WTP and accepting donations / WTP becoming a commercial game

raystuttgart

Civ4Col Modder
Joined
Jan 24, 2011
Messages
9,637
Location
Stuttgart, Germany
Hi guys,

We have been asked several times over the last years if we would take money / donations.
We have also been asked several times - and also discussed about - starting a game development studio.

And recently such questions have been asked more frequently as well.
Somebody over at Steam had even seemed to believe that we are a "commercial DLC" of Civ4Col.

----

See we do not want to take money from community for our mod because it leaves a stink on modders if they do.
And legally we would also get problems if we did.

But yes, there was some considerations to fully "professionalize" - which modder does not at least consider it at some point?
Not because we are greedy but because we could create this game full time.

To do so however we would and should start from scratch on 100% next generation technology.
We would have to rebuild WTP on newest graphical engine and the most suitable game development framework like Unity / Unreal / Godot / ...

----

See guys, we have between 50 to 100 great concepts we have just never told you about ... :(
Simply because we can not implement all of that at once ...

And we have spent incredible effort and time to design them in ways that AI will understand and to match the overall gameplay design of WTP.
  • There is no lack in ideas ...
  • There is no lack in money ...
  • There is no lack in skills ...
  • There is only lack in time ...
----

The only realistic way to ever finish all those ideas is to start a full commercial game development studio.
But we are resistant to do that because we would not be modders anynmore. We would become paid game developers ...

I had already asked modding colleagues if they wanted to start a real commercial gaming development studio in the past.
I even have enough savings to finance the start of such an enterprise, so that is not the issue.
We have even been thinking about going independend on kick-starter.

And yes we could probably even take all our ideas of WTP and commercialize it.
The IP in it is ours and we could use it for a commercial game.

We would need to make big changes compared to WTP in Civ4Col though e.g. in UI, Screens, graphics, program structure, ... to avoid legal issues.
But that is what we want / wanted to do anyways ....

The core game design, game features, atmosphere ... we created in 13 years could and would however stay the same.
So basically it would simply become a "Next Generation WTP".

----

We might one day actually do that if we really feel that "Next Generation WTP " could earn us a living.
But again that is a heavy life changing decision ... and we will not make it hastily.

At the moment the team will stay a "just a passionate modding team" that works on this mod in its spare time.
And thus at the moment this mod is for free but simply no "next generation game".

This game might be built on an old engine but we have not yet reached the end of the possibilities for gameplay it offers ...
We might not have enough time to realize all the great ideas we have but we still try to go step by step ...

----

Summary:

At the moment nothing will change. WTP will stay to be for free mod.
For the future our options are open and depend on what team and community want.

----

Best regards
WTP team
 
Last edited:
Starting an own game company is always a huge risk.

Take for example
http://www.crystalempiregames.com/index.html

http://www.crystalempiregames.com/about.html

The people started as modders for Paradox´s game EU 1 and EU2 and wanted to change the game more. And with the permission of Paradox worked to create For the Glory! (something like EU2++ with a lot of bugfixes and additional stuff).

Paradox decided to advertise more their own new games (e.g. EU3 and EU4) instead of those that someone else had made for them out of one of their old games. Sales were lower than expected and soon FtG vanished from the main page of Paradox´s forums, practically ending their effort to actually promote the game.

And instead of working and earning fulltime that goal quickly was out of reach and some of them so disappointed that they left the Paradox forums and modding community completely.
 
Starting an own game company is always a huge risk.
And instead of working and earning fulltime .... some of them so disappointed that they left ... modding community completely.

We are aware of that huge risk. :)
Currently we will stay "just a passionate modding team". :thumbsup:
But which real modder does not sometimes also dream about developing a game of his own full time ... :mischief:

We just noticed that recently such questions had been asked more often ...
That is at least an interesting sign in itself for us ...
 
Last edited:
Well the only great success like this (take an old game: with a mod inside) and make a separate game from that:
DotA
what I can think about.
But there were millions of active players which make that possible.

Much more often happens when the original game includes mods/ parts of them in their official update/ partly includes features into their official DLC-s. Or do the same with sequels (include features from old mods into new releases).
 
Well the only great success like this (take an old game: with a mod inside) ...
That is not really what I am talking about. :)

See, you guys know only WTP as it is. :dunno:
But I talk about WTP as it might one day become ...

---

So I am actually talking more of a new game on a new graphics engine with a new game development framework simply using all the great ideas and concepts of WTP.
So no, I have no intention to "just copy" because that would be boring as hell. I would instead like to create something even bigger and better - learning from the good of the past.

---

But true, that is just dreaming. :sad: At least for now .. :mischief:
At the moment WTP is still a mod and no game of its own and we are happy with it. :)

---

Again, there are no serious plans in here. :thumbsup:
It was more a reaction to offers for donations and discussions about WTP being / becoming commercial (on other sites).
 
I would be out immediately and forever.
Fully understandable. :thumbsup:

Becoming a "full time professional game developer" is not a hobby and is not the same as just modding for fun anymore.
You only do something like that if you really want to actually change your professional career.

For the moment, there are no serious considerations to change what we are. :thumbsup:
We are still a mod team that just mods for fun. :)

Summary:

At the moment nothing will change. WTP will stay to be for free.
For the future our options are open and depend on what team and community want.
 
Last edited:
I hope I didn't open Pandora's Box with my post. It's just always been a fall back of mine to throw money at problems I can't solve with my skillset. The problem here being, there isn't another game like this on the market. At least, not one with this level of detail. Whatever you guys decide, you have my axe.
 
I hope I didn't open Pandora's Box with my post.
Do no not worry. :)

The problem here being, there isn't another game like this on the market. At least, not one with this level of detail.
Yes, the gameplay I still envision for We The People (formerly Religion and Revolution) and Path To The Throne simply does not exist.

But I know that we can make it come true - because the game concepts themselves work. :dunno:
I also see that we have so little time for working on it either ... :sad:

I had hoped for this modding community to at one point become big again - and still hope so.
But it is still small compared to the old days, although the modders remaining are really experienced and skilled.

Since taking money from community is no alternative to have this community become bigger again or to give us more time to mod I sometimes think about others ...
I am still dreaming because I see this "golden vision" of what WTP can become. :mischief:

-----

At the moment nothing will change. WTP will stay to be for free mod.
For the future our options are open and depend on what team and community want.
 
Top Bottom