Petition to EA Games for a Real Tactical Shooter

[DrewBaye]

Ubisoft has forever ruined the Rainbow Six series, and SWAT is too limited in rules of engagement.

I believe EA would be the best company to produce a tactical shooter in the tradition of Red Storm's Rainbow Six games - a realistic simulation of counter-terror and anti-terror operations, complete with planning stage, realistic equipment and tactics, and missions ripped right from the headlines of today's papers.

Perhaps if a large enough number of the old R6 fanbase, and other fans of tactical games let EA know that if they make it, we'll buy it, they'll step up and do what Ubi has consistently failed to do for the past couple of years.

Dear EA Games,

Those of us who have been huge fans of tactical, squad-based counter-terrorism games have been disappointed year after year by Ubisoft's handling of the once-great Rainbow Six series. We believe you could revitalize this genre, which has suffered from a slew of bargain-bin games, and produce a tactical shooter we could really be excited about again.

Please, we beg you, develop a realistic counter-terror sim.

Drew Baye

Guys, please add your name to this and let others know. Post it on other gaming forums. Maybe if we can get a large enough number of names we can get EA's attention.

[Mutt_Dog]

Joshua Pease

[Munkey]

These new ones sure are terrible.

[SilentEdge]

Don't worry Drew; they won't listen, even if you are "world renowned".

[TaLoN]

Actually there is a way to get what you want, if someone takes the horns and starts a campain to convince all of the old fans you can get in contact with to join an investment group, and invest some of your hard earned money in a little studio called Blackfoot studios (john sonnedecker).  Get them enough money to pay a staff for the production time to make the game, digitally distrubute it at 10 bucks less than retail, with a community based spread the word pr system, then you would have your game. John isnt hard to find, check the ubi fourms or the GR fourms. Id be interested in ivesting, well given a preprod demo I would.

[SilentEdge]

...Id be interested in ivesting, well given a preprod demo I would.

"

[Zoog]

Actually there is a way to get what you want, if someone takes the horns and starts a campain to convince all of the old fans you can get in contact with to join an investment group, and invest some of your hard earned money in a little studio called Blackfoot studios (john sonnedecker).  Get them enough money to pay a staff for the production time to make the game, digitally distrubute it at 10 bucks less than retail, with a community based spread the word pr system, then you would have your game. John isnt hard to find, check the ubi fourms or the GR fourms. Id be interested in ivesting, well given a preprod demo I would.

john sonnedecker was a guy from red storm right?
how much money are we talking about here? $80.000? $150.000? $300.000? More? Less? I have no idea, any idea TaLoN?

[deadsanchez]

I think the guys at redstorm do awesome work. Really impressive modelers and texture artist that i've noticed from what i can see from GRAWF

[Funth]

What Talon suggested could work, but it's a big risk to anyone involved. We may love the game, but the popularity of RS is now just a small hardcore group of people. (Compared to other audiences of games example: counter-strike) Being in the industry for about 2 years now, and being right down the road from EA I pretty much know for a fact that they won't develop for the RS series. Why you may ask? Because they don't stand to make billions of dollars off of it. The only games EA develops are games that are going to sell and sell big, if they don't, they are immediately cut and their production schedules revamped according to industry research into what kids are buying these days. I mean look at their lineup for God's sake. Title after Title of the same shit, James Bond, Madden, Lord of the Rings... blah blah. I think your best bet is to find a contact that is inside of Ubisoft that can help with decision making, such as a design lead and tell him/her that community feedback is what will make their game better and better. Or another option is to do a mod off of the easily customizable steam platform and source engine.  sell it over there, and make the game you want to. I miss the good old RS3 days....but only from patch 1.1 to 1.3 haha jk. Good luck with this!

[MindlessOath]

Blackfoot studios did work on the older games from redstorm... did they work on anything that ubi has done?  hence why i say that red storm is NOT the same as they once were, and no matter what they work on will never be good because blackfoot studios isnt working on the projects anymore, AND if they have been, then ubi has the influence to tell them to make crap regardless how they feel.


