DaveWish wrote:Four years later and here we are. Newsletter #291 and getting ready to finally release something to the public. Ready to prove you guys were right to believe in us. Ready to prove faith and determination trumps lack of experience. Ready to put our balls out there on the table and take
whatever criticism comes our way.
And there will be criticism. Tons.
I was a typical message board punk when I started Wrestling Gamers United. You know the type.
Taking part in the prerequisite Yuke's bashing, espousing the virtues of Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 and Fire Pro like they were beyond reproach, towing the party line of "Everything Japanese is better" and all American wrestling game developers are evil idiots who hate wrestling and deliberately try to rip us off. If only we 'real' wrestling gamers could make a wrestling game we would do it better.
We knew better. And most of us had our fat notebooks fully detailing the design for The Greatest Wrestling Game Ever. So by some miracle we got that chance that every wrestling gamer dreams of.
We got the chance to try making that damn game.
And we got spanked.
Having now experienced the reality of game development from the perspective of an actual developer as well as a fan I can say this; That fat notebook of awesome ideas we have? That's great and you need that but it's honestly less than 1% of what it takes to make a game, probably even less. Ideas are the relatively easy part. Executing those ideas and making them happen is an unpredictably massive monster. And the business end of things? Raising the money, running a studio, managing a crew? I could not have underestimated that responsibility any more than I did. Having that fat book of ideas and a lot of money in the bank guarantees you nothing in terms of getting a game made and I've learned that the most flammable substance in the universe is indeed money. At the beginning of production I remember writing over $20,000 in cheques for leasing studio space, equipment, etc. in one day. That's a scary damn feeling. And a lot of times I would hand over pay cheques and think to myself, "the money I'm giving this person bought me absolutely nothing of any value." And on and on it went. We had our highs and we had our lows but we never gave up and we kept pushing forward. This spring we learned we would have to throw out all of our hard work because of legal problems with the engine we licensed. It was a bad scene. I'm telling you now for the first time that our major financial backer threatened to pull the plug on the project.
They were ready to pull all funding and cut their losses. Our doors were to have been closed that morning. But I begged and pleaded. We could pull it out of the nose dive. We had learned a lot up until that point and even if we had to start over with a new engine we could progress faster than we did the first time. And fan support was still growing strong. There was still a market ready for what we had to offer if we just had one more chance. We got our reprieve.
We also accepted the reality that you can't build innovative ideas on top of a non-existent foundation. Before you can have fun with advanced physics, AI, counters, reversals, chain wrestling, etc. you have to nail the basics. You have to make two characters simply hit each other and fall down first! As gamers we take the basics for granted. There is a reason very few developers specialize in hand-to-hand combat. It's incredibly intricate and you can't ignore the basics. As much as it crushed my ego to admit it, you have to make Power Move before you make a No Mercy Killer. You can't skip that step. And a new crew with no experience on previous shipped titles cannot defy the laws of time and space and create something in a few years with thousands of dollars that it took AKI, Spike, or Yukes ten years of experience and millions of dollars to create.
So here we are. Down to the wire. Down to our last penny. We've got it to the point where you can have a match that doesn't suck and we pulled it off in just under seven months since we had to start over from scratch. No other crew of guys could have pulled it off. So if we haven't yet reached the lofty goals we started with four years ago we must be depressed and defeated right?
Hell no!
Are you kidding me?! We are sitting here with a working wrestling game engine that we created independently ourselves. We own the content of the game and we answer ONLY to the fans who support us. Yes it's basic and yes we need to work harder to get that elusive No Mercy killer in our hands but dammit WE'RE STILL HERE! Once we ship this first title we will officially be the ONLY North American developer that specializes in wrestling games and we will STILL be 100% indepdently funded and fan supported. That's huge!
How many other North American developers specialize in wrestling games only? None!
How many other wrestling game developers are financially viable and self funded by fan support? None!
How many other wrestling game developers own 100% of their intellectual property? None!
What we will all have accomplished here is unheard of. Pat yourselves on the back.
From this point forward we have the opportunity to grow faster than ever before. With a playable game in everyone's hands and with digital distribution we can now get real hands on feedback and respond to it with updates and improvements almost daily! Wrestling gamers will finally have direct control over the evolution and progress of a wrestling franchise for the first time in gaming history. And we never have to stop! You're going to have control over something at the perfect stage to affect its evolution. It's raw and basic now. Strike, grapple, submission, weapon, aerial, etc. get your hands on it and help steer it forward when it's at the prime state to make tweaks, changes, and additions and before it's so big and bloated that simple changes are impossible to make. I no longer feel the need to impress people with features and depth right away. What we can offer now is something much more groundbreaking, the opportunity to make a difference from the beginning. It just makes so much sense to me now. Why try to complete each and every feature before asking for your help and hope we get it right? Why not trust our supporters to help us from the ground up?
Not too long ago an original supporter of the project emailed me to express his concern that we were becoming just another game developer. We were retreating into our little hole and keeping the fans in the dark more and more. He was right (spunky little guy) and now is the perfect time to change all that. After this first release we are going to completely open up the way we do things. We will collect and publish a public list of bugs, glitches (hopefully there won't be any!), and wishes for new features and game mechanics. Everyone
who purchased a copy of the first release will be able to vote on what tasks are addressed next. You will decide what gets done next, what's important, and what isn't. This is finally going be the interactive development environment it was always meant to be.
Why did it take me so long to realize that?!
So here's what we're going to offer, a basic working game featuring at least eight wrestlers, the Hammerlock venue, and 1 on 1 exhibition matches. Everything you'll need to test the gameplay and start helping with hands-on feedback. There will be a free version and a full paid version and they will be available via digital download. It will break
down like this:
FREE VERSION:
2 characters
No balcony interaction
1p vs. CPU
PAID FULL VERSION:
8 characters (at least)
Full balcony interaction
1p vs. CPU
1p vs. 2p
Access to the 'development zone' and development voting power
More to be announced
How much will the full version cost? Cheap, cheap, cheap. While the vast majority of people told us they would pay over $20 to help support PWX development we've decided to make it even easier
by asking only $14.99 for the paid version. And to thank everyone who has supported us over the years we are offering an even lower price if you pre order now, only $10.99 for the full paid version.
Now, even though we are offering the discount for pre orders we know there are still many of you who want to support the project by donating a few extra dollars to the cause. Thank you, that's amazing, and we could sure use it! So in addition to the $10.99 pre order option we will also do something no other game company has ever done, give you the option to pay whatever you think supporting PWX is worth if you'd like to give more. All those people who wanted to pay around $20 can still do so and as our way of thanking you we will put your name in the credits of this first release as a special supporter. Want to pledge more than $50 to the PWX cause? Not only will we put your name in the credits we'll literally hang your picture on the Hammerlock Wall in the game as our way of saying thank you forever!
So I guess this is it. In the next few weeks we will have stopped adding new content to the first release and begin polishing it up for release. Wow. I'm excited and I hope you are too.
We not only survived this long we might actually prosper. Thank you for your support!!
Thank you for Believing.
Finally this project is playable... finally a wrestling game for the PC.
WWF Raw was the last wrestling game on the PC... and that game made NBA Live 07 looked like the best sports game in the world...
