Welcome to Wrestling Gamers United Newsletter #297
1) Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee 2) Play with me 2) Link of the Week 3) Question of the Week
1) Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee ************************************
It’s late Thursday night as I write this. I've got some phone calls and meetings booked for Friday morning so I'm not sure I'll be able to write this then.
Ahhhh it's been one of those weeks. On the plus side we've got some good deals on the horizon and 2008 looks like it will be a great year for us. If we can just make it that far. Uprising continues to push ahead, bugs are being eliminated, graphics improving, animations added, and for some reason known only to God himself those pre orders are still coming in every day. I'm humbled by the support we have. We had started this project with the good intention of making a massive game with a full feature set but setback after setback has left us limping to the finish line with a small core game that is more like our version of Mat Mania or Pro Wrestling NES than our version of Smackdown vs. Raw or Fire Pro. Our graphics look good but Smackdown vs. Raw looks better. Our gameplay is good but many games are better. We've got a good little roster but just about every wrestling game has a bigger one. And even though we've come totally clean about the troubles we've faced, the expectations we've had to lower, and that there will be a free version of Uprising that has almost everything the paid version will have, people continue to pre order the paid version. And even though we can offer nothing of any real value for doing so people continue to donate more than the $10.99 asking price. As recently as today someone donated $100.
What the hell do you make of that? I need to stop questioning it and just accept the fact that all things considered people still want to support us. Incredible.
The behind the scenes business of running the studio continues to test us all. It seems like every few weeks we have to sit down and make changes to make sure Uprising is completed in time. Hire new people, cut hours of other people, spend money, save money, it never ends. Being a boss isn't all "ooooo I get to make a game!". Have you ever had to tell someone you had to cut their job? Or face a room full of loyal and dedicated crew and tell them, "I'm really sorry guys but I can't pay you today". I have. More than once over the last few years and it never gets any easier. And I'd be lying if I said I've never ran to the bathroom to dry heave over it. But you do what you have to do and live with the consequences which have never been any worse than the days of worrying that preceded any such event. Who do you talk to when you have to deal with things like that? You try to protect the crew from such things so you don't burden them everyday with your worries. You can't be anything less than solid and strong when talking to investors or business partners or you risk losing their confidence.
A while back I was talking with a guy who owned one of the world's biggest game development companies. They lost some crucial deals, owed the government millions of dollars in back taxes, and he was on a plane to go tell a studio of 200 employees that they we're all about to lose their jobs and the studio was closing. The bank had foreclosed on this man's home, frozen his bank accounts, and he had a wife and two young children. THAT my friends is the definition of hitting rock bottom. He could have sold the company, broken even, and walked away. Everyone would have kept their jobs (for a while at least) and he would have been able to start over with a clean slate. But he knew his company had potential and he would forever regret walking away. So he made the decision to close a studio, keep the core company alive, and push forward as hard as he could with the people he had left. He told me he didn't sleep for almost a week he was so sick over the decision.
A few years later his company eventually released a string of the best selling and best reviewed games of the time across all platforms. He had faith, made very hard decisions, and got the games made that he knew people would want.
I asked him how he felt during that flight to close a studio. "Alone," was his answer. That guy may have made millions of dollars in the end but in a way I'm already luckier than he was. Because even in the worst of times I don't feel as alone as he did. I walk past the wall of support mail from you guys and I know, whether you agree with every decision I've made or not, you've got my back.
2) Play with me ****************
So Sardeep called me over today to test the timing tweaks he was working on. I picked up a controller, punched his character a few times, grappled him, whipped him into a turnbuckle, grappled him again and then Flair chopped him in the corner. Then I grabbed a chair while Sar got up and climbed outside to the apron where I then proceeded to give him a chair shot over the head that sent him flying off the apron to the floor. A flick of the analogue stick and Dane was pumping the chair in the air while flipping No Cara the middle finger.
A 30 second chain of events that took ten months to accomplish and I have a whole new respect for what it takes to make that action happen. I'm not complaining that it took ten months. I'm amazed that it only took ten months. It may not be perfect and there may be tons of room for improvement in everything from the graphics and animations to the audio and game mechanics but what the crew has produced with the little they had to work with (like a game engine intended for outdoor adventure games and no prior experience) is very impressive. Sometimes I forget that and I need to remind the crew that I understand and appreciate what they've overcome. That they've got something fun on the screen is no small feat since February. Back then we couldn't even get a wrestler to load into the engine and walk. Woah.
We're resisting the temptation to pump more and more moves into the game until each and every situation is working at an acceptable level. So even though we have tons of moves animated we're continuing to test with one strike, one ground submission, one turnbuckle grapple, one flying attack, one weak from grapple, one medium front grapple, one strong front grapple, one weak back grapple, etc.
Gameplay before content. No matter how badly I want to see that powerbomb from the apron to the floor in the game...
2) Link of the Week ********************
Have I posted this link already? If so, it's worth reading again anyway. It's an article on why indy studios are dying, and why PC may be the last great hope for those of us looking to stay alive against $20 million dollar competitors.
http://www.slate.com/id/2142453/
3) Question of the Week ************************
Check it out. You guys tell us what to do and we listen. Last week I asked how badly you guys wanted a running chair strike in Uprising and 85% of you told us to forget about it. So we did. The plan now, based on your advice, is to simply drop that chair and run when the run button is pressed. You say running chair strikes can wait and so they will.
So now you've all seen the character models in the game. Darrell would like to spend more time on them and improve them. But he will spend his time animating more moves if we ask him to. So, what is more important to you guys? Better looking character models or more moves?
I would def. give my vote to more moves. I kinda feel bad asking Darrel to make more moves when he wants to touch up the character models but everybody loves to have a ton of moves to choose from.