OK, first of all, wow, I never expected my response to be caught by the CEO. Never expected that when I started my hunt for info on these games, thanks for coming down man.
Second of all, is it first come first served? Or do you think maybe I could get some special access since I did so much detective work?
So far it looks like VR has some staying power in the industry. Ever since the Oculus Rift first came out in 2016 the VR market seems to be doing well. With that in mind, any regrets about cancelling Armour? I gotta admit, having checked out the trailer it looks surprisingly complete, ready for launch even.
Did you ever think about just reworking it into a more typical PC game?
VR might have "staying power" among a niche market, but adoption and true usage is tiny. You can't build a big business on VR. VR is cool as a demo but for actual daily usage, VR sucks - it's fatiguing and cumbersome. We are many years away until a true immersive experience disrupts current methods of consuming entertainment.
F. Game actually looks kinda neat and practically complete, Im kinda shocked it was shelved. I know you said the game was shelved because you didn't believe in VR, but were any other reasons a factor or was it solely just that?
The game was playable, internally - we had some fun matches on the team. We were probably a year to two years away from a complete product. The content pipeline was huge and had to build a lot of systems to allow it to scale.
Facebook/Oculus had hinted that we could be featured on their launch slate for their Oculus platform - we were going to rely on that for marketing. It didn't look like it was going to materialize anytime soon. Marketing a PC game successfully can require much more upfront cash or having to sell your soul to a publisher - the numbers just didn't make sense and without VR, it was just a futuristic, more customizable World of Tanks. I took the team and put them on Kingdom Maker - which is a much more original experience and could have many millions of people playing it per day. Nobody was creating this game. Most people on mobile spend a year max of dev on yet another clone. The market needs something other than Game of War or Candy Crush. The mobile phone is the ultimate MMO gaming device (for certain gaming genres) - it has incredible horsepower now and billions of people have one... but nobody is doing anything significant to truly take advantage of it.
It's also important to take into consideration that I do play other games like the Halo games, Minecraft and some of the older Lego games Additionally, another fact to take into consideration is that my total spending on kixeye games (BYM, BP, WC, VC, TOME, BYM:U, WC:RA, KM) is at this time is exactly $0.
Well I'm sure you've at least caused others to spend money.
However, that does sound suspicious - BRB, going to check your accounts for cheats.
OK, first of all, wow, I never expected my response to be caught by the CEO. Never expected that when I started my hunt for info on these games, thanks for coming down man.
Second of all, is it first come first served? Or do you think maybe I could get some special access since I did so much detective work?
Any titles currently in existence you can maybe name so we have a bit more reference as to what Shadow Forge would have been like?
Cross between Candy Crush and Puzzles & Dragons. It was lame and dev was too slow.
I remember playing CC and not liking it very much, so I if Shadow Forge was anything like that then yeah, does sound kinda lame. Never played Puzzles and Dragons though, wonder what thats like.
So far it looks like VR has some staying power in the industry. Ever since the Oculus Rift first came out in 2016 the VR market seems to be doing well. With that in mind, any regrets about cancelling Armour? I gotta admit, having checked out the trailer it looks surprisingly complete, ready for launch even.
Did you ever think about just reworking it into a more typical PC game?
VR might have "staying power" among a niche market, but adoption and true usage is tiny. You can't build a big business on VR. VR is cool as a demo but for actual daily usage, VR sucks - it's fatiguing and cumbersome. We are many years away until a true immersive experience disrupts current methods of consuming entertainment.
Good point, I suppose. Still what about regrets? Setting aside VR and the market concerning that, are there any regrets about cancelling armour purely from a standpoint of just, I suppose for lack of a better way to put it, just putting all that dev work away on the shelf (I'd say in the bin, but I doubt its all just been erased completely.)
I know you talked later in your comment about marketing, the potential of phones as a gaming platform and so on, but maybe on a personal level and not a business one, is there a regret or feeling of sadness for either you or the team that the game doesn't get to see the light of day?
