rec.autos.simulators

Have to agree with you here - I can't understand why companies aren't
looking at different (and completely obvious) economic models before saying
that "X won't sell enough to make a profit".  I know that GPL2, if produced
under the above model, would sell like crazy to basically everybody who is
still playing GPL.  After all, our original "investment" of $40-50 dollars
seems a pittance next to all the hardward upgrades we've purchased in the
same period of time, mostly to play GPL better.

I would buy GPL at the above price, or even higher, no questions asked, no
hesitation.  We're talking value for money here.............

Almost everybody left Papyrus.  You would be surprised of the low number of
employees there.  Kaemmer is only "helping" the team for NR2003, he's not
anymore employeed there.

I wouldn't be surprised if they only kept Papyrus alive for the sake of
their name, and restart a whole new company elsewhere with the same name
(owned by Sierra, of course).

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- http://ymenard.cjb.net/
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimago-Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

    This plan is similar to that proposed for RL.  Could the Wests be right?

""Grand Theft Auto 3," developed by Rockstar Games for Sony's PlayStation 2,
was the best-selling console game, with nearly 2 million units sold since
October 2001. " (http://news.com.com/2100-1040-831599.html)

At the end of the day the development cost are nearly the same for both
titles so it really comes down to the pay off.  I don't agree with this
approach but this is the way the bean counters see things :-\

right?

 I lost track somewhere along the way - what's the $8 monthly fee for?

--

"Nothing gets closer!" - Crammond

mark

Why is it not possible to let the big sellers fund the fringe, and possibly
more serious, works in these peoples minds?

If I were to do hokey-doke P&R gigs all year I wouldn't make a cent. But if
I didn't, the kids in my community would have lesser quality sound at all
their public events. For more reasons than I care to go into, I believe that
the youth of our planet deserve to experience as much richness of life as
can be afforded them. I loose a little bit of money every time I go do a
'puppet show'. But it's important that the things that aren't hugely
profitable still get done. So I do what I can, in my community. So I do a
few corporate gigs, a few concerts, and a few 'puppet shows' in the park. In
the end, I make ends meet and I do my part. It's such a simple design, it's
not even funny. What better benefactor than the one with the means?

You put out 20 GTA3s in a year, and one GPL every 3 or 4 years. Simple. Who
is so greedy that they would deny their love of craft and heritage to make a
few more pennies each year? A company that makes the best sims is gonna have
a little more swing when they say, "Our bullets tear away flesh with amazing
realism. And our cars slide real good too." Plus, the sim market is going to
grow when the kid who loves his first person cop killer fantasy notices that
his favorite *** company also makes a CART sim. I see nothing wrong with
doing the best you can for no other reason than the quest itself. If you get
good, people will pay. But then... that's bad business, isn't it?

Isn't that how Porsche supports their racing efforts? Or did that go the way
of the dodo as well?
--

"Nothing gets closer!" - Crammond

mark

Growth.  Again, not following the industry, my guess is that Papy
ticked along nicely before Sierra got hold of them.  Ticking over,
making steady profit is not acceptable in the corporate arena.  You
must GROW.  Not sure this is possible in such a niche.  I'm gutted,
but I'm also hoping someone else can plug the gap who will be happy
milking the limited cash that will be readily available for the right
product.

Hey - Spider-Man grossed 300 mil domestically.  Movies must be a cash
cow just waiting to be milked.  Let's get some of that action...

Mark

It's their last product in the line, so they want it to be able to
hold its own for a while.

I seriously doubt there will be signifigant change to any other parts
of the engine.

The one thing I am really hoping for is that they finally throw it
open to the mod-makers, so the community can carry on where they had
to leave off.

Gerald

That is my hoope as well. Just lok at how GPL has hung on with help from the
games fans.

MadDAWG

Would you?

The next-gen consoles are rapidly becoming an ordinary part of every
household, just like a VCR. And just like a VCR you can put a game in
and it just works, which is why they are so popular.

Secondly, while there are inevitably "shit games" on all platforms,
one of the nice things about consoles (as opposed to PCs) is that the
longer you own it the better the games get (gameplay, graphics, sound
- in all areas really). The developers can't count on people upgrading
graphics cards and CPUs, so they work very hard to squeeze more and
more out of existing hardware.

PC games will remain viable, but in an increaingly limited number of
genres - flight and auto sims, first-person shooters, strategy games,
etc.

But to hope that the popularity of console games in general is a mere
"blip" which will be reversed is nothing but wishful thinking.

1: A sim being marketed to 100 000 customers can not be priced the same way
as an arcade shooter aiming to sell 1 000 000 copies. Is Norton Anti Virus
the same price as ACT or GHOST CORPORATE? No of course not.

2: Multiplayer play should not be a free feature of such a game. Online
play, championships rankings and other features should generate a monthly
fee.
I.E Warbirds

3: Addon tracks, seasons and cars can generate some money. Its nuts to spend
three years of R & D on a product like GPL and not build additional content
for it...

I paid 19.95 cnd for GPL in 1998 thats 12.00us if you divide that over four
years its 3.00 a year and that is what the retailer got. No wonder they lose
money. The other thing to keep in mind is that what makes a sim special is
its physics....the life expectancy of a sim is completely different then an
arcade shooter. The problem is not with the quantity of potential clients.
Its the stuborness of the publishers trying to can a sim as if it was tuna.