#5231 - yann_p - Wed Apr 23, 2003 4:33 pm
There are many posts regarding releasing homebrew games into the commercial world. There are lots of copyright issues mentioned. I think that opening the GBA market to small companies and individual developers would increase the amount of original games on the market... no I don't mean flooding the market with cheap cr*p either.
Is there a way in which a homebrew developer can create a game with license-free development tools, and market a game without being jumped on by Nintendo?
If displaying the logo on startup causes problems is there a software hack that can be done to get around this problem? Is the logo data on the ROM checked exactly - or just certain bytes of the image? Is there a method of suppressing the logo check?
As I mentioned there are several posts regarding this set of questions but they never seem to result in a satisfactory YES or NO.
Can anyone out there help?
Yann
#5232 - Quirky - Wed Apr 23, 2003 5:05 pm
I think the best you could hope for is a paypal donation button on your website! No way a homebrewer could realistically make GBA carts and all that.
If you want to make cash from portable games, then your best bet I think is PDAs. The "target market" for homebrew games is folk with flash cards, which I doubt is much larger than the number of people with handheld PCs. No licencing restrictions and a friendlier independent business model (shareware is viable, though probably not going to make you a millionaire!)
#5238 - tepples - Wed Apr 23, 2003 6:31 pm
Freelancer Games makes carts.
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#5249 - Touchstone - Wed Apr 23, 2003 7:47 pm
I suppose it's really a matter of how you define "commercial world". I don't think Freelancer carts counts as a viable market for commercial games. I suppose you can sell the ROM image without the Nintendo logo and state that the game is only intendend for use with emulators but I don't think that will work either.
What you can do is to take your game and sell it to a publisher. If you have a complete game it's easier to sell because the biggest expense, the actual development cost, has already been payed for. But ofcourse, with an inexperienced team without any help at all you have to be really really smart to do a game that will be embraced by a publisher.
In short I'm guessing NO, you cannot get a homebrewed game into the commercial world without you or your publisher being a licensed agb developer.
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#5263 - tepples - Thu Apr 24, 2003 1:37 am
| Touchstone wrote: |
| I suppose you can sell the ROM image without the Nintendo logo |
In light of Sega v. Accolade, why should including the logo make a bit of legal difference?
| Quote: |
| What you can do is to take your game and sell it to a publisher. |
What's the best way to find a publisher willing to take a finished or nearly-finished game?
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#5270 - sgeos - Thu Apr 24, 2003 8:12 am
| tepples wrote: |
What's the best way to find a publisher willing to take a finished or nearly-finished game? |
I hope this isn't overstating the obvious, but I imagine that making sure that they have a reason to publish it would be a good place to start.
-Brendan
#5271 - joet - Thu Apr 24, 2003 10:01 am
Has any one tried the services FreeLancer games provide?
I'm just wondering who'll be the first to give it a go ... as it sounds almost too good to be true ...
#5273 - rusty - Thu Apr 24, 2003 11:13 am
Perhaps you should take a look into how Codemasters got around this sort of thing with Sega when making games for the Genesis/Megadrive.
#5359 - Foz - Sat Apr 26, 2003 12:29 am
I wanna say no. And I think it goes beyond the logo and the tools. It's their hardware that you'll be making money from. Sure it would be nothing without the software you created but homebrew software is nothing without a GBA.
I'm not quite sure if this applies. It may even be absurd. I used to work on independent films and we had similar issues with unions. A film had to be union. But the unions just don't want to get cheated. When we talked to them we found an appreciation of what we were doing, and a level of gratitude that we came to them as opposed to doing it behind their backs.
The result (after revealing our budget) was drastically lower rates.
Has anyone ever approached Nintendo with an independent game? Offered a back-end cut for licensing? That would be really interesting.
#5364 - tepples - Sat Apr 26, 2003 3:10 am
| Foz wrote: |
| It's their hardware that you'll be making money from. |
It's Intel's hardware that Windows application developers are making money from, but I don't see Intel going around and suing Windows application developers for merely publishing a title designed for Intel's platform.
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#5379 - Daikath - Sat Apr 26, 2003 11:53 am
The PC is a succesful platform, Intel makes money off of their chips and does not need to invest into the PC platform as a whole to make money.
Nintendo has invested a lot into the GBA (commercials and other promotion) and they need the money off of the software to turn a profit. If they didn't invest that money we would't have a platform to homebrew for in the first place.
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#5385 - Daniel Andersen - Sat Apr 26, 2003 3:10 pm
Also, Nintendo has the philosophy that few good games are better than many mabey-not-quite-as-good games; the don't want to flood the marked as Atari did back then, as this was surely one of the reasons that Atari didn't make it in the long run.
That is the reason why Nintendo wanted all their distributers to agree with a special license which stated that each distributer could only release 5 games per year and that these 5 games could only be released on the NES (and later SNES) platform.
In my oppinion it is also the right thing to do, although I personally would like us non-professional game developers also be able to have games released as was the case with the C-64 and the Amiga etc.
#5388 - lordmetroid - Sat Apr 26, 2003 3:39 pm
How likely is it if one makes a good game, and then offer it to a publisher, that they would publish it?