And, just cause Im curious, on a business level, is there still no regret there? Or are you wholely convinced from a business standpoint that this move was the right one?
F. Game actually looks kinda neat and practically complete, Im kinda shocked it was shelved. I know you said the game was shelved because you didn't believe in VR, but were any other reasons a factor or was it solely just that?
The game was playable, internally - we had some fun matches on the team. We were probably a year to two years away from a complete product. The content pipeline was huge and had to build a lot of systems to allow it to scale.
Must say, Im surprised to read that considering how well polished the game looked in the trailers you showed off. If you said to me "this game is ready and will be launching next month," I gotta say I'd probably believe that because it looks done.
Facebook/Oculus had hinted that we could be featured on their launch slate for their Oculus platform - we were going to rely on that for marketing. It didn't look like it was going to materialize anytime soon. Marketing a PC game successfully can require much more upfront cash or having to sell your soul to a publisher - the numbers just didn't make sense and without VR, it was just a futuristic, more customizable World of Tanks. I took the team and put them on Kingdom Maker - which is a much more original experience and could have many millions of people playing it per day. Nobody was creating this game. Most people on mobile spend a year max of dev on yet another clone. The market needs something other than Game of War or Candy Crush. The mobile phone is the ultimate MMO gaming device (for certain gaming genres) - it has incredible horsepower now and billions of people have one... but nobody is doing anything significant to truly take advantage of it.
Interesting, thanks for sharing all this info, made for some good reasoning. Im guessing part of KIXEYE's angle here yet again is probably trying to just do what nobody's done before again right? Kinda, to an extent, trying to emulate some of the older successes which originally made the company so notable by putting a specific kind of game on a platform nobody else has before right? A bit like what was done with good ol' Backyard Monsters back in the day for example with it being a more chaotic game focused on destruction and player vs. player combat and what have you. (RIP Backyard Monsters, you are dearly missed.)
Good point, I suppose. Still what about regrets? Setting aside VR and the market concerning that, are there any regrets about cancelling armour purely from a standpoint of just, I suppose for lack of a better way to put it, just putting all that dev work away on the shelf (I'd say in the bin, but I doubt its all just been erased completely.)
No regrets, commercially - I was right that VR would be a colossal commercial failure and not come close to what the pundits were saying. Yes, I regret that I wouldn't be able to launch a great AAA PC game like Armor. It was a hot looking game and was a lot of fun - however, I didn't feel it was different enough from World of Tanks or the other WoT copies. I didn't want to be put in the copycat category.
And, just cause Im curious, on a business level, is there still no regret there? Or are you wholely convinced from a business standpoint that this move was the right one?
100% no business regret. We would have lost $20-30M in development costs.
Must say, Im surprised to read that considering how well polished the game looked in the trailers you showed off. If you said to me "this game is ready and will be launching next month," I gotta say I'd probably believe that because it looks done.
Again, tons of content and additional systems had to be created. The core second to second gameplay was done, but we were a year or two away from having everything else done. Game development is HARD.
Interesting, thanks for sharing all this info, made for some good reasoning. Im guessing part of KIXEYE's angle here yet again is probably trying to just do what nobody's done before again right? Kinda, to an extent, trying to emulate some of the older successes which originally made the company so notable by putting a specific kind of game on a platform nobody else has before right? A bit like what was done with good ol' Backyard Monsters back in the day for example with it being a more chaotic game focused on destruction and player vs. player combat and what have you. (RIP Backyard Monsters, you are dearly missed.)
After seeing the game recently, one of my game industry CEO friends said "This is the game we've all wanted to make but none of us knew how to make. Congrats, ****." Kingdom Maker is built off of the fundamental core success of Backyard Monsters but adds systems found in other games like World of Warcraft, The Sims, and Evony. There aren't any crazy, new systems in the game but nobody has ever attempted to intertwine a diverse set of overlapping systems in a single game, much less a synchronous MMO - this allows for a variety of different but collaborative playstyles to achieve power and expression. There are dozens of ways to collaborate ... or stab someone in the back. Anything goes in this game - I want this to be a representation of what players will do in a fantasy world where nobody is stopping you from doing what you want to do. Grand Theft Auto tapped into something significant, but it's not a MMO. War. Sex. Politics. On a massive scale. This has been a challenge to make. We still have a lot to do to make this game understandable and reasonably accessible.
