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To All Non-Programmer Idea Peddlers


vdub_bobby

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I'm just finding this thread now, and all I can say is WOW! ...just WOW! So basically... if your not among the elite 2600 game programmers but have some really neat game ideas that you want to share with the community, go f*** yourself. Amazing.

 

If you would have put that energy into explaining your neat game idea then I could have partnered with you in creating a game. As it is your hit-and-run insults prove you cannot properly explain yourself or respect others. Keeping an open mind and being willing to discuss issues is key to game development.

 

UPDATE: I PM'ed him on the off chance he was just venting due to a bad day. If he does have a neat game idea it deserves another chance.

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UPDATE: I PM'ed him on the off chance he was just venting due to a bad day. If he does have a neat game idea it deserves another chance.

 

You are too kind IMHO. :) Looking at his profile overview his custom status is telling ( Miserable SOB ) :grin:

http://atariage.com/forums/user/35857-7800/ I kid, I kid, hopefully he checks back and can be reasonable. :thumbsup:

Edited by OldSchoolRetroGamer
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If you would have put that energy into explaining your neat game idea then I could have partnered with you in creating a game. As it is your hit-and-run insults prove you cannot properly explain yourself or respect others. Keeping an open mind and being willing to discuss issues is key to game development.

 

UPDATE: I PM'ed him on the off chance he was just venting due to a bad day. If he does have a neat game idea it deserves another chance.

That was quite an off-chance :)

 

And since when do you need a neat game idea ? Did you happen to implement half of them already ;) ?

 

BTW, the core problem with interpreting the game design is that no matter how well you write the game mechanics, you cannot transfer that excitement / motivation you feel when you come up with the idea.

 

It's like when you hear some song and your brain has hardwired it to a particular point in a time-space continuum. You can talk all you want about it, but nobody else will feel the same.

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I've got a "neat" game idea.

 

Basically you are an awesome dude who kicks butt. There would be bad guys and you would kick them, in their butt.

There would be some awesome graphics also.

 

I'm happy for anyone to use this profound game idea, but i would have to be compensated.

I can contribute to the development process by providing emotional support.

Edited by Matthew
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I've got another idea: a built in anti-troll button. It's called "Ignore Matthew"

 

Thats a great idea. Unfortunatly no amount of PEEKs or POKEs will get you there.

 

Perhaps it is time to cast away your BASIC upbringing.

Edited by Matthew
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That's a great idea. Unfortunately, no amount of PEEKs or POKEs will get you there.

 

Perhaps it is time to cast away your BASIC upbringing.

 

Well, blast it. A real troll makes sure to never leave behind valuable commentary. Sorry about that. I guess I have to get used to your style. Ignore revoked.

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can we PLEASE get back on topic?

 

If so, thank you

 

anyway ---

These would be nice

 

a "Phozon" port on the Atari 7800
River City Ransom for the 7800 [albeit with Alex and Ryan reverted back to Kunio and Riki]

Jr. Pac-Man for the 7800
Professor Pac-Man for the 7800

Wiz-Man for the 7800
a port of "The Tower of Druaga" for the 7800

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You should reread the first post, a wish list of games consisting only of their titles is hardly on topic :ponder:

To be brutally fair, you cannot rule out the possibility that the list of remakes isn't stretching his game design capabilities beyond its inherent limits.

 

In other words, he already did his job, And now it's job of us, lowly minion unworthy coders, to gaze upon his awesomeness and bash away at our keyboards over nights&weekends in lieu of his grand vision...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just an observation, people go to lawyers because they don't have a law degree, people go to doctors because they don't have a medical degree. When people talk to programmers (about programming not to imply that you can't have a normal conversation) it is because they do not know how to do what you do. I don't know anyone my age that had a 2600 that didn't fantasize about creating their own game. Some day some rich Gen-X'r is going to want to throw $20K at making his dream come true, and you are just going to piss him/her off when they try to find help. Its not good for the hobby, and is makes all retrogamers look snotty and aloof. Try to improve your "people protocol" a bit, I'm not big into stereotypes, but they get reinforced when you snot off a newbie for being curious and enthusiastic about a 40 year old platform.

