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Rate my business plan: Porting a classic to the iPad

2 points by mortenjorck 16y ago

This began as one of those "y'know, I really wish someone would..." ideas. Then I realized it might not be entirely impossible to start it myself. There's a series of PC titles from the late 1990s that are generally considered among the best video pinball games ever released. There's a glut of pinball games on the App Store in 2010, but quality is pretty thin -- pinball design is just not an easy art. Fortunately, Empire Interactive's Pro Pinball series would make a fantastic port to the iPad -- the game runs at a native 1024x768, and the controls would map to touch and accelerometer even better than they ever did to the PC keyboard. Someone just needs to secure the rights and original development assets, find a developer familiar with x86-to-ARM, design some revised UI elements and assets, test, and release. Much easier said than done, of course, but here's my theoretical plan: 1. Figure out how much the lawyering to secure the rights would cost 2. Figure out how much the development would cost 3. Add figures from lines 1 and 2 and enter into the amount field in Kickstarter (download voucher of final product for $10 contribution!) 4. If funded, pursue rights and development 5. Do UI design myself (the one part I actually have experience with!) 6. Develop, test, release on App Store It's all napkin-scrawl at this point, largely outside my areas of expertise, and probably too demanding to start as a side project (as if I don't have enough of those). But what do you think?

mechanical_fish 16y ago
I have no idea. I see two basic problems, though. One: I'm not sure you're going to be able to sell a pinball game that does not exist, in a world full of other iPad pinball games, based on quality. Why should we believe that the quality will be higher, or that we'll even notice the difference? You can't show us a high-quality prototype. You can't show an impressive resume of earlier products. You can try to find enough fanatical fans of the original PC games, but one wonders if there are enough who remember or care, or who won't be understandably skeptical that your port will be just like the original. And ten years is a very long time in gaming. The other is a chicken-and-egg problem with the "lawyering". As long as nobody knows about these games the rights aren't worth much. But the Kickstarter model you outline requires you to talk up the games before you bid for the rights. Every iota of praise you heap on the games, especially on the oh-so-Googleable internet, is going to raise the asking price for the rights.

2 points by mortenjorck 16y ago

mechanical_fish 16y ago

I have no idea. I see two basic problems, though. One: I'm not sure you're going to be able to sell a pinball game that does not exist, in a world full of other iPad pinball games, based on quality. Why should we believe that the quality will be higher, or that we'll even notice the difference? You can't show us a high-quality prototype. You can't show an impressive resume of earlier products. You can try to find enough fanatical fans of the original PC games, but one wonders if there are enough who remember or care, or who won't be understandably skeptical that your port will be just like the original. And ten years is a very long time in gaming. The other is a chicken-and-egg problem with the "lawyering". As long as nobody knows about these games the rights aren't worth much. But the Kickstarter model you outline requires you to talk up the games before you bid for the rights. Every iota of praise you heap on the games, especially on the oh-so-Googleable internet, is going to raise the asking price for the rights.