Windward - a copy of Pirates!? @ Gamasutra

[HiddenX]

Gamasutra tells a fun story about the new game Windward:

Windward is what happens when Sid Meier says it's ok to 'copy' his game

At GDC 2012, Michael Lyanshenko, founder of Tasharen Entertainment, attended a talk from renowned game designer and developer Sid Meier, whose name prefaces games such as Civilization and Pirates! In that talk, Meier mentioned how game designers are basically copying one another in everything they do, and how that's ok, because much of game development is about iteration.

After that talk, Lyanshenko decided to approach Meier.

“I just walked up to Sid Meier and I basically asked him, ‘Can I ['copy'] your Pirates! game?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah! Go for it! It’s cool,'” said Lyanshenko.

(…)

The game ended up climbing to the third spot on Steam, just behind massively marketed heavyweights The Witcher 3 and Grand Theft Auto V. “Honestly, I was hoping for the same [sales] result as Early Access,” says Lyashenko. During six months of Early Access, Windward grossed $150,000. After the end of the first week, Lyashenko had made gross sales of $720,000—far beyond his expectations. “I definitely did not expect that. $300,000 in total would’ve definitely covered development, and made it worthwhile. What it earned surprised the crap out of me.”

More information.

 

[HiddenX]

I recommend the GDC 2012 video - Sid Meier: A game is a series of interesting decisions.

 

[joxer]

Who cares if it's a copy. EA failed with SimCity, another dev made a proper city sim.
SM refused to make a new Pirates, someone else knew we need it.
Is it any good? Anyone tried it?

 

[HiddenX]

Who cares if it's a copy. EA failed with SimCity, another dev made a proper city sim.
SM refused to make a new Pirates, someone else knew we need it.
Is it any good? Anyone tried it?

-> Review at Technology tell

 

[joxer]

Erm, so no swordfights? I'm skippin'.

 

[HellRazor]

Well, there's no dancing either, so that balances things out a bit!

 

[lostforever]

I am surprised how easily they are giving out sales numbers.

 

[joxer]

Why wouldn't they? They're not EA.

 

[Lucky Day]

I think the proper term is "clone".

I guess this is how Sid justifies taking credit for porting a board game they (eventually) acquired the license to.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/71/civilization

--

So is this really an action-rpg?

 

[HiddenX]

Tutorial by the dev

 

[EDRPGFAN]

Played the subject for a couple of days. Quite not bad arpg-trading_manager-timekiller. Just don't try to compare it to anything