Is full-time Paintball 2 development feasible?

[jitspoe]

As many of you know, I'm currently "between jobs".  I'm entertaining the idea of possibly finding a way to work on paintball2 full-time and generating enough revenue to live off of.  It's probably not realistic, but it would be cool.

Donations are pretty much out of the questions, since they're pretty few and far between.  If I added up all the donations I got from the whole lifespan of paintball2, I probably wouldn't be able to cover 1 month's worth of expenses.  Shirts, mouse pads, and other similar items have the same issue, and even when sold in large quantities, there isn't much profit to be made.

One idea I've been kicking around is in-game advertisements.  Something unobtrusive - possibly optional.  Banners like you'd see on a real tournament field.  These would be very affordable for companies not wishing to take big risks, but the amount put in would determine the percentage of time the ad is displayed.  For example, if one company put in 100 and another put in 200, the second one would be displayed twice as much.

Another possibility is adding the ability to purchase little perks - things like custom jerseys and whatnot that free mmorpg games like trickster have.

And finally there's taking the whole game and getting it published commercially.  Given the game's current state, that would pretty much require a complete re-write, so it might as well be a whole new game.  Perhaps a separate simulation game that focuses more on tactical positions than speed, jumping, and twitch reflexes.  It wouldn't really be paintball2 full-time, but a lot of the media and code base could be shared.

[blaa]

 You also have to take into consideration the high potential of this game. This game has no blood which makes it playable for all ages. This makes the game interesting for advertizers.

Instead of creating a whole new game you could create a team of individuals who would help you to speed up the build process. There are plenty around. I remember some time ago you said that the reasons you dont have a team already was that you felt that team would slow you down. Dunno about that, but I sure know y00tz, xbain and many others.

To have those banners you would need some space for those in existing maps. For advertizers it wouldnt quite sound too good if one would say "we have about 1000 maps for this game and we can promise you the banner space in 25 maps!!!!!". So how about you start thinking of an official dp map list. And no, I dont think that the maps what come with dp are official..

[b00nlander]

- ingame-advertisement would work best if the map base would start from scratch and mappers would be encouraged to make such slots available -> new map format as a requirement
- additionally, I don't really see how this could generate a lot of money as the playerbase isn't really big compared to other games

- custom jerseys etc would not generate a whole lot of income

- new game?  there's a lot of competition out there already

what about d) find another job at another company and continue the way you did before you quit at Kodak?

[FlaMe]

Im pretty sure I said something to you in a PM about charging for this game eventually.

And I think if you killed the ridiculous physics of this game, it would just suck for everyone who already plays it.

Good idea though, good luck

[Eiii]

Ads are the best option, but I don't think that'd generate enough revenue to live off of. Banners and such could be entities, and code in future builds could refuse to run maps that don't include those entities, so long as public is 1. That way they could be added through .ent files, without rebuilding the map. That wouldn't exactly guarantee they were placed in a good place, but it could be a temporary solution.

[Reed]

I don't think putting adverts on maps is a particularly great idea, theyre too diluted by the rest of the map content. Plus there is not set map rotation, so thats maybe a thousand maps which you'd have to change to allow advertising.

The better option would be to build an advert into the scoreboard, which needs to be re-designed anyway in my opinion. People would probably pay more attention to the scoreboard than they would to an advert in the middle of a map like hellsurvivors.

I don't think you'd ever be able to live off the revenue, but every little helps.

[cusoman]

Personally, I think the "perks" idea would be best.  Just offer a like $4.99 membership monthly thing, and have some servers be members only, some servers be login only, and some servers be generic pub.  And on the server list it could list the type of game type (member,login, or pub).  You could do little things like as an observer you can see the players name above there head at all times, and do the custom jerseys idea.  Also if your in a clan, and a member, you could do the "submit clan symbol idea" and put custom jerseys for people wearing the clan tag, and logged in, and members.  This community would definitely supply the members because its really supportive, and would probably become a member not for the perks, but because they want to support the game.

Also, if you do make a membership thing, I suggest that if you are a member you can choose between like 4 player models, some being girls too, so that way you can show off your membership with a sweet new model, custom clan jersey, and such.  Also newer players on the pub servers would see you and be like "how do you get that model" and then the member would be like "go become a member and all your dreams will be realized"

This would be the easiest way I can see to gain revenue.  You could also crank out the ads on dplogin.com to make some extra dough.  I know I would click on the ads just because I knew it would fund this game.

Consider these thoughts,
Cusoman

[m7feettall]

Average Page Views per day in November: 7,638




http://www.leedodd.com/page/47/

In my experience, on average, it takes 12,000 page views per day to generate $10.00 from Google Adsense per day. 10 x 30 days = $300.00 for the month.

