'Last Hope' Central thread

Tron · Dec 8, 2005

Looks kind of neat if it was on, MVS i'd snatch it long 'as the price is right

roker · Dec 8, 2005

this post is koll

the real SNK is NGF

right leslie?

2Dfan · Dec 8, 2005

NG:DEV.TEAM said:
So we knew it would be hard after the price tag is known.

There will be only 30-40 pieces, producing more would be to expensive/risky and would take to much time todo so. Parts resources are limited too. We must recover all cost from this + we need get more money on our next projects. We want to invest money in future NEO GEO projects to increase our qualitiy.

I read here often 'I would buy it for 200USD', thats nice but its definitely below our production/development costs. There is no way doing that for this AES Release. Maybe a small puzzle game would be possibly in this price tag.

Buyers also should see it as an investment into the future of NEO GEO and 2D gaming.

Yes this release (not the game itself!) is aiming at people who have already most NGH games or really want a new shmup on the neo.
For gamers (who doesn't care on which platform and in which form they play their games/it's all about the games etc.) there will be a cheaper and easier to handle solution in future. But currently we are AES only.

A review of the game by a respected member of the community is a good idea.
Who would you choose for that? Shawn?

@mungrin:

It will feature a great digitized soundtrack from Rafael Dyll: http://www.soniqfactory.de

You are full of shit, seriously.

Robi15 · Dec 8, 2005

sounds interesting.. tell us how long it took to develop this game? how many levels does it have? show more pics..inkl a boss and so on.. u'r game looks very nice. shawn could review this game, would be cool.. :-)

Amano Jacu · Dec 8, 2005

Remember that Ghostlop was supposed to sell all its run for more than that price, although that was an official (but cancelled) game. This time it's a homebrew title but, just by looking at the shots, appears to be around the same quality as regular NG shooters, and I'm sure people here is more attracted to shooters. With Ghostlop the releasers had to invest some money in buying the proto, and here they had to invest money in its development, and at least they don't steal the work from another company.

Well, I appreciate the effort, but I wouldn't pay a dime for this, much less 700$. If TEH ROMZ are released for free I'd try it thought, kinda what happened with Ghostlop.

And I don't like the fact they'll need to sacrifice official carts to do these homebrew ones :oh_no:

, that's why I'd prefer to have the roms distributed (it would be hard to charge money for them as they'd be available for public download right away).

Devine Orochi · Dec 8, 2005

$700? Sorry. If I had that kind of money, I would rather get Metal Slug X or some other games like Pulstar, Ninja Masters, etc.. Rather than some unofficial fan made game. Nope, sorry. $50? Maybe.

Razoola · Dec 8, 2005

This looks very nice though there are a couple of things in the screengrabs I see that make me wonder if this is really a NeoGeo game. Its not that I doubt you but you mention there are emulation shots on the homepage. I can't seem to find those anywhere, all I see are 3 small pics in JPG format (with your logo in). Is it possible you can post some emulation shots in a lossless format like .PNG?

Nice work.

Raz

Neo Si · Dec 8, 2005

@NG

ev.Team

Firstly, I have to say your game looks amazing. In fact so good I'd rather refer to it as an Independant Release, than a 'homebrew'.

However, you business plan is seriously flawed. It seems you haven't conducted any real market research. Being the nice guy I am, I've done this for you and compiled the results:
The news of your game has spread from N-G.com to Shmups!, Digital Press and ASSEMbler. In total, around 2500 people have read about the game across these 4 forums, with about 70 people replying.

1. People are incredibly impressed with the look of the game and also the fact that a new Neo game is coming out. Excellent.

2. People aren't happy you're only doing an AES release at a rediculous $700.

OK, so lets try and sort this out. Why are you limiting yourself to a release of 30 units at $700 each? This is a total of around $21,000. Now, I believe you're doing cart conversions for the game (may explain the 30units)? Normal cart conversions I've seen go for about $200. That's including the price of an AES cart, MVS donor and someone's time and effort. Minus that from your $700, and you seem to expect a $500 profit from each game ($15,000 total)? That is very, very unrealistic.