 

....and with that I move back in to the #1 most hated non-programmer slot.

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Problem is, many people come over here with the all wrong attitude.

 

They have a great (secret!) idea, look for some worker who will transform this with a little labor ("2600 programming is simple") and generously offer sharing profits 50:50.

 

This happened way too often in the past, so that's why a lot of homebrewers (me included) are reacting like that.

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Some day some rich Gen-X'r is going to want to throw $20K at making his dream come true

 

 

I've never seen anybody wanting to hire a homebrew programmer for 20K. If that were the case, any one of us would be very interested. I've seen 1K offered, which is not worth my time. The common 50:50 would return even less than 1K as there really isn't that much demand for homebrew games.

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$20K was a number that someone in here said "might interest" them and it is not outside of the realm of possibility that someone whose favorite childhood memory was the day that 2600 was under the tree, made a fortune in junk bonds, and was outbid for the LA Clippers and now wants to make that game he dreamed up in middle school.

 

It was a hypothetical, I could be off, but I would think that someone that has an interest in making a homebrew, would be a potential customer of buying existing titles.

 

and yes, there is a lot involved that most people don't understand, that should kind of be the starting point of the conversation "I don't think you realize what goes in to it" might bridge the gap a little better.

 

 

 

 

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Well there is an inmutable truth, even for 20K you cannot exceed the Atari graphics limitations. ;)

 

This is basically the problem with idea "providers", they doesn't know what is possible and what is impossible.

 

And as programmers know, most game ideas once implemented are simply awful, I've dozens of projects in oblivion (sealed for eternity!) that I can guarantee looked very good in my mind :D

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$20K was a number that someone in here said "might interest" them and it is not outside of the realm of possibility that someone whose favorite childhood memory was the day that 2600 was under the tree, made a fortune in junk bonds, and was outbid for the LA Clippers and now wants to make that game he dreamed up in middle school. It was a hypothetical, I could be off, but I would think that someone that has an interest in making a homebrew, would be a potential customer of buying existing titles. and yes, there is a lot involved that most people don't understand, that should kind of be the starting point of the conversation "I don't think you realize what goes in to it" might bridge the gap a little better.

 

Just to echo Darrel and Thomas, an amazing game *might* sell 250 copies at the very reasonable sales price of $50. That *only* generates $12,500 which generally will just about cover the cost of printing boxes, salvaging cartridges; getting chips printed or burned; printing an instruction manual; maybe including some other goodies (posters, patches, crystals, etc); purchasing mailing supplies and then doing the actual mailings. And that's only *if* all the cartridges sell. If they don't, or if it takes a while to sell them, then the programmers are basically losing money. As a result, a small payment or an offer of a 50:50 split is not an incentive for a programmer to work on someone else's idea rather than his or her own.

 

So the issue is not so much that they community is hostile to people with new ideas, it's just that there are always more ideas than there are programmers to implement them *and* there is a constant stream of non-coders who don't understand how quirky the machine is who want to promote their ideas. So the prevailing feeling seems to be (and please, everyone, correct me if I am wrong), "Not another one! I barely have time for my own ideas, much less someone else's."

 

One of the best ideas proposed by a non-programmer (I thought) was Brian O's Afraid of the Dark - http://atariage.com/forums/topic/172046-newbie-with-a-game-idea/ - that actually generated some good conversation and Brian developed some programmable graphics. But even then, no one picked up the concept to run with it (which I thought was too bad; it looked like a fun, playable concept).

 

Now, is it possible that there's a hedge fund guy out there who loves the atari and wants to pay $5k or $10k or $20k to have someone implement his idea? Absolutely. But I've been on this site for 6 or 8 years (I think) and I've never heard of anyone offering cash up front for a programming job. That doesn't mean that it won't happen, but it hasn't really so far.

