Melty Bread Forums
Misaki Town Bakery => Melty Blood Auditorium => : Dipstick February 09, 2012, 03:20:14 PM
When's Melty on Steam?
ahaha that's no--wait, what?
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(Very, as the idea is barely thought out and I'm probably missing about 332,028 issues, but let's run with the thought anyway.)
Has anyone else been following the story of Double Fine trying to crowdsource funding for an adventure game... and getting a million dollars in pledges in under 24 hours (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-02-09-double-fine-adventure-raises-usd1m-in-less-than-24-hours). I know a number of smaller indie developers have done this to raise a few thousand dollars, but this is just nuts. It's something I've thought about in previous instances (am I the only one that remembers Konami doing something similar for Tokimeki Memorial 3 several years back? Am I having a senior moment?)... but what if the FGC as a whole had the opportunity to try something like that?
Melty Blood: Current Code has some really weird issues. It's almost impossible not to pirate it at this point if you want to play it -- the bundles of Carnival Phantasm have long since sold out, so even people who live in Japan would have no shot. I almost have to be missing something either, in terms of unaccounted for economics, cultural issues, who knows what. It's not like Type-Moon is below whoring out their properties for money. :p (whereas I don't think this would work for, say, Touhou -- Zun already has FU money and would probably turn down a $10m royalty check).
Would you be willing to pledge money in advance for a copy of the game?
What if it had the potential to actually make money back, like Gabe Newell has brought up in the past (http://kotaku.com/5318368/valve-let-fans-fund-games-development)?
Just thinking of the possibilities makes my head spin. Pledge $20 for a copy of the game on Steam (and a beta release), $75 for a physical copy of the game, $200 for a Sion hugpillow, $1000+ for an active stake in the release (where you earn some fractional amount for each copy sold), crazier shit for even higher amounts... I don't even know.
There would be a lot of questions to answer: How much money would be needed? $50,000? $100,000? More? How much more would it take to call Mauve (or Ponder, or whoever else) to upgrade the netcode? Who would translate it? Who would be responsible for making sure it passes all of the QA requirements? Would French Bread/Ecole/Type-Moon ever agree to something as non-standard as this? Isn't there a reason the game has never seen release even with interest from publishers? Or maybe the opposite -- maybe the game has already been licensed elsewhere? I think some of these could be solved by partnering with a publisher that's forward-thinking enough -- it would reduce efficiency, but it would be a much lower risk profile knowing that someone else (or lots of someone else) are paying for the project. Wouldn't be the first time a lot of traditional publishers have badly misjudged the market, especially for a more niche game.
I'm actually serious about this -- if this was a real thing with an investment opportunity, I would drop five figures on it. Am I out of my mind? (Yes, but ignore that.) Or am I underestimating how poor the FGC is?
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maybe you are underestimating how poor the FGC is :bricks:. But if i remember well the guys of circular geometry are trying to do exactly this to develop their project (gilden tide)
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Most people in MB community are too poor to attend nationals around the country. While this sounds great in theory...I can't see it working.
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I want to try this but most of the community is poverty :(
Although, we could reach out to the more iplayforthestory/type moon fans and stuff?
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Even beyond straight up poverty, I would first look into how much it would cost to license all of the characters for release stateside.
The biggest problem after that would be investors. To use your words, as an "investment opportunity", if someone pitched throwing money into obtaining rights to/publishing a niche fighting game (Let's be honest, the game would not reach SFIV/MCV3 Sales figures, as much as we'd all enjoy that) it's just plain not sound investing, unless you have some investment in the community, and play the game.
Don't get me wrong, it'd be awesome to see it take off, but I think there needs to be a lot more research into the legal side of things, and more importantly just how large a financial undertaking this would be before this is anything more than a pipe dream.
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Whilst I am excited about crowdsourcing in general, the US/non-jp world fanbase for melty is too small and probably too poor.
As for japan, I have no idea if crowdsourcing has caught on over there. On the one hand, they have a much bigger tradition of indy games, (after all, melty started as an indy game). On the other hand, it could mean that they are used to their traditional way of buying games, and wont be interested in crowdsourcing.
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If they accept, I'm all up for it.
Sion hugpillow gdlk.
Melty Blood was made by player for players in order to create an ideal fighting game, crowdsorce would be very thematic imo.
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1000$ if they remove Nero from the game.
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1000$ if they give nero his old ex crows back.
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$1000 if they took away Sacchin's dash and returned air momentum to MBAC style.
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I would love for this to happen, so that
I my friends can buy the game 8-)
Digital release would also mean the possibility of an increasing player base.
Also, since it's PC... I would LOVE to be able to type in-game like on GGPO.
Being mute during games is frustrating. :-X
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Personnally I'd go for it, also got to remember that it isn't just the active scene that is interested in MB, there are plenty of anime fans out there and probably quite a few people into fighting games who may bite for whom regular travel costs are a bit to prohibitive to participate in events regularly but who could afford to drop $20 or so on a digital copy.