Multiplayer (MMO), Rebirth and Funding

[Nanook]

Unless there's already network code built into the game, that doesn't work. Several modders have attempted it with previous X games and given up. It's not a moddable function in these games.

[Ozman202]

Unless there's already network code built into the game, that doesn't work. Several modders have attempted it with previous X games and given up. It's not a moddable function in these games.

While this may be true Egosoft have made a point of Rebirth being different, i suspect that its innards may also be very different to what the Script community here is used to.

[Shootist]

Remember Blade Runner? Remember those huge ads on the sides of buildings and on floating billboards?

There was even an ad for Hilton, IIRC, and an AT&T display on the Space Station in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[CBJ]

I don't have an existing product, player base or game development company to show them. You do.

And how would me going to an advertising agency and showing them my game help create an X-Online game? It's your IP, I couldn't base a game on it even if I wanted to and had a team of artists and coders ready to go.

Apparently the gentle sarcasm passed you by. Just to put your initial assertion into context, though, Egosoft has an existing single-player product IP and an existing player base who have stated, regularly and in no uncertain terms, that they like their single-player games to stay that way. You might be able to spin that for an initial presentation, but when the bean-counters start doing their due diligence that's not going to help much.

Your replies seem to hover around "it would never work, so there's no point in trying". Reminds me of a (very-low-budget) TV series I worked on a few years ago where the producer told me there was no way we could use a certain video clip and two music tracks, because it would be too expensive. I spent a couple of days contacting the owners and I managed to get the video and one of the songs for free (in exchange for a mention in the credits). The other one never replied, so we didn't use that song.

Well done, but with all due respect, asking a rights-owner to forego a few hundred €/$/£ of royalties that they wouldn't have received anyway if you hadn't used their material, is hardly the same as going to an advertiser and pitching something that would cost them millions, take years to develop, be relatively high-risk, and provide no guarantees whatsoever regarding the number of people who would see it.

You are not the first, and you will not be the last, to come up with some scheme that you are sure could secure millions in funding, and insist that anyone who doesn't follow up your idea just lacks initiative. Nor are you the first, or last, to ignore feedback telling you that your idea is unrealistic. Keep up the optimism but don't be too surprised if people tell you to try those ideas yourself if you are so sure about them, even if only in jest.

And you didn't really reply to any of the questions.

- Have you talked to any advertising agencies?
- Have you mentioned the possibility of in-game advertising to any publishers?
- Are you against in-game advertising by principle?

I didn't reply because I didn't see much point. I am not involved in funding discussions with publishers. I very much doubt that such an unrealistic idea has been discussed, but I would imagine that the subject of in-game advertising might have come up at some point in the more realistic context of revenue generation after release. Egosoft has, in the dim and distant past, created entire games specifically for advertisers, which suggests that the idea of in-game advertising probably wouldn't be dismissed as a matter of principle. And no, none of this means that we currently have plans to introduce advertising; I'm just addressing the questions.

[Nanook]

Unless there's already network code built into the game, that doesn't work. Several modders have attempted it with previous X games and given up. It's not a moddable function in these games.

While this may be true Egosoft have made a point of Rebirth being different, i suspect that its innards may also be very different to what the Script community here is used to.

And pretty much everything they've ever posted has said there will be no multiplayer unless and until they can fund an MMO. So why would they devote any resources, valuable as they are, to putting in netcode they never intend to use? That's what they'd have to do to make it possible to mod multiplayer into the game. I honestly don't see this happening.