Funding Question

General Chat Developer Questions
1

Ok, first off I know you dev’s are Indie’s but I have a few questions. As Killrob has stated a few times you guys are a small team and can only work on what you can while still well having a life (so to speak). I was just curious, with the copies you have sold of the pre order of Automation and forth be enough to fund some extra devs or was this to set yourselves up as in your funds to support yourselfs (like food, mortgage) that kinda stuff?

Basically what Im curious about is, a common thing you guys say is “funding this” and funding that, if we had $$$$$ we could add “X” feature but at this time we can’t. So, I was wondering… why don’t you pitch your game to a larger gaming developer, I assuming you would remain as producers/devs but work in co with a larger dev with more people. Or would that cut down your profits. I guess you would look out for yourselves over your fans first?

No no really I do ask genuinely, why have you guys not pitched you progress/game to a larger game dev to get assistance to make Automation BIG and BETTER in everyway?

2

I’m no game dev, and this doesn’t answer the funding part, but when it comes to projects of any kind, the larger the organisation that works on it, the more difficult it gets to manage. It’s like the more parts a machine has, the more that can go wrong with it, which is why those bloody printers that like to feed paper every which way through it jam so much! In this case, the more people you have working on this project, the more coordination needs to happen, and the more potentially diverging visions need to be drawn into line.

This appears to be the perfect indie project: it’s a unique concept that hasn’t really been explored in any depth before, but has significant niche demand. I feel the former is the part that would cause problems pitching to larger devs that are better at tweaking and improving on established formulas, and at this stage, getting this ‘proof of concept’ done tight and right seems to be more important than making it big.

3

[quote=“Camshaft91”] I guess you would look out for yourselves over your fans first?

No no really I do ask genuinely, why have you guys not pitched you progress/game to a larger game dev to get assistance to make Automation BIG and BETTER in everyway?[/quote]

Oh now that’s just mean spirited.

The industry just doesn’t work like that firstly, we would be very unlikely to find someone who wanted to take us on in that way, and if we did they’d most likely want us to make changes in service of giving it a broader appeal and being less complex.

Currently we make enough sales to pay our own expenses, pay for some contract artwork (car bodies), sound (UI and engine sounds by professional sound companies) and music (by a pro composer) and soon we will finally start paying Killrob what he deserves.

Once we are on steam, and do a bit of a marketing campaign, we hope the extra sales will mean we can afford a lot more work from artists, and another (hopefully full time) programmer, this will help us make much faster progress and get some features done that we might not otherwise be able to do.

If you think we are developing the way we are for self serving reasons you’re entirely wrong. Every decision we make is aimed at make the best game we can for our fans. If we were just in it for money I’d quit tomorrow and go get a job on 2x the salary. The reason I don’t do this is I believe in the project we’re working on, enough to have dedicated over 4 years of my life to it now.

I’m sorry that you’re clearly frustrated (from your long history of posts complaining about our slow development). I too would love Automation to be finished quicker, and I very much look forward to hiring more staff as soon as I can.

Our development is slow, but we have been honest about that all along. I’m sorry if you don’t feel like you’ve got your $25 worth of value yet but It’d be really appreciated if you didn’t constantly make these kinds of posts.

4

The first question about the funding can be answered pretty easily. We’ve sold some 12k copies at an average price of $30 so far, which is some $360000 revenue (before tax) that in its entirety (apart from a little bit of margin) has gone to fund game development (wages) and pay all bills associated with it (lawyers, accounting, software, outsourcing). Considering proper development of Automation started about 3 years ago, that is not much money: for most of the time it has been a below minimum-wage occupation. Also, money has been so tight that the third dev (i.e. me) still isn’t paid a wage for the work on the game. Funding got more solid as development progressed and the rate of sales steadily increased over time.

What strop says about your question of asking a bigger developer is all pretty spot on. First of all no one big would want to touch this beast of a game, too much risk, too complex, not proven to have an audience. If you got any deal out of it at all, it would be a really bad one for us. Also, as pointed out, it would risk our vision of the game, dilute the premise of the game, etc. More is not always better.

