although I occasionally like Alex's flights of word-smithery, as a whole his articles are usually a bit cloying. This one was refreshingly curt; but still brisk and exciting. I don't know why I'm even bothering to comment on this. Anyways, good day.
I hope the games' good now, after all this. It looks fun, and has a great attitude, but Ronimo's last game - Swords and Soldiers - did not float my boat, so to speak.
Glad to hear that it is actually going to make it out this week. I just signed up for PS plus for the first time a couple days ago, and was interested in checking Awesomenauts out.
Ronimo Games is looking into the situation to try and figure out the best way to get the game out, but for the foreseeable future, you're not going to be playing Awesomenauts. Certainly not this week, at least.
We have just confirmed that the game is coming this week! We cannot comment on the exact situation any further right now, but rest assured that you can all play Awesomenauts this week! :)
Why does a developer need a publisher to send Microsoft a finished game? I don't get it. If the game is done, put it up. So it will be missing 1 spammy intro logo, good. Business realities are depressing as shit.
Because the publisher owns the game since they paid the developers to make the game for them. The publisher will likely try to sell the rights to another publisher so they can pay their debts rather than buy servers to release the game.
Ronimo Games is looking into the situation to try and figure out the best way to get the game out
It's pretty much never "try and", and almost always "try to".
I don't mean to be a grammar fucker, it's just this always gets to me. You have a loose style and that suits the articles fine, but being grammatically incorrect in this statement serves no stylistic purpose. It's just incorrect.
So do you absolutely need a publisher before Sony or Microsoft will put you on their service? It's not like they have to pay for boxes, manuals, and shipping to put out a game on PSN or XBLA, so what purpose does a publisher actually serve in this situation?
I may be mistaken in some of the finer details but to my understanding the company that backs the publication of the games onto said services fronts the money that Sony and Microsoft demand to get the games listed on their service. It isn't just that sony and microsoft put the games up for free and take their cut but that they demand a certain down payment as a kind of insurance in case the games don't sell that way they always make profit on any game posted. It is only the developer and publisher that would take a hit from a game not selling.
So do you absolutely need a publisher before Sony or Microsoft will put you on their service? It's not like they have to pay for boxes, manuals, and shipping to put out a game on PSN or XBLA, so what purpose does a publisher actually serve in this situation?
If worse comes to worst, they can self publish on PSN, as far as I know. They'll still need a publisher for XBLA though, so that's a big problem. Pity, this looks really really fun, and it's supposed to be free on PS+ this month too. The devs just seem like a really nice bunch of guys too from all the press this got last year. A real pity.
Usually someone is appointed to control the company. In this case I would presume that this guy wants to release the game since it is his job to realise all the assets in the company. An unreleased game is not worth much and a release would definitely mean money into the company. I would believe that he wants to release the game but I'm not sure about how Microsoft and Sony will handle this. They might feel that the legal situation is unclear and refuse to release it.
@Hailinel: I'm not stupid, I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about how suddenly it came up. Like, did they just find out a week ago they had no money? How does something that huge just sneak up on you?
didnt sneak up on anyone, they just never told anyone until now.
you dont spill bad news until you have to.
Maybe they should have planned it better, then, instead of having it spill out the week they are supposed to publish a game.
@Hailinel: I'm not stupid, I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about how suddenly it came up. Like, did they just find out a week ago they had no money? How does something that huge just sneak up on you?
didnt sneak up on anyone, they just never told anyone until now.
@wh1terav3n: The Awesomenauts website says copyright Ronimo. DTP doesn't own it, but it's possible the contract says only they can publish or distribute it. That would suck.
I have more problems with the relatively opinionated (and possibly written by the developers) wiki than the fact that the game isn't coming out. I didn't even know about it until the guys mentioned it was coming out on the Bombcast, and when I looked stuff up, I wasn't rushing to buy it.
Christ, you'd think it'd be in their creditors interest to let them keep running for an extra week so they could put out the title and get some extra income in order to actually, you know, pack back their creditors.
@CaLe: Because the publisher owns the game, the code and everything in it. The developer doesn't. If the publisher goes bankrupt, then ownership of the game doesn't pass to the developer, it passes to the creditors, and so it's ownership is up in the air. It could be months before this is figured out. Microsoft and Sony already have the code, but since no one owns the game anymore, they can't put it on their service, there's no one to pay them to put it up.
Depending on the contract, it's possible that the devs could make a PC version or something. Or they could try to buy back rights. The most likely solution is that another publisher like THQ or Acti will buy the game at a low price since the creditors just want it off their hands then put it out and profit, but that could take awhile.
