Tahi - The Arocean War (9-9-09)

[Neohound]

Actually I think it is a perfectly good idea for them to develop for more than just the DC. From what they have said, it appears as if they are going to launch a development studio. In order to do this, they need to woo venture capitalists and angel investors and get a lot of money in order to stay afloat while they write software (pay for infrastructure like computers, office rent, and employee salaries). Since the DC homebrew games sold elsewhere tend to sell only a couple thousand copies at $50 and less, best case, that is probably only $150,000 (3000 at $50) - which sounds like a lot of money, but which would be swallowed up really fast if you are paying monthly rent for an office, and trying to live on small salaries of maybe 30k for a couple of people. At that rate, the studio doesn't look like an attractive investment at all for anyone to pony up say a $1 million seed capital. - the investor would never make his investment back.

Instead, if they can market themselves as a group that is developing interesting software for a popular platform like the iphone, they can forecast selling more than a couple thousand copies, the projected monetary return will be more substantial, and investors will have more confidence. Releasing a game for DC could still serve as a form of guerilla marketing to get some press and make their studio name more well known, but it is not sustainable for a business to only release games for DC because of the now small couple thousand person audience.

Well that's very nice for them and you make some good points about finance and profitability. But I don't give a fig about Reticon per se - I'm just worried about getting a DC game off them ! lol Fuck XBOX Live, Iphone and PSN - they've got enough games as it is

Honestly, I just assumed they were students with a passion and skill for coding(and maybe even retro consoles). I thought they picked the DC for a particular reason whereas as I'm now finding out they are budding entrepreneurs who want to make some money and go live in Silicone Valley someday.

I don't wish them to ignore their long term goals and dreams............yeah, go make your millions, but just make sure you finish our Dreamcast game first !!

[dark]

Anyone who is still making a game for dreamcast, and who has spent 3 years coding an engine from scratch, is doing it out of the passion. But each of the individuals needs money to live too, and money to keep working on the game and money to keep the team together, especially since they are probably out of college now and would be more inclined to go their separate ways anyway. Making a DC game isn't profitable - if they don't diversify and have a plan to make some revenue, then it's unlikely they would have the ability and motivation to keep working and finish this as a DC game anyway.

Even NGDev team ports their titles to iphone - they just make them for the ground up as neogeo games initially because they are passionate about the neogeo. I can see the same deal going on here - if what Reticon says is true, they've spent the last 3 years designing their game for the DC, they are invested in making a DC game, and they will port a DC game to the iphone and not the other way around.

And for entrepreneurs, the point isn't only to make millions right off the bat, the point is to finance doing what you love and are passionate about because in the initial stages (before you have a product to sell, or before you have money to put for advertising and marketing - which takes years) you are going to be working long hours for almost no money in order to get the venture off the ground. Entrepreneurs often live on shoestring budgets, and their venture isn't even profitable at all for the first couple years it exists. The only thing that keeps the venture together is motivation and passion. VCs and other investors try to suss out and won't invest in you unless they know you and your team are so passionate and driven with your ideas that you will be able to survive the harsh first few years where you are barely scraping by and having to eat tuna fish every night because you are putting all the resources into making the venture company survive.

[dark]

That's a wall of words. To make a long story short - it's been over 3 years since they started work on this. College is 4 years. They have to be nearing the end or already graduated. If "Reticon entertainment" doesn't exist, I think it's unlikely the old college team would have the motivation to keep working on the game after they graduate and they all get different fulltime jobs doing other things.

If Reticon doesn't exist, I don't think it's likely we would get a DC game.

[BrianC]

Dark makes a good point but i understand why people might be a bit freaked out. I remember waiting for Crysis 2 for years and then one day hearing "yeah so we're going to make it cross platform". PC fans shot back saying "are you fucking kidding me, Crysis 1 can't even work on the 360 (even though they eventually got it to at low low settings)!". The end result was a 360 first PC later port that was truly abysmal at launch (I hear they've fixed it up some). So, my issue is that there would probably be concessions made to make the game work perfectly around the most profitable medium such as the iCrap OS. I can't complain because Reticon is doing an amazing service for us DC fans and I will be eternally grateful once I get my hands on this game but it does sting a bit.

