Selling Rights and Project to Greenlit Game

Hi all,

I am not sure if this is the correct section for this kind of post as this is a kind of grey area, but if it's not feel free to move it accordingly.

A project of ours recently has been Greenlit and received wide praise and acclaim in the process. It is currently awaiting release, something we have never gotten around to and for several reasons something that we never will. The game is very much in a playable state, however there are some bugs (mainly pathfinding) which we are too unmotivated to fix.

If there are any developer groups interested in finishing the project and releasing it for yourself, keeping all the profits in the process, send me a private message or email at reportertvm2@gmail.com and I will give you the link for the game, the reasons as why we did not continue finishing the game and maybe strike out a deal.

 

Could you please give us a link to your Greenlit game?

 

Don't see why it has to be out in the open at this time, just PM and you'll get it like he said.

 

It's funny because Greenlight page is available for everyone on Steam (like at least > 10,000 people), why can't he put it out here?

 

Because it's not good for business.

 

Why?

 

Bad publicity?

 

if the developers dont want to finish the game, why would people play it ?

 

Are you kidding me. You got greenlight but can't bothered to fix the pathing issues

 

Lack of motivation does not equal lack of quality once pathfinding has been fixed.

 

Fixing pathfinding bugs is the only thing standing between you and actually making money for your months to years of effort, and your team is "too unmotivated"?

Something seems fishy to me.

Reading between the lines, I would guess that the pathfinding is actually implemented by an amateur programmer, yet tightly coupled to every other part of the game's code, and the team has no idea how to fix it - or maybe they lost contact with their programmer. But in that case, why are they looking to sell the entire project, rather than looking to hire a decent programmer to finish the job?

 

Pathfinding and AI.


Possible reasons:

• You're building a MMO and then, when you host multiple sessions on the server, you maxed out all the memory space and the pathfinding failed.... or path-finding fails on multiple sessions due to cross-server/cross-session communications on the server.
• You were a sucker and brought that guy's MMO (he advertises here often) for US$20,000.00++ and couldn't make anything work. Ha. ha.
• You added 5,000 NPCs and pathfinding + AI slowed to a crawl on the server.
• The MMO terrain mesh has holes and the NPCs keep falling down, or floating, or just keep chasing the player to the end of the scene .
• You have multiple buildings and buildings have floors, and the NPC cannot climb up stairs, or go down stairs.
• You implemented a dungeon and the NPCs go through walls.

Good luck.

 

That is completely how it is. Maybe you find this hard to understand but we have reached a point where we are sick of sitting behind a computer screen and want to go out and explore other business ventures. And no one is forcing you to look into the project good sir. We can easily fix the pathfinding in a matter of days, and if no one acquires the project, we eventually will. However, we are sick of coding and we are not having fun doing it. We burned out.

The game is singleplayer with a minor amount of actors in a scene (about 100) so your entire argument is invalid.

 

Wait, so you're sick of making games?
How long have you actually been in this business? I'm both astonished and disturbed here that your team's been at this for so little time that you didn't even know you hate doing it, yet were able to get a game greenlit to Steam.

 

Well hes only been doing it for less than 3 years and is only 18 years old... if you read his burnout post. I had forgotten it was the same guy

 

Being a coder both at work and at home I can see how you can burn out on it.

 

I having been coding at work and almost full time at home for 10 years and I don't really burn out on the coding.

However...

I find it so hard to finish projects. I have about 5 that are 95%+ done ( not just games ).

The last 5% to QA and polish up a project is painful and not very fun.

All the game play of my 1st releasable game was finished in June and here it is September and it is still not released.

 

I would take a break, try out the alternatives and then sell your project if they turn out successful. I would not sell the project till then because they may not turn out and at least your project is close to being ready for release.

 

My advice. Sit on the game for a few months. Take a holiday. Then when you've recovered from your nervous breakdown you can finish the game.

There's no time limit on green lit projects. If that's what you're worried about.

 

Not sure why it is hard to understand why someone might get burned out on working on a project. Pretty much everyone has a pet project they never finished

Good luck fastLife1995. Enjoy your life. But try to make money for your effort if possible (unless you don't need any etc)

 

I would only buy your project for $1. If a simple pathfinding issue is blocking you and your hundreds of thousands of dollars then you don't deserve anymore of my money for that game. PM me soon.

 

I absolutely understand burnout - it usually happens at the 25%-50% point of a project for me, when I get the basic mechanics in place and realize how hard it's going to be to add enough content to make it worthwhile.

But you're at the endgame! I can't get the image out of my mind of a guy running a marathon, then walking away as soon as he sees the finish line a few meters away.

If you say you "eventually will" finish the game, then for your own sake, don't let yourself sell it! If all you need is a break to finish the game, then take that break, and don't risk making a decision you will regret forever! Because you will regret selling this game if it is truly as close to completion as you say. To come that close to the end, to finishing a commercial game on Steam, something precious few people can say, and to give it up...

I don't think it's hard to understand why I was (and still am a bit) suspicious. I can't imagine anybody giving up their baby like this unless there was something more complicated happening behind the scenes.

 

There are over 4.5 million users on steam LOGGED ON RIGHT NOW. That means about half will see your game. Half of that will add to their wishlist and / or buy right away. Then 3 hours from now, another 4 million will log on and see that game.

Dont you see that selling your game is probably going to be the worst mistake of your life? You do not ever understimate the power of Steam. You will be smokin rich if you get on steam. Trust me.

 

Not really. Especially not now that Steam is greenlighting all kinds of crappy games and people are getting turned off from it.
If I remember right, the people who made Dustforce, which was relatively popular on there a while back, said they had ~5 people working on it for like two years, and made a total of ~$250,000 from it before sales plummeted.

 

This reminds me of so many business pitches that start with "There are two billion people in China..."

Half will not see the game. (Do you see half of all of the new games every time you log on? No.) Of the tiny fraction who do see it, only a small fraction will actually look. (How many games on the storefront do you actually pay attention to as you skim past? Can you name/describe them?) Of those who look only a tiny fraction will click. (How many games do you click on in the Steam store when you go there?) And your funnel keeps getting thinner and thinner each step until they're eventually handing over money.

 

That depends how you promote your game before release. Developers probably build their own community during Greenlight process before being greenlit. Plus people who voted for the game would be notified when it's out in the stores.

You build a big community of people who are willing to pay for the game. You need at least 10,000 - 90,000 votes from people. (not sure but quite a lot) to become Greenlit.

And also, steam promotes newly released games on it's main page (would it be indie or AAA).

 

Sure, all of that counts. But it doesn't at all add up to a quarter of all active Steam users buying/wishlisting the game immediately.

 

Eh its just an overexagerrated statement. Still, my point is that a lot of people will see his game. Especially since there are 87 million active users on Steam (source: Steam)

 

Releasing a game isn't the "finish line" that some think it is, either. There is a lot of work to be done in support, documentation, promotion, etc. to make release worthwhile. Selling the game may be the only way to do the work justice.

 

I'll bid $2.

 

Getting a game on steam is quite difficult. I don't think indie devs will make a S***ty game and post it in steam just like that!

 

Then why are there so many S***ty games on Steam? Like, say, Day One: Garry's Incident?

 

There are some dumb indies I suppose. Plus:
a) It's on Steam because of Greenlight users.
b) Advertising was false

 

This thread is getting off topic.

 

There are 400+ games already released through greenlight how many have you guys played.
http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight?appid=765&browsesort=accepted&browsefilter=accepted&p=1

 

I dont think they're sick of making games, but everyone needs a break. I mean nobody can deny this kind of job is stressful, you need to do it in moderation