Anyone know anything of this?
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#5398 - sgeos - Sat Apr 26, 2003 9:00 pm
| lordmetroid wrote: |
How likely is it if one makes a good game, and then offer it to a publisher, that they would publish it?
Anyone know anything of this? |
Publishers want to make money. If they think that they can make (enough) money from your product, they'll publish it. Note the *if they think that they can* part. Even if publishing your game would create enough revenue for the entire firm to retire rich, if they *don't think* it will sell, then they won't publish it.
-Brendan
#5623 - mantrid - Sat May 03, 2003 11:34 pm
There is nothing stoping anyone writing a PC game and publishing it though, shareware Doom anyone? As things go the PC market hadn't been flooded with not so good games has it, not really. I find these licensing things a big pain in the neck.
#5626 - Daedro - Sun May 04, 2003 6:56 am
| mantrid wrote: |
| There is nothing stoping anyone writing a PC game and publishing it though, shareware Doom anyone? As things go the PC market hadn't been flooded with not so good games has it, not really. I find these licensing things a big pain in the neck. |
There isnt stopping anyone from making PC games, becuase they do. I didnt see too many not too good games out there before. In the process of trying to get game makers I found games, very sucky games. There are still not many crappy games out there becuase if someone does make a crappy game you never see it. Also you dont see many sucky games becuase companies make good ones, but people at home dont really. And not too many people make freeware games becuase they want money. And not to many people make games for PC becuase you need the money for advertising and actually bulk producing the game. Which means they have to go to a publisher, like with gameboy and see if they want it like gameboy. The only difference between PC and GBA is the publisher is below another producer but that doesnt matter becuase your the gamemaker, it isnt like it would matter if you did have a license becuase you would have no money to publish multiple copies.
So wether you have to go threw a publisher with GBA or homebrew a PC game ( makes no sense at all, unless your a millionaire ) it makes no difference. Either way it is a pain in the neck, I am personally going for the GBA publisher... then I will move to a GBA sequal, while on the side starting a PC multiplayer RPG. Wish me luck, I dont need critism is isnt like I am a 26 year old man with no life spending the last of it with no hope. I am 16 year teen with no life and inthusiasm... I will make a game that is published.
I would love to make a palmpc game, never thought of doing that before, would have been funner.. oh well.
I checked, there are about 70 companies with licenses.. at least you dont have just one shot at it, one company will be desperate. To get a license you need to have like alot of staff and experience they need to see as well as of course all the hardware for making it which will cost at the least 8 thousand for development hardware and then thousands for the product producers.
#5646 - mantrid - Sun May 04, 2003 7:54 pm
| Quote: |
is isnt like I am a 26 year old man with no life spending the last of it with no hope*.
|
Careful, I am not much older than that you know. You don't die at 27 either! ;-)
I've also not really thought about pocket PC games. I've got one somewhere, was a gift. I still don't see loads of people using them either, but maybe they do. They easier to develop for anyway.
I think the release of the Gameboy SP is a bit dubious: in that the gameboy, I would have thought, will not be around for verly long. You know what I mean, it's nothing new. We'll see though maybe I am just pessemistic* :-)
#8282 - chronomatic - Sun Jul 06, 2003 9:32 pm
| Daedro wrote: |
| mantrid wrote: | | There is nothing stoping anyone writing a PC game and publishing it though, shareware Doom anyone? As things go the PC market hadn't been flooded with not so good games has it, not really. I find these licensing things a big pain in the neck. |
There isnt stopping anyone from making PC games, becuase they do. I didnt see too many not too good games out there before. In the process of trying to get game makers I found games, very sucky games. There are still not many crappy games out there becuase if someone does make a crappy game you never see it. Also you dont see many sucky games becuase companies make good ones, but people at home dont really. And not too many people make freeware games becuase they want money. And not to many people make games for PC becuase you need the money for advertising and actually bulk producing the game. Which means they have to go to a publisher, like with gameboy and see if they want it like gameboy. The only difference between PC and GBA is the publisher is below another producer but that doesnt matter becuase your the gamemaker, it isnt like it would matter if you did have a license becuase you would have no money to publish multiple copies.
So wether you have to go threw a publisher with GBA or homebrew a PC game ( makes no sense at all, unless your a millionaire ) it makes no difference. Either way it is a pain in the neck, I am personally going for the GBA publisher... then I will move to a GBA sequal, while on the side starting a PC multiplayer RPG. Wish me luck, I dont need critism is isnt like I am a 26 year old man with no life spending the last of it with no hope. I am 16 year teen with no life and inthusiasm... I will make a game that is published.
I would love to make a palmpc game, never thought of doing that before, would have been funner.. oh well.
I checked, there are about 70 companies with licenses.. at least you dont have just one shot at it, one company will be desperate. To get a license you need to have like alot of staff and experience they need to see as well as of course all the hardware for making it which will cost at the least 8 thousand for development hardware and then thousands for the product producers. |
lol
#8291 - Paul Shirley - Mon Jul 07, 2003 11:35 am
removed