[Neohound]

I suppose I'd just got used to Reticon being our very own cosy coders taking on the establishment. I was dreaming a dream........the alternative reality to the nightmare that is the mainstream games industry today. A small team, whose work on Tahi would be released to the DC coding community and help, for years to come, encourage a new wave of bedroom coding outside of the established sector .

All of a sudden they've gone and branched out, tempted by the lure of big bucks, sex, drugs and rock n roll.............

But now, thanks dark , I realise that maybe this could be the best move to make on Reticon's part; a way to guarantee a Dreamcast game rather than the worst case scenario I was fearing.

I'll still be keeping my fingers crossed.

[cloofoofoo]

What actually worries me the most is that they might not finish the dreamcast version for a couple of reasons.The biggest being if they move to stuff like ios/android , they will have more robust and better documented sdk to work with and not to mention better hardware.Coupled with the fact they would probably make more money making an ios/android game than a dreamcast one.They might just think oh why even bother all together to do it on the dc.

Otherwise I wouldnt mind if they can guarantee that the dreamcast version would be made.I actually like to play some 3d games on my phone to pass the time so I wouldnt mind if it doesnt effect the dc version.

[Bob Dobbs]

From the desk of Reticon:

As promised, here is the continuation.

The team and I had a long meeting last Saturday discussing something known as 'Goal 6'.

Goal 6 is our team's goal to have over 80% of the game completed by the end of 6 months. This being in August. This is going to be a huge load for us, but in the end, an amazing feat of progress. The entire team agreed on Goal 6 and we have drafted our ENTIRE schedule starting from this Friday until August 30th. The entire team has a bucket list of objectives they must complete, as well as many myself in order to get this game completed and shown as it was meant to be. This will also include the trailer, the website redevelopment, and the demo!

To just explain the scope of how much we must do for Goal 6:
* Our creature creator must create over 100 creatures (front and side views) with attributes and locations
* Our artists must create over 40 main characters for the game, and this does not include the current characters which are in development or already completed and does not include tertiary characters.
* Our writer(s) is drafting multiple versions of the same story in order to fit how the game will be developed, each far more than 300 pages in depth.
* Our composer is ready and has started to produce over 30 songs for the game, which include field music, character themes, menu music and the list goes on.
* My assistant game designers are prepping each stage of the game's development so that the game does not end up being repetitive or boring. We want to MAKE SURE that you're on the end of your seat in every minute you play this game!
* Our modelers are responsible for over 200 models! This one's a big one, they already have begun last week. They will have a jam-packed schedule. Their schedule is much like an assembly line, the end product is taken to me for texturing and continuation of modeling
* Brendan and I will be responsible for most of the coding of this game, we will be producing hundreds of thousands of lines of code for this game, every single night I've been coding this game together. I am also going to be responsible for some of the modeling and most of the animation, as well as overseeing and coordinating the entire project. I will be incredibly busy managing the Tahi project.

The entire team toasted in the end of the meeting for Goal 6! We're prepped up and ready to go! In the light of Goal 6, I have created a machine solely for the purpose of Dreamcast development running multiple backups both on site and remotely to ensure that our code never get gets lost or damaged. We're taking extra precautions to make sure that our code is not damaged, or changed in an unauthorized manner.

We mean business!

Wish us the best of luck. We have our eyes set on the goal. In this case, Goal 6!


Thank you all for the support!
Reticon

[CD AGES]

Godspeed lad...

[VasiliyRS]

So we wont see any screenshots or video untill end of the summer ...

To just explain the scope of how much we must do for Goal 6:

It looks ... you know ... unbelievable. They really need to be motivated too much in order to do all that described. I have some doubts about that and you ?

[BrianC]

Great update! Best of luck to everyone involved, I'd love to play it some day.