New android and iOS versions of LBA

[marcosmapf]

Originally Posted by MaNgEDamN

Its not really a surprise if they tell us its gonna be a surprise now is it? xD

They just ruined the surprise

OR NOT?! Depends on what it is :3

[RGaspar]

Third option for me

I don't own any fancy android phone. (even when I use a Samsung phone, but it's so old, it's a pre-android operating system)

A shame, because this version is looking like the best one yet. One of the worst aspects of the original LBA was the controls (I played it for the first time in 2006).

[K. A. T.]

7 days

[Reek]

I won't be buying this version as I played this game a million times already so I don't really see the point.

[Polaris]

So, you're sure LBA3 will never see the daylight, right ?

[Reek]

Originally Posted by Polaris

So, you're sure LBA3 will never see the daylight, right ?

I'm not at all sure of that.
And if there ever is a kickstarter for lba3 i would gladly donate for that, but I'm not going to buy a game I already bought 3 times (two CDs which eventually got lost/scratched and once online) just to show support or whatever. And like I said, I've played the game a ton of times, I know it backwards by now, as I imagine is the case with most of the people here, which is why I don't really get the excitement about the re-release.

[MaNgEDamN]

Like Frederick have said about this re-release is to figure out how many potential buyers there are, and if there is enough a re-release of LBA 2 and even the creation of LBA 3 could be made.

Still, I understand what you are saying. For me really it will depend actually on the price of the app.

If it was to be released for steam however I would have bought it for any price :P

[Darkflame]

If it was to be released for steam however I would have bought it for any price

Whats wrong with GoG

[Twinnie]

Originally Posted by Darkflame

Whats wrong with GoG

This^

Tbh I'm also unsure about LBA3, and if I could choose between LBA3 and LBA1/2 HD, I choose HD all day

[MaNgEDamN]

Originally Posted by Darkflame

Whats wrong with GoG

I guess there is nothing wrong with GOG, but if I buy it through GOG that will be another website for me to have games on. I like having all my games on one place.
Don't get me wrong as I actually LOVE what GOG is doing, releasing old games and without DRM is awesome.

Originally Posted by Twinnie

Tbh I'm also unsure about LBA3, and if I could choose between LBA3 and LBA1/2 HD, I choose HD all day

I choose LBA 3 if they can actually get ahold of plenty of money to build up a team and create a really good game, I don't want to see a buggy game after having to wait for such a long time.

HD versions of both those games would have been cool but maybe too much work for something that we have already played so much? (I mean story-wise)

[marcosmapf]

Originally Posted by Darkflame

Whats wrong with GoG

Its not steam.

Originally Posted by MaNgEDamN

I guess there is nothing wrong with GOG, but if I buy it through GOG that will be another website for me to have games on. I like having all my games on one place.
Don't get me wrong as I actually LOVE what GOG is doing, releasing old games and without DRM is awesome.

^This... I can't improve what he said.

Originally Posted by K. A. T.

7 days

You are probably the one who is most excited about it, aren't you?

[MaNgEDamN]

Originally Posted by Rex_Hollywood

Wait, what? He actually said that?

Yes he said it in this video interview on this thread: An interesting Interview with Frédérick Raynal

I'm sure he mentions it more than one time but at 10:14 into the interview he talks about it.

[Darkflame]

Originally Posted by Rex_Hollywood

Wait, what? He actually said that?
If he wants to get a feel of the market, he can start a kickstarter and see how much he can raise. He doesn't need to make his fans pay for the same game again to give them hope that at some point in the future, he'll take their money again for the game they actually want.

He needs to prove it to publishers, not to us or himself.

Besides, its unlikely you could kickstarter the $10million or so LBA3 would take to make.
And (imho) half-and-half solutions involving a kickstarter and a publisher are a bad idea.

[Reek]

He doesn't need to start a kickstarter for 10 million dollars, if he starts one for a sum that's much smaller than that but still very significant (in kickstarter standards) then that's all the proof the publishers will ever need that people want lba 3.