EA is crap too. do you see any tactical shooters?  not really... battlefield 2 is only because dice made desert combat and they choose to buy it out and run with it.  do you think they could buy rainbowsix from ubi? nope, will they make a tactical shooter, they will say we already have one.

they do the same thing as ubi too, but they have a larger budget.

[mas]

So a hardcore closecombat simulator, wouldn't have audiences? That's what I see stated all the time.
I think it's nonsense, it's a gap in the marked. An up to date killer tactical close combat simulator would blast away all those crap shooters, for all audiences.
-------------
Abusing the name of RainbowSix by selling crap like LockDown, will condition audiences not to buy RainbowSix titles again. Bravo UBI! for destroying your own market.

[TaLoN]

Right now, Blackfoot I belive has done some govenment contract work, and some contract work for RSE(yes beleive it or not they are still a studio that makes alot of their own decisions.)  

As for $$. It totally depends on the numbers we can produce in the investment pool.  # of employees they have, Cost of engine, and other software they need, and Time needed to complete such a job.  If we were to contract them so that we get the game plus content wise lets say 5 maps, with more to be digitally distributed  for a 5 dollar fee based on original sales
(whether feasable to continue).

What would be needed.

1. Major communtiy selling of the investment idea from all of us.
2. Someone to write a contract of investment agreement for the communtiy investors so they cant back out once invested.
3. a Dev studio, such as BlackFoot that are interested in such endevours.
4. a Private section of the fourms for investors only so they have their say on game design appoval process, suggestions, ideas.
5. a Few members of the group to oversee process, money, communication and tools, etc.



Really what Im talking about is a community based Publisher.  With digital distrubution its not imposible at ALL.


50 employees X average dev salary 50 000 = 250 000
Engine =  Free - 500 000 based on level of current graphic quality and engines available.
Software = 150 000
Capital for Owner Gaurentee = 20 000 (bonus inticement)

Preprod = 20 000  (this time is used to produce a proto type for the investors)
Other Misc not accounted for = 50 000

Total Rough estimate =  990 000


80 bucks a person= 12,375 investors
100 bucks a person= 9900 investors
and so on,


Is this a good idea the platoon members and friends might be interested in?
Maybe we should start a poll?

in essence is would be like pre paying thru EB for the game that we want with the potential for profit on investment.

[Dimz]

wow dude , the unreal engine alone costs 1.4 millillion , where you gettin them figures , the ladies' bathroom at ubi ?? lmfao

[TaLoN]

Wow wanna earn another bann?  And No, To answer your question.  No start up is gonna use Ue3, it actually costs 1.5 logistacally speaking. And the majority of other engines are much cheaper. (not to mention the cost of extra employees needed, and the fact that is isnt done yet, which means a larger engineering department)

These are Ruff estimates, by no means final numbers.  But the Idea is Feasable with enough support.

[baff]

The Unreal 2 licence costs $350,000 USD as far as I'm aware but Unreal 3 is still a blind sell. They don't advertise a price so it's negotiable.

The problem with using other "engines" is the research factor. No one has any idea of how long the game will take to make because it has never been done before.
If Blackfoot has their own engine already, then that's O.K. if they are going to develop a new one or convert a free or cheaper one, then developments such as Soldner, Stalker, Halflife 2 and Duke Nukem Forever spring to mind. A long long time with no easily predicted end game.

Essentially I wouldn't intrested in being part of "thousands of investors who all get their say". That's recipe for disaster.

A project needs a project leader, who has the only say.
As an investor I would simply like my right to sack the management if they displease me. (A vote of no confidence).

I would also require a share of the profits equal to over what I would get from the same money if I left it in a savings account.

Essentially if Blackfoot can do it and want to do it, then a bank will lend them money to do it.
Why would they need me?

I would also require the company owner/project leader to put up £20,000 of his own personal money in advance before I would be willing to throw my lot in with him. Just to be sure he is taking it seriously.