 

Other people more involved than I am have mentioned this kind of stuff before, but I just wanted to echo it and toss some numbers around to make things a little more concrete. This is a small community that is pretty welcoming, but the number of skilled practitioners is very small and they are basically fine artists; they pursue their own interests and we all benefit as a result.

Edited by D Train
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  • 2 weeks later...

people go to lawyers because they don't have a law degree, people go to doctors because they don't have a medical degree.

And believe it or not - these guys don't work for free (well, with the exception if you are a criminal and are offered a free lawyer :) ). Imagine that !

Just an observation....

 

When people talk to programmers (about programming not to imply that you can't have a normal conversation) it is because they do not know how to do what you do.

Yet, when the same people come to this board, they somehow expect that SW engineers will slave off over weekends and evenings for free, just for the opportunity to implement the fifty-seventh game idea...

 

 

 

I think it's time for a reality check. Go to GlassDoor.com or Salary.com and search for Senior SW Engineer - since that's where the most coders with background in 8-bit arena will probably be.

 

Depending on where in US they are, the average going rate is about ~$110,000 - $130,000 per year. That's discounting Trading coders (with Floor experience) where it jumps to $170k-$200k+

 

 

 

@D-Train : I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the hedge-fund guy will rather spend the $5k on a Friday night's entertainment than to build an 8-bit game ;)

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  • 1 month later...

My guess is that retrogaming development is not really of a commercial nature these days - that anyone working on their own project(s) - are really doing it for their own satisfaction nowadays. That such enthusiasts are really like other enthusiasts - like that of railways, classic cars or whatever. While there can be some little money made - if you can get a production run of even 500? carts and charge something like $10 profit for each one (retail price is anyone's guess...) - it will not pay you for the amount of time and effort you have put into it.

That of course, you are better off developing on a current platform - tablet, PC, web or whatever - if you really want to make some money with a videogame idea/project.

Flappy Bird being that rare example - which made a huge? profit for it's maker...

I don't really know the story concerning the 2600 scene - as I'm really into the A8 hardware side (graphics design) - though I may help with a 2600 game project - maybe in a year or 2?

 

Currently I am working on a project for free (AtariBLAST!) and am not really looking for someone to distribute it etc. The only reason to make it - is to try to do something not yet done before? And to produce a quality product that really stands out. The game format/idea itself is nothing special at all - really it pays homage to all past previous spacey shooters of their day, etc etc...

 

I haven't read the previous posts here - but I'll get around to it..

 

Harvey

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This is another one of those threads that will never die.

 

One-man-band creative endeavors like homebrews are driven by the central passion or "dream" of the creator. Someone who has a "great idea" has the same impulse that a programmer has. He or she just can't execute on that idea. So it's understandable they'd want to farm it out, but it's also understandable that programmers would be reluctant to do it. It CAN happen, but only if the programmer is so inspired by the idea and it then becomes his "dream" as well, which is rare.

 

 

I have tried to get someone to finish Death Derby for ages, but nobody wanted to do it. It was my "dream" to take a bronze-age game and port it to the 2600 as a sort of "what if" experiment for what could have been a first-gen title (albeit 4K instead of 2K) and to get better use out of the driving controllers (preferably with the Y-cable). I don't think anyone else was nearly as passionate about it as I was, even Thomas when he finished the kernel for me. Once I had my daughter, I had a hard time finding the time and concentration to do do 6507 assembly, and later on I had misgivings about investing a lot of effort into a game that is about running down anything, people or gremlins or whatever. I'd still like to see it finished for closure-purposes, but only by the hand of someone who has the same passion I used to have for it. For now, it's in Duke Nukem Forever status.

 

On the flipside, when that Star Castle project went through kickstarter in a way that pissed off the community, it fired people up to make a less exclusive version. That's just how it works. People have their own motivations.

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