Welcome to Wrestling Gamers United Newsletter #321
1) Super Awesome Whiz Bang! 2) Link of the Week 3) Question of the Week
1) Super Awesome Whiz Bang! **********************************
OMFG GUESS WHAT HAPPENED THIS WEEK!!
Nothing.
Hey I promised to write a newsletter every Friday, not every time something worth writing about happened. I keep my promises to a fault, eh? When you think of how much fun it would be to run a game studio you never really anticipate how long some things will take. We're still waiting on our final damn funding payment for completing Uprising and we can't do a damn thing until that's finalized. Worst part is, it's totally out of my control and between the auditor and the investment analyst now and they aren't exactly moving too fast thanks partly to it being tax season here in Canada. Not to mention the investment analyst is bogged down with our project and a few dozen others.
It's beyond frustrating. It's infuriating. I need to pay some Uprising development bills that the final payment was tagged for. Hey wanna learn from a classic mistake in case you open your own studio? In December I agreed that the version of Uprising accepted by the publisher would be considered as the final version for funding requirements. Sounds like a good idea, eh? Except that it prevents me from getting the crew to make any improvements or additions to the game until after final payment is received. Because any development done beyond what was accepted by the publisher will not be qualified for funding under that agreement. Painted myself into a frickin' corner on that one. Makes me wonder if the Duke Nuke'm Forever guys are funded by the same people. We spend years to get a game made and when we finally have one we can't release it and we can't work on improvements (paid anyway) either.
If there is any light at the end of this tunnel it's that it's a matter of when and not if.
In the meantime I've been working on a separate project based on that tv show I've been talking about. Wanna talk boring? Endless amounts of funding application material including budgets (lovin' the spreadsheets), schedules (MS Project can go to hell), and an array of supporting documents that I'm sure were responsible for a nice bare patch in a forest somewhere. Still, I hope at the end of all this to be able to openly thank a few guys who have been working on the project with me. The producer at the network and the producer at the film production company have both been amazing to work with. It's just nice to have fellow masochists to share the pain with you as we all worked around the clock this past week hammering this project out. Of course, it might never happen or it could be a huge success. It will be whatever it will be.
This tv deal is affecting Uprising a lot more lately as well. The people behind it are again encouraging me roll it into Uprising but lately I've been keen on keeping the two separate for various reasons. Still, they make an attractive argument...
GTA4 has hooked the bulk of the gaming community and rightly so. It's fun as hell. But what, if anything, can be learned from GTA4 and applied to wrestling games? I don't think anyone wants to see wrestlers hijacking cars and running over hookers between shows, but is there any other element you can put your finger on that just might add something new and desirable to a wrestling game?
That link was so [freaking] hilarious. Today is the day I find out I am probably the biggest geek ever born in Bulgaria. But dammit - I know (and have played on the NES) every single game they said dammit. Too bad about the game, we'll wait don't worry just make the game right...
[Edit: spudz, watch the f-bombs please. I really don't want to have to keep editing your posts - Monitor]