That leads to the question about $$$ give X. With more money we definitely would be able to get more content out quicker and have the game made with a higher level of polish. Adding features is not always beneficial to the game though, which is something that very few people grasp (including AAA studios/publishers). Example: adding diesel engines to the game would be a good thing, as it makes for more interesting choice in the existing flow of things. Making you able to drive your own cars on the other hand would be a net negative for the game (Automation as we envision it). This has been explained several times already, so not doing it here again.

Overall, Automation would benefit from more money, it would go into improving already planned or existing features. If we are successful on Steam we will be able to get this done to a higher standard, but we won’t change what the game is about and tries to accomplish. :slight_smile:

ninjad by Andy!

Cheers!

5

Yup, one of the first things a AAA firm would do is get their own people pulling the creative strings… "oh, we see a number of people have posted saying they want to be able to drive the cars. We’ll sell more copies if the cars can be driven. Make ‘em driveable. And the options and interface need to be simplified enough to port to consoles. And to people’s smart phones! We’ll sell a TON of copies that way.’ And a train wreck is born. I am so glad Killrob & the team are sticking to their guns on this subject.

6

Bingo! And I think we’ll get a better quality product the way we’re doing it. It just make take a long while, such is life.

7

Now, as Daffy and Killrob already explained in great detail (which developer would be so open and honest,eh?), I still would like to add my two cents to this.

While Automation is in the end a game, it is on the other hand not really comparable to ANYTHING on the market now or in the past decade. In other words, these guys are taking big risks in order to bring their visions to life, as they’re going against the trend of making games “accessible” and “casual” for a broad audience. Automation however speaks to ANYONE that has just a tiny cookie of passion for cars, no matter the age or previous gaming experiences, including you.

The perspective is crucial here. Four years of work went into this, but as far as I remember, at least the first two and a half years were done in part-time, simply because there was no real income for the developers with Automation.
Considering they’ve been “just” working full-time on Automation ever since a year and a half, the progress is immense.

I say this as a very critical person myself, I too do care where money I spend goes to and never once have I had a thought of the sorts: “Oh damn, I’ve spent these 25 $ on Automation, could have used them for something better”.

For me, that money went into making a dream come true. And I feel this dream is shared by the people working on this, playing this and contributing every day here. By now, there are already so many possibilities in the game, that I have not managed to try everything. And sometimes I catch myself thinking: Oh yeah, the tycoon part is not even out yet… welp, let’s build a weird-looking mid-engine sports car motivated whistleing.

And it also has to be said, that marketing for the game has not been a major focus so far, the only way to even purchase the game is through its own website (!). Imagine what could happen when Automation comes to Steam… :astonished:

Some people of our little community have decided to spread the word themselves coughs Automationhub coughs (including myself), because we want to game to be succesful, we want more people to know that awesome is in the making here and yes, we also want Diesel engines and trucks and busses, perhaps a Jeep and most definitely an SUV in the game.
And then perhaps there is a small part of me who wants to see Zeussy in an Alfa 150 sports wagon someday, Daffy in a Ferrari F430 Scuderia and Killrob… well…riding the Atom (?) (I guess he really means a new Twingo).

Long story short: Don’t look just for what should come into the game and when, look at what is already there and be a part of the community, you will find lots of fun and be able to share your ideas about how cars should be.

Cheers!

8

We have a really exciting marketing plan to go with Steam too, I think these things will combine to make us a bunch more money and allow us to hire some staff :slight_smile:

Thanks for the awesome post too. I’m glad you feel that way about us!

9

How about free to play automation? But if you want to have steering wheel in your car wait six hours or pay 0,79$. :laughing:

10

Alright, I’ll ask THIS question of the Devs, which is basically the exact opposite of OP…

I’m very thrilled so far with what I’ve gotten for my $25. I’m regretting not springing for the $35 version. Is there a way I can pay the difference to upgrade?

11

[quote=“VicVictory”]Alright, I’ll ask THIS question of the Devs, which is basically the exact opposite of OP…

I’m very thrilled so far with what I’ve gotten for my $25. I’m regretting not springing for the $35 version. Is there a way I can pay the difference to upgrade?[/quote]

Good question, we get asked that a lot.