Simple fact - you may have an amazing game, but as the replies across the various Forums have shown, you're realy not selling any at $700.

So what about a wider release for a game that looks like it deserves to be played by as many people as possible? What about getting new Neo carts manufactured? I've no idea how much this would cost over in the USA, but bootleg Neo carts seem to be very common in HongKong. See if you can hunt down one of these bootleg manufacturers and get them to make you a quantity of AES and MVS carts with eeprom sockets. It's not real SNK parts, but realistically a very cheap way of making these massive games. Getting new carts made in the USA is gonna be a lot more costly, but still, if you get an initial run of 1000 manufactured, the costs will be more acceptable. People seem to be happy with paying maybe $200 - 250 for the game. If you look at making a $50 profit per cart, that leaves $150 - 200 to pay for the manufacturing of the cart, the shock box and lables/manual. Considering on a scale of 1000, cases and labels/manual are only gonna cost $15 - 20 per unit, leaving a whopping $130 - 180 to pay for each newly manufactured cart.

Secondly, consider a CD release. Although you still have to pay for the printing of disk, covers and a manual, you could easily get 1000/2000 copies made for a very reasonable price. Also, as people have suggested, consider allowing the ROM to be downloaded for a fee, and packaging the game with an Emulator for a PC release (good idea whoever that was).

Thirdly, what about a Dreamcast conversion. Trust me, the DC scene would jump on this.

This way, if you sell you initial batch of 1000 Neo CD games, with $25 pure profit, that's $2500. I'm sure you'd also be able to sell 1000 MVS and 1000 AES carts. Obviously the manufacturing cost of carts is going to affect the end price, but still, even if you only make $50 pure profit from each cart, that's another $10,000. That's without even considering a DC conversion, or a second print run of any of the Neo versions.

This way you gain respect from the scene, have 3000 happy Neo owners and make enough cash to do another game. Otherwise you'll have a couple of people that buy the game and everyone else will be pissed at you, not want to pay $700 and blatantly download the ineviatable ROM dump.

Most new businesses fail in the first year. Most of the time this is due to lack of research and refusal to change. Don't let that happen to you. The people have spoken. Ignore them at your own peril.

P.S. - Hello everyone.

I normally lurk, but I though it was about time I registered to share my views on this.

Si

Recap · Dec 8, 2005

Neo Si said:
Secondly, consider a CD release. Although you still have to pay for the printing of disk, covers and a manual, you could easily get 1000/2000 copies made for a very reasonable price.

Do you mean NGCD? They'd need to reprogram the game, and it's not even likely the system's RAM could handle it. And who wants loading times, anyway?

Also, as people have suggested, consider allowing the ROM to be downloaded for a fee, and packaging the game with an Emulator for a PC release (good idea whoever that was).

They'd need to program an emulator, then. Or to pay for an existing one.

Neo Si said:
Thirdly, what about a Dreamcast conversion. Trust me, the DC scene would jump on this.

I agree there. This is the system with the largest base of blind fanboys. Especially when it comes to shooting games. At least, this one seems to be good.

Razoola · Dec 8, 2005

Neo Si said:
@NGev.Team

Firstly, I have to say your game looks amazing. In fact so good I'd rather refer to it as an Independant Release, than a 'homebrew'.

However, you business plan is seriously flawed. It seems you haven't conducted any real market research. Being the nice guy I am, I've done this for you and compiled the results:
The news of your game has spread from N-G.com to Shmups!, Digital Press and ASSEMbler. In total, around 2500 people have read about the game across these 4 forums, with about 70 people replying.

1. People are incredibly impressed with the look of the game and also the fact that a new Neo game is coming out. Excellent.

2. People aren't happy you're only doing an AES release at a rediculous $700.

OK, so lets try and sort this out. Why are you limiting yourself to a release of 30 units at $700 each? This is a total of around $21,000. Now, I believe you're doing cart conversions for the game (may explain the 30units)? Normal cart conversions I've seen go for about $200. That's including the price of an AES cart, MVS donor and someone's time and effort. Minus that from your $700, and you seem to expect a $500 profit from each game ($15,000 total)? That is very, very unrealistic.