After seeing the game recently, one of my game industry CEO friends said "This is the game we've all wanted to make but none of us knew how to make. Congrats, ****." Kingdom Maker is built off of the fundamental core success of Backyard Monsters but adds systems found in other games like World of Warcraft, The Sims, and Evony. There aren't any crazy, new systems in the game but nobody has ever attempted to intertwine a diverse set of overlapping systems in a single game, much less a synchronous MMO - this allows for a variety of different but collaborative playstyles to achieve power and expression. There are dozens of ways to collaborate ... or stab someone in the back. Anything goes in this game - I want this to be a representation of what players will do in a fantasy world where nobody is stopping you from doing what you want to do. Grand Theft Auto tapped into something significant, but it's not a MMO. War. Sex. Politics. On a massive scale. This has been a challenge to make. We still have a lot to do to make this game understandable and reasonably accessible.
Good point, I suppose. Still what about regrets? Setting aside VR and the market concerning that, are there any regrets about cancelling armour purely from a standpoint of just, I suppose for lack of a better way to put it, just putting all that dev work away on the shelf (I'd say in the bin, but I doubt its all just been erased completely.)
No regrets, commercially - I was right that VR would be a colossal commercial failure and not come close to what the pundits were saying. Yes, I regret that I wouldn't be able to launch a great AAA PC game like Armor. It was a hot looking game and was a lot of fun - however, I didn't feel it was different enough from World of Tanks or the other WoT copies. I didn't want to be put in the copycat category.
Fair enough I suppose.
Just out curiosity, what did happen to all the game assets, files, and whatnot? Are they just put in some archives on a server somewhere?
And, just cause Im curious, on a business level, is there still no regret there? Or are you wholely convinced from a business standpoint that this move was the right one?
100% no business regret. We would have lost $20-30M in development costs.
Must say, Im surprised to read that considering how well polished the game looked in the trailers you showed off. If you said to me "this game is ready and will be launching next month," I gotta say I'd probably believe that because it looks done.
Again, tons of content and additional systems had to be created. The core second to second gameplay was done, but we were a year or two away from having everything else done. Game development is HARD.
Yeah I know. Did read your previous commtent after all lol. What other content and systems would have needed to be created?
Im assuming some online functionality, but what else would have needed to be done?
Interesting, thanks for sharing all this info, made for some good reasoning. Im guessing part of KIXEYE's angle here yet again is probably trying to just do what nobody's done before again right? Kinda, to an extent, trying to emulate some of the older successes which originally made the company so notable by putting a specific kind of game on a platform nobody else has before right? A bit like what was done with good ol' Backyard Monsters back in the day for example with it being a more chaotic game focused on destruction and player vs. player combat and what have you. (RIP Backyard Monsters, you are dearly missed.)
After seeing the game recently, one of my game industry CEO friends said "This is the game we've all wanted to make but none of us knew how to make. Congrats, ****." Kingdom Maker is built off of the fundamental core success of Backyard Monsters but adds systems found in other games like World of Warcraft, The Sims, and Evony. There aren't any crazy, new systems in the game but nobody has ever attempted to intertwine a diverse set of overlapping systems in a single game, much less a synchronous MMO - this allows for a variety of different but collaborative playstyles to achieve power and expression. There are dozens of ways to collaborate ... or stab someone in the back. Anything goes in this game - I want this to be a representation of what players will do in a fantasy world where nobody is stopping you from doing what you want to do. Grand Theft Auto tapped into something significant, but it's not a MMO. War. Sex. Politics. On a massive scale. This has been a challenge to make. We still have a lot to do to make this game understandable and reasonably accessible.
