A Linux Game That's Still Not Selling Well

[Desti]

How can you complain about sales from a game that is even not released yet?

[susikala]

One thing I don't get about this game and is why I wouldn't buy it, probably, is that it has no innovation. Nothing, nada. Even if you add a ton of different monsters, different levels, etc. etc., this type of games has been beaten to death. It's just boring.

I don't get this kind of approach. Recent (indie, but not only) games show that this medium is just doing its baby steps. Films are a much more established medium with a long history, but video games are kind of really young. Games like osmos, or journey (PS3) show the immense potential of making games _differently_, if people only stopped reinventing the wheel.

There are loads of areas where video games haven't even begun to develop to. Why isn't anyone doing an 'rts' where you can't actually control the units directly, but your strategic actions (i.e. supply routes, supplies, development of technology, aggressiveness/tactic of troops on ground) influences how troops fight, only indirectly (i.e. you cannot move a soldier from a to b). I could think of a thousand scenarios where this would be something incredibly awesome to play: trenches warfare, simulation of occupation of civil population, all out war, etc. etc. Some games today and approaches to gaming are partly so banal that you're only waiting for someone to pick up the glove and make something innovative which you could spend your money on.

[Ansla]

Why isn't anyone doing an 'rts' where you can't actually control the units directly, but your strategic actions (i.e. supply routes, supplies, development of technology, aggressiveness/tactic of troops on ground) influences how troops fight, only indirectly (i.e. you cannot move a soldier from a to b).

Did you try http://globulation2.org/wiki/Main_Page or http://wl.widelands.org/? Or or do you mean even less micromanagement?

[Kivada]

How can you complain about sales from a game that is even not released yet?

Because Larabel did the same with OilRush...

Really can we have a vote to impeach him and vote in someone competent to write for Phoronix?

[susikala]

Did you try http://globulation2.org/wiki/Main_Page or http://wl.widelands.org/? Or or do you mean even less micromanagement?

Yeah, I guess those games already somewhat go in that direction, but only somewhat. I mean no micromanagement at all, i.e. no way to control troops directly. Think of it like sort setting up domino stones in a certain way and then watching how they fall. Of course, what I mean with the rts aspect is that you would have real time control over the game, but the changes you do should 'propagate' slowly (even very slowly in large scales like say wwi trench war) to the front / actual gameplay. Say we're talking about riot control or keeping an occupied civilian population pacified, then you can determine for example what kind of riot control measures would be used and how aggressive the cops/soldiers would use them before the scenario starts. But you cannot tweak those things directly once the riots are going on, the orders you then give need time to propagate down the command chain, pretty much like in real life. That's something I'd personally consider immensely awesome because it actually requires some thinking and planning instead of just moving troops around. It's a lot more strategy / tactics if you will than classical rts which is basically having the mightiest army around. Overpowering an enemy in such a game should never be a blanket option, only outwitting them by planning ahead.

[Raven3x7]

There are loads of areas where video games haven't even begun to develop to. Why isn't anyone doing an 'rts' where you can't actually control the units directly, but your strategic actions (i.e. supply routes, supplies, development of technology, aggressiveness/tactic of troops on ground) influences how troops fight, only indirectly (i.e. you cannot move a soldier from a to b). I could think of a thousand scenarios where this would be something incredibly awesome to play: trenches warfare, simulation of occupation of civil population, all out war, etc. etc.

You mean like this http://www.heartsofirongame.com/

[Zorael]

I fully understand the difficulty in gathering the monetary resources to develop a game and I have great respect toward small teams trying. Less so for big corporations yearly churning out $GAME_NAME $((RELEASE+1)) with ever growing marketing costs and ever shrinking final enjoyment value. HOWEVER, not everyone can be Minecraft and make that kind of money selling an alpha/beta game. They already had an audience in the Infiniminer community and simply wrote a clone of what people already knew was a fun game.

I've bought a lot of indie games largely to show support for the scene and multi-(Unix-like)-platform gaming, but I really don't feel any incentive whatsoever to buy a semi-playable game in development. I don't mind bugs but I want there to be content and not just source. It would have to be from a developer with a history of good games, the obvious example being Wolfire.

Releasing such is a good gesture (in the release early, release often ethos) but expecting a multitude of people to flock and pay is sadly a mite naïve. I don't have any solutions.