In the News
Instead, never content to keep things boring, reality threw a curve ball this weekend. First, NEO Scavenger was scooped again!
School of Hard Knocks - 'NEO Scavenger' Takes Survival Seriously
Dominic Tarason wrote a flattering piece on NEO Scavenger's upcoming combat and wound features. It's been about four months since NEO Scavenger made waves in the news, and I was getting ready to promote the upcoming build to some news outlets. Quite a lot has changed in the game since the last round of news, so I'm hoping folks who were on the fence might be ready to become supporters.
As with the last round, the news found me first. I guess I have a new-found reason to get that wound feature finished asap!
Desura
What's more, I received an email from a game manager at Desura, indicating they'd be interested in carrying NEO Scavenger. Cool!
Desura was a service I planned on approaching, but I figured I'd have to wait until closer to launch. Their howto page indicates that the game must be within a month of launch, which is probably not true for NEO Scavenger. I've been pushing NEO Scavenger's release date out as funding permits, adding new features and releasing new builds for supporters as I go.
Desura's alpha funding initiative, however, may make it possible to publish through them sooner than expected. This, of course, opens up a whole new series of questions, such as:
- Downloadable Version - Desura supports titles for PC, Mac, and Linux. Since NEO Scavenger is a Flash game, what's the best way to prepare clients for each platform?
- DRM - So far, NEO Scavenger has a type of DRM in that one must be logged into bluebottlegames.com with a valid account to play the beta. However, I'm a fan of GOG's no-DRM policy, and eventually plan to migrate to a downloadable client without DRM. Is now the time?
- Revenue Changes - Will anything change if revenue suddenly increases? There's no guarantee that a new sales channel will yield significant new revenue. But what if it does? Will NEO Scavenger scope increase? Should I keep scope small, and use the additional revenue towards future titles? It'd be worthwhile to answer this question now, while I'm sober.
- Cross-Channel Access - What about players who already purchased beta access. Is there a way for me to tie their purchase at bluebottlegames.com to Desura, so they can access both equally?
Exciting times, to be sure. There's never a shortage of unknowns in this business!
