Sunday, June 3, 2012

Putting Ideas out There; Game Service Biz Plan on the Fly

These are projects I'd like to undertake if i had the time, capital and freedom. I'm putting my ideas out there, I don't care who does this kind of project as long as it meets my price requirement. In a project like this, a budget would go much farther in India, I do admit. There are just more programmers and IT over there. 

Finish that open RPG system
The target goal of the open RPG system is to create continous soft infra to create and prep games at a much faster rate. A rate that can be measured and outsourced to gaming assisitants. Its main source of revenu is Gaming Service model.

One of the design goals of ORPGS is to be playable with other systems by working on a realistic baseline that gets plug ins to have a particular game style feel. ORPGS will follow fair use protocols to make conversions for all game systems which have significant demand.

All the electronic tools begin are all web and subscription based service, that are mobile platform compatible. The target goal is less than $50 a year and with improving capabilities over time. These tools are: 


  • vector based map maker  
  • regional development tools  
  • entity builders (for manors, houses, companies, organizations etc), 
  • board game creation tools, 
  • mass combat tools, 
  • mind-map storytelling tools...etc. 

All of which follow the Solitaire Mini Game model. As a mobile tool, GMs can kill time making game prep. 


The tools all have a downloadable/offline version that have a basic offline capability that improves per quarterly development cycle. Every subscription updates offline/downloadable version. These capabilities of free vs paid will be clearly stated and people are free to comment.  

Other services, like communications and video are seperate and a package (currently i don't have an idea for the costing of this). 

At certain revenue and demand goals certain projects are triggered. Basically the service is to make a tool for a particular demand and sell subscription of that tool to fund continuous upgrades and improvements. All Stakeholders, subscription holders, have access to the project goals, progress and various tracking (basically run like a publicly company with all the typical checks and balances). The funding of a project itself is a game, with groups influencing the direction and providing guidance to provide more services. Goals are clearly stated and metrics are available. AGILE development cycle. 

One of the company goals is to gain credibility by providing the best possible value and transparency.

Byproducts that can be made into boardgames and home games, will have complete documentation for DIY at home or outsourced to a local specialist. All users have rights to all created material and are free to do what they want with them. Users who elect Creative Common arrangements will have their creations posted and accessible for comments and access. The company will make aggregate all creative common content as part of its services.

Since the system is open sourced people are free to make their own books to publish and sell it. The tools bring down the amount of time to make the crunch, and they just focus on fluff.

The Sci-fi gamers software toolkit.
A blender inspired program that builds 3d vehicles, ships, locations, characters and star maps. This is a semi-subscription based project which follows the same as the project above. The overall goal is to make enough material for one's sci-fi setting as to Run RPG, film a machinama or mixed media Sci-fi show. 


Tools all follow the Game in a Game model, allowing to be a fun process in itself. It also follows the realistic baseline moving to genre plug ins. This is a related project to the one above. Synergy with the programs above is always planned into the project at close to equal priority to speed.

Documentation of all projects will be as extensive as possible given budget limitation.

All good things come to an end.
All these projects have a duration, probably a 5 year life span where by the end of it, it should achieve its goals and opensource everything that remains. On its last throes it just completes all documentation and allows people to offer everything on a leased virtual server or at home.

During its life span it will track the userbase and the metrics regarding the gaming population. If there is a decline or steady then it is best to incubate to see if the project will influence the hobby and bring down barriers.

This is a spreadsheet with only 3 quarters planned out.

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