We’ll probably give some kind of option for that once we’re on Steam hopefully. We’ll see what we can work out.

12

This game is special and unique, and is being handled exactly how it should be. A lesson in life - good things are worth the wait. Surely you must have more to life and other games to play than impatiently waiting around for this game. When it finally comes it will be everything a fan of the automotive industry can hope for.

13

Why don’t you get programmers from countries with cheaper labour?
LUA was made in Brazil. No offence to Brazilians but with what you pay for a german programmer you can get 2 or 3 brazilian ones and for them the paycheck will look alot bigger.
1500€ is a joke paycheck to a german. But in other countries people would immediately trade their dayjobs as programmers for that.

14

While funding is AN issue as an effect of being an indie developer, it’s not the primary issue. The notion of outsourcing labour is fundamentally covered in the first few posts as it would carry the same problems.

It’s not like they’re asking somebody to ‘here, write this code to do this’. The mechanic, the structure, the funadments of the game were slowly established and are being constantly reexamined every step of the way. There’s no ‘grunt work’ to really be done here.

Also, when it comes to independent companies spanning several countries, I have no idea what the ethics of pay equity are.

15

Well we do have a Polish 3d artist!

The main problem is that outsourcing programming work overseas is pretty difficult in terms of communication and finding someone who understands your project and can work well with you. We’d probably go with a programmer we know and trust in Australia or NZ most likely.

Strop makes a very good point too, it’s not all just grunt work, there is a lot of slowly refining the concept going on, which sadly does take quite a long time.

I’m pretty confident we’ll be able to spend some money and increase the pace and quality of development after Steam release though :slight_smile:

16

Awww, just stomp all over my dreams would ya. Though as an AI specialist (like machine learning, not game AI), I am not sure if I would of actually of been of much help. Though I have written compilers, assemblers, emulators and simulators… which also probably isn’t much help, heh.

17

:wink: You can join the beta team and do some in-depth testing of the AI when it’s being implemented, that would be helpful!

18

Sure, but I don’t think you are in dire need of testing help at this moment. Since there isn’t any AI yet. :3

Normally game AI is just carefully turned heuristics, rather then the machine learning I tend to do. Since it would be rather unfair to play against such an AI that has been tuned for the game.

19

What most people need to realise is that developing software is like making a baby. It takes a woman (lets call a software team this woman) 9 months to make a baby. Adding more women (or adding enlarging the software team) does not make the baby come faster :stuck_out_tongue:

In real life, once a project has started, adding more people to it can actually slow it down, or only make it take the same amount of time, but cost more because now you need to pay additional salary. Building software is completely different to building a house, where adding more builders -can- speed up construction.

20

[quote=“Daffyflyer”]Well we do have a Polish 3d artist!

The main problem is that outsourcing programming work overseas is pretty difficult in terms of communication and finding someone who understands your project and can work well with you. We’d probably go with a programmer we know and trust in Australia or NZ most likely.

Strop makes a very good point too, it’s not all just grunt work, there is a lot of slowly refining the concept going on, which sadly does take quite a long time.

I’m pretty confident we’ll be able to spend some money and increase the pace and quality of development after Steam release though :slight_smile:[/quote]

I wasn’t saying to post job offers or anything like that. I was thinking more in the way that people that join the community and happen to know programming could be hired.
We have a small community but after the release on Steam(and some sales) it will grow and it’s inevitable that people will start wanting to help the developing of the game.
Like it already happens with the 3D modelling. Because this is PC gaming and there will be mods, real Mods.
So my post was about absorbing community members to the staff and with that increase offer choose people from said countries. I specified Brazil only because LUA comes from there. Their programmers aren’t that badly paid as far as I know.

[quote=“strop”]
Also, when it comes to independent companies spanning several countries, I have no idea what the ethics of pay equity are.[/quote]

There are some huge BS about some companies paying someone the wage on A country while they work on a B country with higher wages but workers being payed A wages.
That is grey area.
Outsourcing from a country to other and paying the contracted their country wage is fine. How they get paid differs from country to country. In mine you can receive per service made. With the worker being his own company. That’s all legal.
(or you can use money transfers and no1 pays taxes. Which is not)