Hero-U - Numbers

[Myrthos]

In the latest update for Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption, Corey Cole talks a lot about numbers and about the game still being scheduled for release this year (Q4).

I spend a lot of my time working with numbers. I actually like them and thought I’d share a few of my favorites. First, the project financials:

• Pledged income: $555,000
• Actual receipts after fees and loan payments: $460,000
• Payments to art, music, and programming contractors: $380,000
• Pledge reward and shipping costs: $80,000
• Project burn rate: $10,000/month

So we’re at break-even from the funding campaigns so far, and are now working on personal loans. The above does not include any income for Lori and me, as we won’t pay ourselves until Hero-U becomes profitable. We also owe about $50,000 to developers who have chosen to defer their contract payments until after we release the game. (Thank you!)

This is all pretty normal for game development. Developers normally have a publisher contract that doles out funds as the developer reaches milestones. The publisher in effect "goes into debt" to make the game, then hopes to make a profit after they launch the game. They lose money on many games, and make it up on a few profitable ones... or the studio goes out of business. That happens a lot to both big publishers and small indie developers.

We’ve had a total of 28 developers work on Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption so far. 12 are still actively contributing to the project. That’s smaller than the teams on our last few Sierra games, but about as many as we had on Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire. Then again, all of those worked full-time for a year. In man- (and woman-) years, we're still well under the development time of any of our Sierra games.

More information.

 

[you]

Any chance the actual game won't suck ? I mean I understand that this has been a financial stress on the Cole but my gut feeling is that this is mostly due to poor planing on their part (not considering the full funding picture prior to starting the project); but nearly all the updates seems to focus on $$$ and very little on the actual game. I'm ok with the delays (which the update seems to be trying to justify) but I gotta wonder what the delivery is going to be like.
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Given the lack of something like early access which can generate some $$$ (i suspect it will be arriving) I have to think the current state of the game is dismal (yes it would be a horrible mistake to make crap avaiable via early access because the negative impression would be difficult to overcome).
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Actually if you read the developer comments on the thread for the update things are slightly more hopeful. Still unsure how it will turn out.

Then again maybe I should have more faith ?

 

[cptbarkey]

these gory details while interesting do not bode well. good luck.

 

[mbpopolano24]

Of course the game will not suck, since the 'game' will never be. But don't worry, they will set up a third kickstarter soon, for the joy of all their faithfuls. After all, those bills won't pay for themselves, will they?

 

[Silver]

Seems like these guys have made a lot of progress so far:

Art assets and test builds in Dropbox: 5,344 files in 617 folders for 17.7 GB
Unity and Composer game files: 33,275 files in 1,957 folders for 4.8 GB
Backer Paintings, Statues, Ghosts, and Wanted Posters: 40+10+20+20 = 90
Number of game scenes: 68
Game days with unique events: 50
Number of characters and monster types: 74
Number of interactable objects (“props”): 1,200
Number of scripts written so far: 815, with about that many still to come

 

[Tyranthraxus]

I just wish the game I originally pledged for was the game I was getting. Apparently the demand was there to make it more graphically intense, the art much better as well as the sounds and smells.

 

[Gorath]

I just wish the game I originally pledged for was the game I was getting. Apparently the demand was there to make it more graphically intense, the art much better as well as the sounds and smells.

Tell that to the guy who left the project 2 months in.

Relying on one guy was a management mistake. But they had to move on somehow. Their options were (1) cancel the game, (2) replace him and finish a game which was somebody else's baby and (3) "upgrade" the game.
(1) Would have caused a shit storm. (2) is something they didn't want to do. That's arguable but I can understand it. There was demand for (3). So they did this.

Mr Cole posted more details in the discussion. ca. 90% of the game is already playable. The whole game is much bigger than their Sierra games.

It looks like the game will be completed. Oct. this year or maybe another delay till Q1 - who cares. I'd rather see them polish it than ship early.

 

[you]

Well there has been so little useful information provided that I have not so much faith. Does this matter - not really - well it certainly came into play when they did the second kickstarter (which I did not back). At this point it doesn't matter much - the money from the first kickstarter was collected so it is just a matter of waiting to see what if anything materializes. It might be grand but generally speaking these updates are not what I would like to see (justification for where things are); I rather see updates that focus on what they have actually produced. They claim they are concern about spoilers and perhaps that claim is valid but it reads more like they are dealing with a jumbo mess.

 

[rune_74]

I only backed in the first kickstarter. this has bloated into something that they obviously didn't plan financially. I honestly think this may be a failure.