The game development has reached the stage where it could be opened for a group of players, moving from the alpha phase to a closed beta. It used to seem like this would never happen, but it’s happening. We still haven’t found a publisher or investor. If we release the game without them, we probably won’t reach a large number of players. If we could earn some money ourselves, we could invest. We’ve already talked about taking a bigger joint project and using the profits to fund the game as an indie studio. I don’t think that will happen though, because everyone is already working and learning a lot, maybe even too much. Elena is online.
David: Elena, you’re our publisher, right? You have a lot of money.
Elena: Haha. Where will we earn money from? Are we taking from famous families? 🙂
David: Would you take it?
Elena: No. This isn’t an Italo disco game.
David: There are some possibilities. Max found a project. A web app, it fits into our team.
Elena: I know about it, and we’re not doing it.
I didn’t ask why we’re not doing it. It was clear right away there was some problem.
David: And Ian has a project too. A site with a lot of traffic, but it has a problem. It works slowly, at times very slowly. He says it might be under attack and that’s why it’s running poorly. It needs speeding up, and the client would like to change hosting. The owner has upset a lot of people, including the former programmer, so no one really knows who could be attacking it. Apparently, there’s huge traffic on the site, and it’s just getting congested. He suspects someone is deliberately sending false traffic to the site, and the guy selling him hosting says the traffic is abnormal at certain times.
Elena: It doesn’t matter how strong the attack on the server is. What matters is how much money they give us to defend it.
David: Hahahaha. I don’t think there’s any money in this. He hasn’t asked for the price yet, but from the whole story, it’s clear that something isn’t right. The hosting guy is trying to discourage us. He says there are huge files and huge traffic. I don’t know why he wants to keep him on his hosting if he’s not paying enough, as he says.
Elena: Maybe there’s no real problem, he just wants to keep him on his hosting.
David: Maybe, we can’t know. He himself admits he’s not on good terms with the programmer. Let Ian check it out, but it doesn’t look good. By now I know how to sense these things.
Elena: I don’t like communicating with people like that. Luckily, my emails are automatically signed with “kind regards,” I don’t have the energy to write that polite greeting myself.
David: I know about that. 🙂
I only had one really difficult client who drained me. When I told him to stop calling me and that I was leaving the site, I breathed deeply like a peasant, Siman1, when he chased away the mule. I told him he doesn’t have to pay anything, he just need to stop calling. When it comes to money, Max finished a 3D model he’s been working on for two months. The guy hasn’t paid him for about ten days. He says… “If he keeps dragging me along as I did to him, he’s really a jerk.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Elena: Hahahhaha… I dreamed about him last night. We went to a cottage somewhere in nature and everyone went to sleep. He came out of his room, couldn’t sleep. His pillow and blanket had different patterns, they weren’t fitting.
David: Hahahaha… I think I can interpret that dream. I dreamed that all the people who program in PHP will wear a badge on their shoulders.
Elena: That’s because the professor talked in class about how the new generations of languages are liberal, with not strictly defined rules, data types, and you processed that in your sleep.
David: Could be. Oh, and a guy contacted us, he’s almost finished with his economics degree abroad. He wants to talk about the game. Max thinks he’s the fifth member we’re missing. I don’t think so.
Elena: How did he contact you? How can someone just reach out like that, and why are you immediately against it?
David: You know those who studied abroad and now want to come here and manage, invest, change things… show off their knowledge. He may be a spy, maybe an industrial one. You know the type.
Elena: I know… Dositej, Vuk, Tesla…
David: Exactly like that… what do we need them for?
Elena: Is there a real reason why you don’t want him on the team?
David: He doesn’t know what he’s getting into, and I think we’d waste time. I’ve already heard him. Nothing. Well, you’ll hear him too.
The guy who reached out was named Daniel. He heard from an acquaintance that Max is making a game. He introduced himself as someone who knows how online games are published. I was there when he first called Max, and a few days later, Max and I called him back. It was clear that he had been researching online games in the past few days. The game promotion possibilities he mentioned were exactly the same ones we discussed in December when we first started reading about it. He had read blog posts from the first search page. He realized how much work has been done and now he’d love to be part of the team that might succeed, and that he’s quickly researching the topic he presented himself as an expert in. I didn’t want to explain to Elena in detail why I don’t want him on the team, because she might think I didn’t like him on a personal level and that I was discriminating against him. I’m sure she’ll read the situation herself.
David: It is great that he studied abroad. That is additional experience for us. But he’s pointing that out too much. That is why it seems that there is no additional value. I told too much. It was better if I just waited for your conclusion.
Elena: Yes, you talk too much.
1 Peasant Siman is a story written by Nobel award winner Ivo Andric.