Simple fact - you may have an amazing game, but as the replies across the various Forums have shown, you're realy not selling any at $700.

So what about a wider release for a game that looks like it deserves to be played by as many people as possible? What about getting new Neo carts manufactured? I've no idea how much this would cost over in the USA, but bootleg Neo carts seem to be very common in HongKong. See if you can hunt down one of these bootleg manufacturers and get them to make you a quantity of AES and MVS carts with eeprom sockets. It's not real SNK parts, but realistically a very cheap way of making these massive games. Getting new carts made in the USA is gonna be a lot more costly, but still, if you get an initial run of 1000 manufactured, the costs will be more acceptable. People seem to be happy with paying maybe $200 - 250 for the game. If you look at making a $50 profit per cart, that leaves $150 - 200 to pay for the manufacturing of the cart, the shock box and lables/manual. Considering on a scale of 1000, cases and labels/manual are only gonna cost $15 - 20 per unit, leaving a whopping $130 - 180 to pay for each newly manufactured cart.

Secondly, consider a CD release. Although you still have to pay for the printing of disk, covers and a manual, you could easily get 1000/2000 copies made for a very reasonable price. Also, as people have suggested, consider allowing the ROM to be downloaded for a fee, and packaging the game with an Emulator for a PC release (good idea whoever that was).

Thirdly, what about a Dreamcast conversion. Trust me, the DC scene would jump on this.

This way, if you sell you initial batch of 1000 Neo CD games, with $25 pure profit, that's $2500. I'm sure you'd also be able to sell 1000 MVS and 1000 AES carts. Obviously the manufacturing cost of carts is going to affect the end price, but still, even if you only make $50 pure profit from each cart, that's another $10,000. That's without even considering a DC conversion, or a second print run of any of the Neo versions.

This way you gain respect from the scene, have 3000 happy Neo owners and make enough cash to do another game. Otherwise you'll have a couple of people that buy the game and everyone else will be pissed at you, not want to pay $700 and blatantly download the ineviatable ROM dump.

Most new businesses fail in the first year. Most of the time this is due to lack of research and refusal to change. Don't let that happen to you. The people have spoken. Ignore them at your own peril.

P.S. - Hello everyone.

I normally lurk, but I though it was about time I registered to share my views on this.

Si

I personally wouldent agree with some of that unless they have a good protection, if not you know within days they are going to be boots of it coming out of HK.

I personally feel they are going about it in the right way (unless they have got a killer protection). IE, Make some 50 carts. Take 50 orders and ship them all at the same time. Also make a record of the 50 buyers so there can be no confusion about who got an original. You could even have a high score table in the table giving the names of the 50 buyers.

Raz

KaNyErO · Dec 8, 2005

A demo Rom would be interesting to check the cuality of the game and if it reallys worth what it cost.

Recap · Dec 8, 2005

Razoola said:
IE, Make some 50 carts. Take 50 orders and ship them all at the same time. Also make a record of the 50 buyers so there can be no confusion about who got an original. You could even have a high score table in the table giving the names of the 50 buyers.

They could do that whatever the media they chose, though. The romz will be on the 'net sooner or later.

By the way, the game's title is poor. My thoughts, at least.

16-bit · Dec 8, 2005

ROM Love is pretty transparent on this site, so I can see their concern and how that has factored into the pricing.

Finally, this is the first real Neo Geo homebrew we've been waiting for (sorry, frogfeast doesn't count) and the Neo Geo community needs a publisher like Atari 2600 has Atariage.

I would encourange Shawn to purchase the rights to the game, publish it, and sell it thru the Neostore. That way they dev team can focus their time on making the next great Neo Geo homebrew.

Carlson

Recap · Dec 8, 2005

16-bit said:
publish it,

You need the rights from SNK Playmore to do that, too. And that's something you won't get.

Gowcaizer · Dec 8, 2005

IMO 700 is too much money for an independent production, haven't you think about a NoeGeocd game, it would be cheaper and you will have numerous orders

pixeljunkie · Dec 8, 2005

Gowcaizer said:
IMO 700 is too much money for an independent production, haven't you think about a NoeGeocd game, it would be cheaper and you will have numerous orders

Independent productions ALWAYS cost more....not less. You pay to support the scene and have a cool collectable at the same time.

