How not to sell a mmorpg
Just got an email this morning: “$10 off when you buy the retail version of RF Online”. RFO is one of Codemasters’ free online games.
It looked quite pretty, so I wandered over to codemasters.com to have a look. Couldn’t find it anywhere on the site - not on the main page, on the featured games, nor the all games page.
Then I spotted a drop-down list box - and there it was, lurking at the bottom.
The game’s got its own site, so I wander about for a bit, then decide to click on the big “download now” banner at the top of the page. There’s links to screenshots and whatnot, but no download link.
Eventually I hunt it down via the Downloads link in the navbar to the left. One download link is presented, and that’s a fileplanet site. Which you have to pay for.
There’s not even a “free, but it’ll take ages” option.
The whole point of a free mmorpg is to get as many people on there as possible, then you make your money back by selling in-game items. I can’t see there being many people in that game, given that most people would have given up trying to find the actual download link, and if they do, they’ve got to get their credit card out.
Ah well, there’s plenty others to choose from….
No commentsWishing MS and Sony would just grow up
*sigh*
What is it with these two? I’ve just seen another interview with some Sony bloke bashing the Wii. Last week it was Microsoft’s turn. What do they hope to achieve by this? “Hell yeah, you’re totally right - I’m going to ceremoniously burn my Wii and buy a PS3 right away!”. No, it makes you look like children, like sore losers who can’t just admit that Nintendo judged the market completely right, have made a packet, and that’s despite naming their console like going to the toilet.
Perhaps if Sony and MS actually concentrated on providing cheap consoles, with good games that more than three people want to play, and don’t break down every few months, instead of bitching all the time, then Nintendo might have some credible competition.
No commentsDevelopment Diaries
I’m hoping to be organised enough to provide work-in-progess updates on a number of games in development, including:
Bloons Mobile - the mobile version of the most popular Flash game ever
Monkey Twang - a physics-based Flash game
Green - my remake of Braben’s classic Virus
Blobbit Drops - the next Blobbit-tastic installment
Smack Head 2
Once I get clearance from the Kiwi boys, I’ll be posting an online version of the first Bloons build.
No commentsFlash 10 Gridrunner++
As Jinxy serviced the bikes outside, ready for our first jolly round the island this summer, I thought I’d have a quick tinker with Flash 10, and see if the new APIs could produce a version of Gridrunner that’s nearer the psychedelia of the original PC version.
Anyway, it turns out I didn’t need to alter any code at all, I just needed to add a simple html tag to tell Flash to use the GPU where possible.
So I did that…and…it rocks!
The first thing you notice is that the screen has some sort of blur filter on it, like you get on MAME when it scales up old arcade games. I quite like it, gives it more of a retro-y feel. Next you notice the FPS counter in the bottom left, dancing around 60, then 75, all the way up to 150!
So I dug out the game’s graphics preferences, turned everything up to 11, and it still copes fine!
You can download Flash 10 here.
No commentsHello world!
And so Yet Another Wordpress Blog is born.
I’ve started on the Museum - it contains Cheeky, Friendly Giants and MDR Software. The MDR one takes a fair while to load, bless its little Java socks.
1 comment