Well good luck with it then. Will be interesting to watch.
Semi-related, but going back to Shadow Forge, but is there any videos or other more material you can share concerning Shadow Forge? Any internal footage or stuff like that you'd be willing to share (if any exist.)? Or did Shadow Forge never get very far into development to the point where any proto-types exist the same way Armour had alot of its core systems ready, even if more needed to be done?
Combat is still a significant element to the game, but we wanted to balance it with non-combat. So yes.
Started in Jan 2015.
Cross between Candy Crush and Puzzles & Dragons. It was lame and dev was too slow.
VR might have "staying power" among a niche market, but adoption and true usage is tiny. You can't build a big business on VR. VR is cool as a demo but for actual daily usage, VR sucks - it's fatiguing and cumbersome. We are many years away until a true immersive experience disrupts current methods of consuming entertainment.
Answer re: why not typical PC game below.
Timestamps should be on the vimeo pages
The game was playable, internally - we had some fun matches on the team. We were probably a year to two years away from a complete product. The content pipeline was huge and had to build a lot of systems to allow it to scale.
Facebook/Oculus had hinted that we could be featured on their launch slate for their Oculus platform - we were going to rely on that for marketing. It didn't look like it was going to materialize anytime soon. Marketing a PC game successfully can require much more upfront cash or having to sell your soul to a publisher - the numbers just didn't make sense and without VR, it was just a futuristic, more customizable World of Tanks. I took the team and put them on Kingdom Maker - which is a much more original experience and could have many millions of people playing it per day. Nobody was creating this game. Most people on mobile spend a year max of dev on yet another clone. The market needs something other than Game of War or Candy Crush. The mobile phone is the ultimate MMO gaming device (for certain gaming genres) - it has incredible horsepower now and billions of people have one... but nobody is doing anything significant to truly take advantage of it.
All your base are belong to KIXEYE.
Well I'm sure you've at least caused others to spend money.
However, that does sound suspicious - BRB, going to check your accounts for cheats.
All your base are belong to KIXEYE.
No regrets, commercially - I was right that VR would be a colossal commercial failure and not come close to what the pundits were saying. Yes, I regret that I wouldn't be able to launch a great AAA PC game like Armor. It was a hot looking game and was a lot of fun - however, I didn't feel it was different enough from World of Tanks or the other WoT copies. I didn't want to be put in the copycat category.
100% no business regret. We would have lost $20-30M in development costs.
Again, tons of content and additional systems had to be created. The core second to second gameplay was done, but we were a year or two away from having everything else done. Game development is HARD.
After seeing the game recently, one of my game industry CEO friends said "This is the game we've all wanted to make but none of us knew how to make. Congrats, ****." Kingdom Maker is built off of the fundamental core success of Backyard Monsters but adds systems found in other games like World of Warcraft, The Sims, and Evony. There aren't any crazy, new systems in the game but nobody has ever attempted to intertwine a diverse set of overlapping systems in a single game, much less a synchronous MMO - this allows for a variety of different but collaborative playstyles to achieve power and expression. There are dozens of ways to collaborate ... or stab someone in the back. Anything goes in this game - I want this to be a representation of what players will do in a fantasy world where nobody is stopping you from doing what you want to do. Grand Theft Auto tapped into something significant, but it's not a MMO. War. Sex. Politics. On a massive scale. This has been a challenge to make. We still have a lot to do to make this game understandable and reasonably accessible.
It will crush.
All your base are belong to KIXEYE.
KIXEYE Senior Moderator
Playing since 9/30/11
Helpful Links: Site Rules / Report a Player / ToS / Ticket Status /
Have a problem? KIXEYE Customer Service
KIXEYE Senior Moderator
Playing since 9/30/11
Helpful Links: Site Rules / Report a Player / ToS / Ticket Status /
Have a problem? KIXEYE Customer Service