Look at Battlesphere* and the other Jag games Carl Forhan published. I think the Smash TV DEMO is over $80....and thats for an incomplete game. Just because its independent that does not by default make it a budget title, quite the opposite actually. I wouldn't buy it...but 50 people would. [I would if there were an MVS release though]

*edit: I know Forhan didn't produce Battlesphere...that sentence was goofy.

Murray · Dec 8, 2005

NG:DEV.TEAM said:
But currently we are AES only.

I don't buy $700 games for play at home, independant or official. End of story.

That said, you're making a huge mistake making this an AES only release. If anything, a game this expensive should be an MVS only release. $700 for a game that will potentially make money for the owner is completely reasonable. $700 for a game that will get maybe a few hours of play time in someone's house is not.

I also agree with whoever said you should do your own production run instead of sacrificing carts. Karma will come back to haunt you for sacrificing 30-40 AES carts. Most likely in the form of you losing your ass financially.

DevilRedeemed · Dec 8, 2005

NG:DEV.TEAM said:
A review of the game by a respected member of the community is a good idea.
Who would you choose for that? Shawn?

you have 2 viable options here - you either go with a shoot 'em up expert from this site - nominated by the forum or at least the regulars that frequent the shoot 'em ups section of the site - or one of the reviewers at: http://www.classicgaming.com/shmups/
the reason is you will want someone who knows shooters to take this for a test drive. if this is an R-Type style game then have someone who predominantly likes that style of game to review your game. it would be the best way to go by far and give more creditability to your game.

Neo Gold · Dec 8, 2005

Who's to say these guys won't take your money & do one!? :eek_2:

Magnaflux · Dec 8, 2005

I'll wait for the freaked version.

16-bit · Dec 8, 2005

Recap said:
You need the rights from SNK Playmore to do that, too. And that's something you won't get.

How do people get away with publishing homebrew Dreamcast and Atari (2600, Jaguar, Lynx) games?

Gowcaizer · Dec 8, 2005

I'm not saying that the effort (something that for itself have GREAT value) for doing an AES independent production don't worth the 700, personally i would pay it for a good game, but i don't belive that too much people going to buy the game because, they don't have reference of another game of the developers, i say, first, produce some games on a cheaper support like neoCD, Dreamcast, or a PS 1 or 2, gain some respect, and then relase an AES with all that behind, that is my opinion.

pixeljunkie said:
Independent productions ALWAYS cost more....not less. You pay to support the scene and have a cool collectable at the same time.

Look at Battlesphere* and the other Jag games Carl Forhan published. I think the Smash TV DEMO is over $80....and thats for an incomplete game. Just because its independent that does not by default make it a budget title, quite the opposite actually. I wouldn't buy it...but 50 people would. [I would if there were an MVS release though]

*edit: I know Forhan didn't produce Battlesphere...that sentence was goofy.

Recap · Dec 8, 2005

16-bit said:
How do people get away with publishing homebrew Dreamcast and Atari (2600, Jaguar, Lynx) games?

Well, I like to differentiate between "publishing" and "releasing for the public" or "distributing". The former implies officiality, you know.

DevilRedeemed · Dec 8, 2005

the major problem here is 700 dollars is not viable. it simply isn't. if it's 50 pieces at 700 - selling them is going to take alot.
if it's 150 pieces at 350 dollars that's going to be alot easier.
and it's crazy that MVS isn't the priority here. a high price tag is more in line with the MVS market than it is with the AES market with today's climate. one is in decline the other is healthy enough to invest in.

Recap · Dec 8, 2005

DevilRedeemed said:
and it's crazy that MVS isn't the priority here. a high price tag is more in line with the MVS market than it is with the AES market with today's climate. one is in decline the other is healthy enough to invest in.

MVS is a system to make profit of. If this game is released for the arcade market, I'm pretty sure SNK-P will sue them. Not that selling an AES game without SNK-P's rights is legit, but still.

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