The next games company I will be investing in is Atari and only for a couple of months. It's like a spread bet, since they have so many projects that even if one goes vaporware my entire investment won't completely disappear even if for the (first time in my life) I make a loss.

[IRONHEAD]

This is a good sounding Idea so far. I was thinking who are we going to trust with our money? How do we know that guy just wont use it to buy a Porsche? I mean I'm all for it but I would have to know my money would be used for the game. It would be a definite "for us by us" game. There are alot of smart people here and talented to. I am an Air Traffic Controller by trade but I can model pretty good too. I'm sure we can subsidize some of us to cut the labor costs down. When people buy this game it's not like we wont get a return of both pride and money. I would estimated about 1.5 years to 2 years to really re-vamp the R6 series and bring it back from the dead. This thought just in: Maybe we can all be the private investor owners of this and really make it just for "us" as in not public. Just some thoughts.

[TaLoN]

And I totally agree with you on the true "investor" meaning, and the unknown factors.  There would have to be research done in order for a solid plan to come into play.  I also agree that 9000 investors that all get their say would be a nightmare WITHOUT good leadership that can run the show organizing popular opinion.  

But as said before the investment isnt one of a large amount of money, simply the cost of a new game off the shelf.  The idea is interesting, I just like the discussion to explore the possiblities of going beyond the man.  

Drew also has a point thru when he calls on EA, even thou "they would make a wider appealing game than ubisoft", EA is going thru a paradime shift atm, the mandate is new IPs so more than ever the creative staff is working together to make new games.  And I also belive they would listen to the majority of potential buyers, if they were to start a tac shooter.  Rather than the French management system at Ubisoft, where it seems to be stuck in Capitalistic times when a large part of the world has moved to Post-Capitalistic society, espically in the knoledge based industry.

As for the idea, well its just that an idea, threw it out there for discussion.

[TaLoN]

1.5 years to 2 years to really re-vamp the R6 series and bring it back from the dead. This thought just in: Maybe we can all be the private investor owners of this and really make it just for "us" as in not public. Just some thoughts.

Like Baff said, its nice to guesstimate, but with new IPs you can never tell how long it will take, alot of reasearch would have to go into things, such as what experiance does the dev team have and with what engine, what kind of engineering  skills, theres a hell of alot of work to be done to get this off the ground.  

Lets not forget also about our modding bretheran, The Boys over at totalRet are working on somthing now.  More will come.

[Dimz]

yeah well you will never see your own tactical game , and for those that think youre major assets to a company just cuz you saved your allowance for some years , i feel bad for ye .

and have you taken a look at R6 : Vegas , its stunning what it looks like , and if that is an indication of what it will play like , then im happy with the somewhat buggy R63 and ignoring Lockdown altogether .

you people need something , and i know what it is : lives !

i currently got 3 splinter cell's , SWAT 4 + Expansion , and R63 , all of which have an editor (besides SC1 ) , and i do a bit of mapping , modeling , skinning , and very little bits of animation to keep the knowledge of graphics creation in my dome . i dont see why you can pick up a super-pack or somethin in the bargain bin of these excellent games , and if youre so tired of what thyere producing , make the games you already have better . im not making assumptions bout your skill levels here  , but that means youd actually have to do something besides thinkin your a CEO by deciding to pay people to do it for you .

[Lazerblade]

I sent an e-mail to Epic a while back inquiring about UE2.x to use as a design and development tool for a business idea I had. The basic engine, without gamer elements, would cost me $8K, and could not be used to produce interactive "entertainment", meaning I couldn't produce games with it. The full engine w/ game elements had 2 pricetags- $150K w/ royalty-based return to Epic, and $250K w/o royalties. This information is about 2 years old. I just checked and the pricetag of $350K plus 3% royalties is the current listing.

So yeah, it'd be expensive to use. Here are some alternatives:

Source
CryEngine
Serious engine
Torque

There's a big list, including open source engines,