This way he achieves the same goal as with the current plan (proving to publishers that there's a market for lba3) plus he has a considerable sum to start him off. there's no drawback here as far as i can see.

[K. A. T.]

6 days left

[Lupin]

Originally Posted by Reek

He doesn't need to start a kickstarter for 10 million dollars, if he starts one for a sum that's much smaller than that but still very significant (in kickstarter standards) then that's all the proof the publishers will ever need that people want lba 3.

This way he achieves the same goal as with the current plan (proving to publishers that there's a market for lba3) plus he has a considerable sum to start him off. there's no drawback here as far as i can see.

Well, the thing is, they want to get a feel of how many NEW players they could hope for. A kickstarter would only appeal to people like us who already know and actually played through the original games.

[Darkflame]

He doesn't need to start a kickstarter for 10 million dollars, if he starts one for a sum that's much smaller than that but still very significant (in kickstarter standards) then that's all the proof the publishers will ever need that people want lba 3.

And what will those kickstarter supporters be paying for?
What will he be offering to get this impressive amount if not a game which the kickstarter cant pay?

You cant go half-and-half easily, as I said; publishers arnt interest till demand is shown. Kickstarters arnt interested unless you guaranty to deliver a game (which, in fact, is a legal requirement of a kickstarter; if you take the money, you have to deliver the goods).

Its possible you might get extra money after raising an impressive kickstarter amount. But you need at least enough, in good faith, to pay for what your offering on the kickstarter itself.

The other possibility, of course, is a publisher might say "ok, if you raise X amount we will pay the other half". That would work, but you'd still be stuck with things like publisher DRM which is going to be unpopular with potential backers.

[Reek]

I don't get it, I looked through the games that were funded via kickstarter, and I haven't seen a single game that asked for more than 1.1 million dollars. Did all those games rely on additional sources for funding or is LBA 3 somehow more expensive than any game funded by kickstarter ever?

[MaNgEDamN]

Originally Posted by Reek

I don't get it, I looked through the games that were funded via kickstarter, and I haven't seen a single game that asked for more than 1.1 million dollars. Did all those games rely on additional sources for funding or is LBA 3 somehow more expensive than any game funded by kickstarter ever?

I'll take the game "Broken Age" as an example, it had a kickstarter goal of $400.000, but they got $3,336,371. They also gave out the ability to pre-purchased the game from their website after the kickstarter, they also partnered with humble bundle on numerous occasions to sell their games and have broken age as a bonus.

But still at the end of their development cycle they announced that their fundings were running out so they had to release half the game on steam so people could buy it there so they could get money to finish the other half of the game.

Now keep in mind this game is only 2D graphics, and fairly linear.
Imagine a game like LBA where you have an open-world and full 3D-graphics.

It will need a lot of money to be made, I would think ATLEAST $5 million. (and thats pushing it)

[Reek]

I'm not doubting that lba3 will take a lot of money to make, my question is, how did all the other games on kickstarter, who did manage to get released, do it with much less than $5 million?

On one hand, they can't ALL be cheaper to make than lba3, on the other, they managed to get made somehow, so how?

[MaNgEDamN]

I really think that, yes, that MOST games on kickstarter are cheaper to make than what LBA 3 will be.

I looked on kickstarter and mostly what I find is 2D games and boardgames, and when I find a game that actually look pretty expensive to make, it got a company with money already and only need a bit more to create that specific game, it got a online merchandise store, or if I take the game Star Citizen as an example, it got $2,134,374 pledged on kickstarter, and $40,000,000(!!!!) pledged on their own website, because they are selling in-game items such as spaceships and stuff.

I'm not an expert or anything, but if LBA 3 would have the mechanics and graphics that I see in my mind right now its gonna cost.

