Direct Forms Release 2.0 Beta...

Dude, don't you think $25,000 per game is a little steep? To me that seems extremely high for a product like this.

What do you think would be more appropraite? Perhaps this would be a good discussion topic too?

[edit] This is my first product and I was trying to stay away from royalty type pricing. I would like to hear what everyone thinks is a fair price for this product.

[Edited by - devronious on March 6, 2007 4:23:17 PM]

What would you pay for a game engine?

This product has very complex workings. It is quite powerful.

I know of game engines that go for > $300,000. Then 3% royaltee. So of what percent of the overal game engine does the UI portion comprise? This UI editor also is designed for the in-game displays including the environment map. Isn't that about 25% of the overal programming?

-Devin

Quote:

Original post by devronious What would you pay for a game engine? This product has very complex workings. It is quite powerful. I know of game engines that go for > $300,000. Then 3% royaltee. So of what percent of the overal game engine does the UI portion comprise? This UI editor also is designed for the in-game displays including the environment map. Isn't that about 25% of the overal programming? -Devin

I don't have any direct experience licensing engines in that price range, so take this with a grain of salt. However, my feeling is that it's probably not particularly sound to assign a value to a middleware library by:

1. Considering the cost of a full AAA game engine
2. Estimating that X (UI, physics, graphics) is Y% of the code of such an engine
3. Assigning your product a corresponding value

Part of the problem is that the value of a AAA engine is largely in its 'completeness'. Furthermore, engines at that price range are usually industry-proven, have been used in multiple shipped games, and are backed up by extensive tech support.

Another consideration is that, these days especially, there are many very capable middleware libraries of all types available for free. I realize they may not be directly comparable to your product, but it's a good thing to be aware of.

Also, it goes without saying that your price tag excludes pretty much everyone except for well-funded pro development houses.

Of course one way to find out if the price is reasonable is to just wait and see if anyone buys it :-)

Also, for a product in this price range, I'd suggest making your 'announcement' post a little more user-friendly. Remember, you have to grab the attention of people who don't already know about your product. Linking directly to your website would be a good start; some screenshots might be a good idea as well.

Your product does look nice (from a quick look at least). Of course being Windows-only, it won't be of interest to cross-platform developers such as myself regardless of price, but you already know that.

Again, I'm not an industry expert, so take this feedback for what it's worth.

jyk,

Thanks. I know that % of game engine is a guess. I've been working on a game engine as well and threw out that percentage from what I can see so far. I'll admit it's likely to be off, for what it's worth my product goes for 15% of a AAA game engine and there is no royalty. The other nice aspect is that you can download DirectForms and incorperate it into your engine for free. Test drive it all you want. See if it's right for you. See how it performs in your game.

When you're ready to actually sell the title then you pay the fee. If you're game does well you keep the extra profit cause there's no royalty.

I will post some more pics as soon as I get a chance.

Anonymous Poster and soconne,

I was impressed with jyk's response because he explained his reasonings and they're good. Perhaps you guys could elaborate?

Thank,
Devin

Quote:

Original post by devronious jyk, Thanks. I know that % of game engine is a guess. I've been working on a game engine as well and threw out that percentage from what I can see so far. I'll admit it's likely to be off, for what it's worth my product goes for 15% of a AAA game engine and there is no royalty. The other nice aspect is that you can download DirectForms and incorperate it into your engine for free. Test drive it all you want. See if it's right for you. See how it performs in your game. When you're ready to actually sell the title then you pay the fee. If you're game does well you keep the extra profit cause there's no royalty. I will post some more pics as soon as I get a chance. Anonymous Poster and soconne, I was impressed with jyk's response because he explained his reasonings and they're good. Perhaps you guys could elaborate? Thank, Devin

A revenue suggestion. Maybe you should charge $1 a download. If any indies use your product, you charge them 3%. Good? Bad?

Your website makes it seem as if just distributing a freeware app forces one to pay the $25000. Perhaps rewording this might be a good idea.

The only problem I see is that charging a percentage of profit is hard to track at best. In order to challange what the consumer is reporting you would have to audit their books which would be quite painful on both ends I'm sure.

But it does sound like that's what everyone here thinks is right.

Anyways, I would like to develop output for c language and also develop cross platform ability down the road.

Here's a random pic of the editor in action:



And here is the Texture Engine editor:



You can simply click the mouse over the TextureMap region in the TextureDisplay area and it automatically selects the Map region for you in the TextureMap list.

As you can see you can use many image maps per physical texture to save on resources and speed. The system is capable of drawing from a single vertex buffer that references up to 10 different textures and hundreds of maps per texture. It can draw in a single draw call to the device for the entire shared buffer. I kinds did some psuedo DirectX10 code in DirectX9 so that some things can change like the texture it references during the pixel shader operations.

I still have hundreds of ideas on how to add to it's abilities and make it more powerful. One step at a time. If anyone is interested on working with me to develop the cross platform addition please contact me and we can partner up.
-Devin

If you added OpenGL rendering support I would gladly pay you $500 for an indie license to use on one commercial product.

soconne,

I will look into that right away. E-mail me at the location below and I will work with you to look into that. Perhaps it wouldn't be too hard.


if anyone want to partner with me to develop the cross platform code please contact me at devinwintch@@@[at]@@@wintschlabs...[dot]...com

Also if I charge a percent should it be gross or net?

Thanks,

Devin

For anyone that's interested I am currently mastering the documentation of DirectForms and should be available shortly. I've added some nice schematics and such to make things funner and easier to figure out.

-Devin