You could make 5 or 6  bucks a day from Google. That sucks. However, if we directed more folks  here you could get that up a bit.

Now the big question--is the login included in the forum stats?  Assumedly not. Therefore, you may have a bunch more page views than you think.

Folks in clans, etc. probably check the login frequently. At least I do.

[KnacK]

google ad-words in the forums is a great idea. It would take very little to get it going. I also think member only servers is a great idea.

If you wanted to do the game full time, I think a scratch rebuild would be in order on a more powerful engine.

ALso as mentioned above: the uniqueness of the game in the fact that it doesn't have blood and violence is a huge plus with parents.

[m7feettall]

A. Develop your own game-integrated  chat system.

B. Enroll all clans.

C. Include ads

Problem solved. And you just made the community 5x more accessible.

[m7feettall]

Or make the chat system on the site, but include a direct link from the game HUD to the forums and to the chat system hosted on your site.

Either way is fine.

[blaa]

Plus there is not set map rotation, so thats maybe a thousand maps which you'd have to change to allow advertising.

Yes yes, official maps! dppb2_mapname

[Reed]

I think the members only server idea is a bit deluded, there is literally no chance that enough people will pay to play this game. As a server admin i would prefer to keep my server open to as many people as possible, and if it were to be members only i know darn well that i would want a cut of that revenue as I'm the one paying for the server.

The 'unlockable content' idea might have some milage, with different models and jerseys, but if you could only use these on one server then whats the point?

Google ads is a good idea, and if you can get a global statistics system in place with player stats displayed on this site (or another) then you're going to get many many more hits.

I think you have to pick one strategy or another; either pay-to-play, or free with ad supported revenue. You can't do both because free play will always undermine the pay-to-play idea.

The official maps idea won't work, one of the beauties of the game is the variety of maps available. Plus, where are you going to find enough mappers to make all these new maps that will be required? The only way i can see this working is if you have one server running a set list of maybe 20 maps with ads on, but theres no guarantee that people are going to play on this server as much as a server where they have a multitude of maps to pick from.

[cusoman]

Well, i see your point reed, but I do think a members idea would work.  If you really think it cant work, then we could set up a money system/ points system, and you get money(points) for killz and whatnot, and then you can use the points to buy custom stuff, but you can also buy points with real money if you have global login.  People can pay to have cool stuff, and it would encourage them to get a global login, which would have ads on it so in turn would make you money both ways.
-Cusoman

[Reed]

we could set up a money system/ points system, and you get money(points) for killz and whatnot, and then you can use the points to buy custom stuff, but you can also buy points with real money if you have global login.  People can pay to have cool stuff

This is what I meant by unlockable content, which i think could be feasible, but would be limited in generating enough money to live on. Like i said, i think this idea will only work if the unlockable content is available on all servers.
The problem then is coming up with enough 'cool stuff' to elicit demand from players, and i don't believe that the demand will be sufficient to charge a premium price. It would probably be too costly (Jitspoes time) to implement the content, in relation to the revenue you'd generate.

There might be a few people willing to pay for this content, but I just don't think people will pay to play this game, not in its current state anyway.

I'd estimate that most of the people who play this game are between 14 - 24, with the majority lying at the bottom end. I imagine that these people would rather spend their money on other things, like cocaine and hookers.

[Fullmetal_Steeb]

I like the custom jersey idea. I'd definitely be willing to pay a few dollars a month to have my clan tag on me. On the other hand, I don't think it would be a good idea to charge for much more than custom content (stuff like connecting to any server should be free, not charging for "member's only" servers).

The scoreboard ads would work too. I know that I look at the score at least 3 times every round, even though I know the score, so I wouldn't be too focused on the numbers and I could look at the ad. I would say though, probably either try not to make ads too flashy and distracting, or only display them between rounds, because there are a few people who would probably use them as an excuse for getting killed or being capped on (e.g. "LOLZ you shot me when i wuz lookin at teh ads" or "nk, even though i was totally distracted") and that could lead to problems with matches and tourneys.

Reed: What 14 year olds do you know who buy coke and hookers?!

[ViciouZ]

Reed: What 14 year olds do you know who buy coke and hookers?!

* ViciouZ looks left

* ViciouZ looks right

* ViciouZ runs

[KiLo]

Reed: What 14 year olds do you know who buy coke and hookers?!

You've never been to the ghetto have you?!

[sk89q]

For the perks, if you do decide to do it, I think you'll have to do a monthly fee of some sort. Otherwise, you're not going to have a steady income.

Website/forum ads will get money, but it will probably get more money on the actual site. However, doesn't Gamespy have its own ads, so you would have to move the site to your own hosting?

In-game advertisements might or might not work. I don't know. Not sure myself.

[marth]

you could put ads in the loading screens (but they move too fast :/) or maybe when the actual maps downloading.