[cowgod]

Has anyone here played the game "Omega Syndrome" from "Australian Game Developers"? Their site's gone. It used to be at http://www.ausgamedev.com/index.html .

The cached version on google says "Australian Game Developers
That's All She Wrote.

After four years of updating and selling The Omega Syndrome online, I have finally decided to take it off sale and shut the site down. While this game was never profitable by any measure, it was fun working on it for the first few years. However over the last year I have found my motivation to work on it and subsidise it has flagged and recently it has dropped off altogether.

While I may be back with a new site and game in the future (I was never happy with the name of this one), I don't know if I will have the high motivation that is required to make another computer RPG. Why? Fan expectations are high, the potential audience is small and fractured and the amount of work that is required to create even a low quality computer RPG, far exceeds that of any other type of game. So in short I no longer believe they can be successful financially or otherwise, unless they are properly funded and have the very best people working in each area.

As a final word I want to send out a big thank you to all of the people that bought the game and gave me a lot of encouragement over the years. :)

P.S.
If you need to contact me after the site goes offline, you can reach me through hotmail.com. Just tack david_moffatt onto the front."

I'm not some Omega Syndrome fanatic, but I was considering redownloading the demo and possibly even paying for the full game (something I rarely do).

I can still download various versions of the demo from various sites, but what's the point if I can't get the whole game? I'm not going to stalk the poor guy to get his game.

In any case, my point is that it's sad when games are eliminated like this. I've done it with one of my own games as well, though the usual end is that they don't even get finished.

He makes an excellent point about the difficulty of making a quality RPG that people will actually buy. I've always wanted to do so, and I've managed to make some RPGs. I've just never made any that people would actually buy.

Does anyone have any ideas about how we can try to stop this trend? Obviously, there's always going to be indie games that disappear like this, but I'd like to think that there's some way we can help balk this trend.

I think royalty-free art resources and engines like FIFE are helping to deal with, but they disappear just like everything else (assuming they even get done).

[Terry]

If this isn't a clever publicity stunt, it should be. I hadn't even heard of this guy's game until this happened.

I'd check out the demo, but I'm afraid I might like it. And then be unable to play the rest of it :(

[RampantCoyote]

I spoke with Dave a little bit on this a few months before he decided to throw in the towel. I respect what he did with the game, how much effort and passion he put into it, and how hard he tried to make it work. I don't have much insight into everything he did, and he's got some experience that I lack.

But I think he made some mistakes. And he may very well one day pop in over here and correct me and tell me I'm an idiot --- and maybe he'll be right. But here's what I think.

I talked about it a little bit in "Is There Hope For Indie Computer RPGs," but here are some specific thoughts:

#1 - Pricing. Dave kept experimenting with the price. It was down as low as $10 (on sale), priced at $15 for a while, and then he jacked it up to $40 or $50 at one point, then back down to $30. Personally, I felt it was very comfortably priced at $15 - $20. I felt cranking the price up too high was trying to take advantage of customers... and also priced it in the same range as mainstream RPGs like Oblivion. In spite of the fact that The Omega Syndrome had some nice features and story you wouldn't get from Oblivion, do you REALLY want to invite customers to make that comparison? Also, if any customer was hesitant about buying the game (and I think a study once found that the average Internet customer visits a site multiple times across several days / weeks before committing to a purchase), the fluctuation in price would encourage them to sit tight and see if it would drop in price again.

Not that experimenting in price is a bad thing, either. But I think it could have been handled better.

#2 - Failure to move on. I think (again, I'm playing armchair quarterback here... so feel free to disregard) that Aus Game Dev would have been better served producing an Omega Syndrome 2 and 3 using the (upgraded) engine, besides just iterating on the same game for 3+ years. IMO, rather than getting someone to pay $40 for your indie RPG, why not get them to pay $60 and buy THREE of your indie games? The cross-selling things work, and if someone likes one game in the series, they may often go back and try the prequels. Also, the fact that there are sequels to the game is a confidence-booster for prospective customers - they say to themselves, "Hey, wow, the game was good enough to spawn sequels! Maybe I ought to try it out!" But he was really, really devoted to his game (a good thing!).

