3 ms·
can we pls add /s to to the post title? how can it be that and then inside the article i read > Last year’s indie darling, the Myst-inspired Blue Prince, was
by rufasterisco 2mo ago
can we pls add /s to to the post title?
how can it be that and then inside the article i read
> Last year’s indie darling, the Myst-inspired Blue Prince, was funded by a solo developer’s personal savings and the ad revenue from his Magic: The Gathering website. “When I finally approached publishers, it was only after I had completed my game, looking for marketing, porting, and release support,” Blue Prince developer Tonda Ros says via email.
if you need further proof it really is satire, here we go: our business model relies on Fed rates at 0%.
> “Nobody has zero-interest money anymore,” says North Cook. When interest rates were near 0 percent following the Great Recession, and again at the height of the Covid pandemic, video game investors took more risks. But when the Fed rate benchmark surged to more than 5 percent in 2023, venture capital funding for the video game industry collapsed by more than 75 percent, from a 2021 peak of $12 billion to less than $3 billion in both 2023 and 2024. “Money just got too expensive to borrow,” says Eternal. “Publishers looked at their capital and said, ‘This is all the cash we have until the banks change their rates. Let's be conservative and stretch this out.’”
- swiftcoder 2mo ago> how can it be that and then inside the article i read > > Last year’s indie darling, the Myst-inspired Blue Prince, was funded by a solo developer’s personal savings and the ad revenue from his Magic: The Gathering website. “When I finally approached publishers, it was only after I had completed my game, looking for marketing, porting, and release support,” Blue Prince developer Tonda Ros says via email. Blue Prince is an interesting case, because the developer had a successful SaaS business that funded a significant part of development. Without such a source of "passive" income, I doubt most us have the kind of savings that would allow us to spend ~8 years working full-time on our game
- rufasterisco 2mo agoI don't know if English has a word for when you are half confused and half amused, but that is how I feel. From this same article, here is the co-head of the studio that wanted to produce Myst. > “I don't think people realize the true cost of developing games,” Anderson says, having used Kickstarter to partially fund two of Cyan’s past titles. “A million dollars seems like a ton of money, but it doesn't even come close to covering the full cost of a production like Anglerfish.” Thanks for making me checkout in detail Blue Prince. I don't understand why an article can say that a random dude has built a Myst-like game for what looks like less than a million, and then the very same article is about an indie studio, which says "nah, need more than that". I mean, what I understand is that: you CAN make a Myst-like game for less than 1 million (see Blue Prince), you just cannot be sure that you will make the money back. Also, financing is easier when money is free. In which case sure, I understand it. But please read the title, read the article, come back here and pls join me in a petition to add /s to the title. Because obviously the author is implying "nah Anderson, YOU cannot make that game, check Blue Prince ;) ". Right?
- mh- 2mo ago> I don't know if English has a word for when you are half confused and half amused I think bemused is the closest I can think of.
- 3eb7988a1663 2mo agoI only think of bemused as "confused". Maybe incredulous at a stretch?
- mh- 2mo agoI was iffy on it as well, so looked it up before suggesting it. M-W has it as the 3rd definition, for example. It's hit or miss whether that usage is in a given dictionary, it seems. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bemused https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bemused
- 3eb7988a1663 2mo agoSure enough. Oxford only gives a bewildered definition. Although, their ambiguous examples could fit an amused/confused definition. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/bemused?q=bemused https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/eng...
- teamonkey 2mo agoApples to oranges, I think. Blue Prince was self-funded and solo developed for much of its long development time. Publisher funding was sought to polish and market the game. The developers in the article are taking about seeking upfront publisher funding for a small studio to develop the game with a much shorter time horizon. The publisher would likely need to invest much more, but would take a much greater percentage of revenue, and with an established franchise like Myst and a team of veteran devs the risk is - in theory - lower.
- swiftcoder 2mo ago