[Reek]

what about wasteland 2, for example?
it doesn't seem particularly low budget to me.
sure, it's no gta V, but neither is lba 3 supposed to be afaik.

i don't know what fred has in mind tbh. if he's hoping for lba3 to rival stuff like bioshock infinite or far cry 3 in terms of production value, well, best of luck to him. as far as i'm concerned, if lba3 will look like jasiek's lba1 remake that's more than good enough for me since i'm mainly interested in a gaming experience similar to that of the previous lba titles.

[RGaspar]

Kingdom Come Deliverance comes closer to what Reek is asking about.

Here's a really expensive game that used Kickstarter as a way to show interest, but they'd never be able to cover all the production costs that way.

What they did was getting a successful Kickstarter campaign for about 10% of the total costs, and then a private investor gave them the rest of the money, under the condition that the Kickstarter project really shows there's a public willing to play out there.


Now, LBA3 should costs a bit less than Kingdom Come, but it wouldn't be that cheap either. Just following LBA2's standards they'd need full voice acting, a 3D World, expensive and long cutscenes (nowadays maybe they could do them with in-game graphics).

LBA 3 is not a cheap game idea, and that's one of the reasons they couldn't find an investor just yet, nobody's willing to pay that much money for something risky.

[Reek]

cool, that's basically what i suggested a few posts ago.

anyway the whole thing is strange to me, also because of what rex hollywood said, but also because i believe that at least 90% of the people who will buy this rerelease will be people who are already fans of the series, in which case a simple petition or kickstarter thingie would have sufficed.

the way i see it, unless lba 3 is going to be vastly different than it's predecessors, it won't be a mainstream game. the people who will buy it are the fans of the series and open-minded gamers who play indie games,etc. and don't limit themselves to the mainstream stuff. and like rex said these people probably don't do their gaming on mobile platforms.


(i'm saying this because i got the impression that fred might have hopes that lba3 will be as big a phenomenon as the previous games. which is kind of like expecting indiana jones 4 to be as big as the original trilogy. i could be completely wrong about how fred sees this of course)

[Renesans]

I think they're trying to build a brand. They want new players who recognize the name "LBA" because they realized the existing fanbase is not big enough to start such a big project as LBA3. Because LBA3 needs to be a big project. Why? Sometimes I tend to think that if LBA3 ever gets released, it'll never meet our expectations. We think It has to be awesome, right? Actually the longer the wait is, the higher the expectations. We have waited so long for it, so we won't accept anything other than a full-blown game with a huge, open world, voice acting, etc. And this gets worse and worse as time passes, it's like a kind of a "spiral" which never ends.

Now, 17 years after the release of LBA2, I think we're at a point where the fate of the whole LBA3 project should be decided. I mean, Fred and Didier (and possibly the others who are involved) should decide what do they want and how do they want it. Will they really make the game or admit that LBA3 will never be? It seems they're just "hoping for the best" with this mobile re-release. It doesn't seem like a fail-safe plan, does it? It's hanging by a thread: it all depends on one thing. It's unlikely that a successful mobile release would convince any publisher alone. The thing is, we don't know about the further plans, or... and that's the worst case but the most likely -- there are no further plans at all. In that case, it won't work -- such an ambitious project needs very careful planning. Anyway, we're doing what Fred and Didier are doing: hoping for the best.

I really wondered about something: wouldn't the MBN have died a long ago if LBA3 got released around 2000? While I don't think the main "purpose" or the community is to wait for LBA3, the long wait has certainly contributed something to the MBN. It's like this place can't die until LBA3 gets released. But what is LBA3, really? For me, the meaning of this phrase has transformed over the years. It's not really a game project any more. I mean, LBA3 is the thing that keeps this place alive. I mean, the MBN is LBA3. It's the continuation of the games but in another form. Thousands of lines of posts providing a thorough analysis of the games, fan art of every form, fan projects -- games and other, loads of other LBA-related content. LBA3 is written by us, the fans. And it'll be never be complete. Not until anyone who cares about LBA exists.