money.

AAA as most think of, rely heavily on graphics. Strategy games don't. Graphics are very expensive! So a AAA strategy game is actually cheap to make.

Also note I said EA fund and I just get a cut of sales.

[Dale]

If there is some way to rejoin all the rights together, and the cost is not prohibitive, then it also eliminates the 2K-EA stalemate.  As I understand it, a lot of the rights standoff right now is due to the two publishers not wishing to give the other ground.

I'm still dubious as to whether there would be enough sales to cover the license purchase costs, production costs, distribution costs, etc etc, and still leave me with enough to fund the next game after any SMAC2.

Probably the best situation you could wish for, is a game that plays like SMAC, but has totally different names for everything.  Same game play, just different labels on everything.

EDIT: Anyways, just to actually "do" something, to see what is feasible, I've emailed EA legal department.

I received a reply from EA.  They want to talk!  Note: 4 years ago they even refused to discuss the SMAC/X license.

The person I will be talking to is the Director of Business Development.  These people usually discuss anything that could result in new or expanded business for EA.  Let me just tell you, this is a VERY positive step.  Basically what this means is that my request will not be going round and round a legal department.  I'll be talking with someone who actually "does" stuff for a living.

So anyways, I see a number of options:

1. "No".  End of story.
2. "Buy the license".  End of story, too expensive.
3. "Develop sequel with EA on the label".  I assume this would be the desired result.
4. "You have permission to develop something like, but not quite SMAC (restriction list)".  I would class this as a 'minor win'.

Option 3/4 can also be split into sub-options:

a. With EA funding/support/publishing
b. With no EA funding/support/publishing

I'll fight for option 3a, as that would be the best option I believe.

Okay so I've spoken to EA.  It's not a "no", but they want to see how my current "in dev" game goes first.  If it goes well, we can discuss using the engine I'm developing (which will run the current "in dev" game) to make a sequel.  They want to be kept in the loop of how things are going with the development cycle, so that discussions can be taken up again in a year's time.

[Maniac]

That's good news I'd say.

[testdummy653]

That's good news I'd say.

More or less bad news. This means that the game is not currently in development and EA doesn't really have any plans to develop it without someone like Dale expressing interest.

[Yitzi]

That's good news I'd say.

More or less bad news. This means that the game is not currently in development and EA doesn't really have any plans to develop it without someone like Dale expressing interest.

But they are potentially willing to let someone like Dale develop it, so that's good.

[Dale]

That's good news I'd say.

More or less bad news. This means that the game is not currently in development and EA doesn't really have any plans to develop it without someone like Dale expressing interest.

It's actually good news.  They're willing to discuss a sequel rather than say "no" like they did 3 years ago.

The guy I spoke to said EA has their own capacity to develop IP internally, but won't do SMAC.  However for smaller licenses like SMAC they will outsource them.  They just need proof that the outsource company can bring a project to retail, at a good quality, and it be successful.

[ete]

Very good news indeed. Long term good news, but hey, that's still more hopeful than we've had for a while. I guess we all now have quite an interest in making sure Dale's game becomes a success!

[Maniac]

They called SMAC a small license? The cheek! 

 

[BFG]

They called SMAC a small license? The cheek! 

 

Pretty much anything that isn't Assassins' Creed or Sports nowadays is "a small license" for EA.

[Green1]

They called SMAC a small license? The cheek! 

 

Pretty much anything that isn't Assassins' Creed or Sports nowadays is "a small license" for EA.

I read that as"we do not want to spend our manpower to develop it, but if someone else can, we will be happy to take 80 percent of the profit while not having to work as long as it is not completely horrid"

[Earthmichael]

One could base a sequel on a sentient planet like "Avatar", and not bother licensing SMAC.  If you actually wanted to use Avatar as a planet name, you would probably have to license it.  But Asimov and others had the idea of a sentient planet long before, so if you don't want to pay licenses, just call the planet Gaia.  No one can force you to license that.

Of course, there may be other benefits to licensing SMAC, like distribution, support, and name recognition.  Once just has to decide whether it is worth it, depending upon how much they charge to license it.

The distribution and support can be worth a lot.  I once licensed Car Wars from Steve Jackson Games to do a software package.  But once I completed the package, even though it was very professional, they decided they did not want to distribute software with their line, and I could not line up another distributor.  I sold about 1,000 copies by direct sales, mostly through contacts at conventions like Gencon and Origins, which is not bad for a pre-internet direct software, but it was nothing like what I had in mind.  I am fairly sure if Steve Jackson Games had distributed it, the sales figures would have been more like 100,000 than 1,000.  So if the agreement includes distribution, it would be much more valuable.

[Dale]

One could base a sequel on a sentient planet like "Avatar", and not bother licensing SMAC.  If you actually wanted to use Avatar as a planet name, you would probably have to license it.  But Asimov and others had the idea of a sentient planet long before, so if you don't want to pay licenses, just call the planet Gaia.  No one can force you to license that.

Of course, there may be other benefits to licensing SMAC, like distribution, support, and name recognition.  Once just has to decide whether it is worth it, depending upon how much they charge to license it.

The distribution and support can be worth a lot.  I once licensed Car Wars from Steve Jackson Games to do a software package.  But once I completed the package, even though it was very professional, they decided they did not want to distribute software with their line, and I could not line up another distributor.  I sold about 1,000 copies by direct sales, mostly through contacts at conventions like Gencon and Origins, which is not bad for a pre-internet direct software, but it was nothing like what I had in mind.  I am fairly sure if Steve Jackson Games had distributed it, the sales figures would have been more like 100,000 than 1,000.  So if the agreement includes distribution, it would be much more valuable.

I want the official sequel, and the official story.

Guaranteed million sales.

That means, if I got 20% (after taxes, distribution, licensing, etc) then I'm looking at ~$6 million to put into making serious AAA quality games.

[Yitzi]

I want the official sequel, and the official story.

Have you thought about how you'd write a sequel to something that ends with what has been described as godhood?

[ete]

An actual sequel set after ended game would be quite.. difficult to make work at all well. For one, making the game start low tech again would require putting them somewhere new (earth?), but getting all/multiple factions to the new place at similar tech levels and not reachable by reinforcements.. not likely. And even then, if you're not in the alpha centauri system, you lose the name or the name becomes ill-fitting.

I'd encourage the same plan as Alien Crossfire: use the same base storyline with Unity crashing etc, use the same characters (and some new ones), but make it richer and more expansive.

Also, if you want a wiki I will set you up the best wiki for free. And if you ask a programmer to give me a hand, we could have a tool which turns wiki xml into whatever datalinks format you guys use (probably just some template expansions and a set of specific find/replaces), so you will have awesome datalinks without having to pay someone to write it (give the alpha/beta testers access and let us know what you guys change).

[testdummy653]

I want the official sequel, and the official story.

Have you thought about how you'd write a sequel to something that ends with what has been described as godhood?

A better answer is I want a remake. Not a sequel. A game with new graphics and new strategies with same location, same story and same players.