#3 - Marketing. A lot of people commented that they'd never heard about the game until AFTER he shut off sales and his website. This suggests to me that his message hadn't nearly achieved the level of penetration necessary to say definitively that the game "didn't sell."

Maybe I'm fulla crap here, but that's my feeling. And I'm not saying that ANY of the above remotely resembles "easy." I think he's right on many points. I'm really sorry the game didn't do well for him. What I would hope to see is a new website and new game appear in the future, with "The Omega Syndrome" available at a discount price to help cross-sell the new title. It was a worthy game.
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Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Old-School Game Developer talks Indie Games, RPGs, and the Games Biz

[Rainer Deyke]

Trying to make money from indie rpgs is like trying to make money through any other artistic endeavour. It's clearly possible - just look at Aveyond, Cute Knight, or any of the Spiderweb games - but you have to be really good at it and/or have mainstream appeal.

The Omega Syndrome, I think, just wasn't good enough. I found the screenshots so unattractive that I never bothered to download the game. Maybe the game plays better than it looks, but that's not good enough when you're trying to sell something.

I find it telling that the game just disappeared, instead of being released as freeware. It looks like the developer stopped caring about the game the moment he realized it's not going to make him rich. Apparently he's not even supporting his existing customers anymore. No wonder he failed.

(And lest you think I'm being unfair, I've come to the same conclusion about my own games - that they just aren't good enough. However, at least I'm still supporting my games, and I've already released one of my shareware games as freeware.)

[Verious]

The game title "Omega Syndrome" conjures up images of science fiction and while there have been many successful science fiction games; they are far out numbered by fantasy games. I believe his target audience was artifically limited by the game title.

Note: I have never seen nor played Omega Syndrome and only recently heard about it.

I personally love science fiction games, as well as, games that mix science fiction with fantasy (for example games set in the Shadowrun universe mix technology with magic).

[BadMrBox]

I never heard of the game before this topic :/
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[DeveloperX]

[cowgod]

[RampantCoyote]

[cowgod]

[RampantCoyote]

True - the portals are REALLY squeamish about anything resembling offensive content. It's all birthday cakes 'n stuff. Casual and mature content are largely mutually exclusive.

(Although Cute Knight does sneak in some implied prostitution...)

Anyway... in general, the major portals aren't interested in anything BUT truly casual games. The fact that CK and Aveyond were RPGs were largely incidental.

There are some other portals that you can go through with a more 'core' audience with an RPG, such as Manifesto Games, GarageGames, Shrapnel Games, Matrix Games, and Reflexive Arcade. (Oh, and Rampant Games... I have it on good authority they rock... :) )

The thing with the casual portals is that getting your game there doesn't mean automatic success. If you manage to get onto and stay on their top 10 for a few weeks, you can do very, very well. But there are a lot of guys who drop off the charts immediately, and see very little from the portals. The arguments at indiegamer rage about going portal or not. There are some risks, and the portals are getting into price-wars right now where the biggest losers are the game developers. Some guys are doing very well through the portals, and there are others who are doing quite well disregarding them.

You are not wrong in considering how you are going to market your game from the get-go.

I'm personally not fond of the "shock value" option, but that's me. However, I AM going into more grown-up territory with Frayed Knights. Topics like sex and hemp golems are just too ripe for humor to pass up.
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Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Old-School Game Developer talks Indie Games, RPGs, and the Games Biz

[Hajo]

[BadMrBox]

[RampantCoyote]

It depends upon where you do business, I guess. Perhaps your country has those requirements. So far (crossing fingers), the U.S. does not. Good luck getting your game in major retail stores without a rating, but that's a requirement by the retail stores, not by the government.

So far, every attempt by the government to legislate mandatory game ratings and to make game sales illegal based on age and rating has been struck down as unconstitutional. I really hope we keep succeeding on that front.

If your games border on pornography, there may be other laws governing that. But then you'd totally lose my interest in them.
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Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Old-School Game Developer talks Indie Games, RPGs, and the Games Biz

[BadMrBox]

Ah, sorry Hajo. I didn't think about that you live in Germany. It is surely as you say it is, in Germany but nowhere else. You guys have seriously (excuse my french) fuckedup rules when it comes to games.