The Future of Jaguar Game Production
I'm taking the time away from running my business (& the usual sneaky working on P1

this afternoon to try to bring together the beginnings of some ideas regarding the future of game production on Jaguar. As things stand there are quite some hurdles to leap for any team that wants to recapture that time in 90s when the Jaguar was still an active system with active licensed devs, by producing a physical product to keep for themselves & also to sell to collectors & gamers. But firstly let's not get overly grand of ourselves, what's around now is not a commercially viable market for games production with teams of real software houses, this is hobbyist game production for an open platform by teams of real enthusiasts who do it because it's something they really like doing. Something to be a part of & something to be proud of in a way that most real commercial game studios can't possibly make work in 2009 & haven't been able to do so for many years. The community on Jaguar is very special in it's own ways & nobody can dispute that.
I'd like to take a fresh look at as many possibilities I can come up with for devs making games, for those games ending up in the hands of gamers & collectors & hopefully everything in between. I'm not going to claim to have come up with anything unique, special or revolutionary, I just want to bring about a discussion to try to find the best way of doing things in 2009 and beyond.
Firstly I'd like to examine the end user. There seems to be two major labels one could place here, but they are not mutually exclusive. There are collectors at one end of the spectrum - they want boxes for their shelves as much as they want software to play the games. There are gamers at the other, they don't care about boxes or printed manuals, they want to play new games.
Of course, hardly anyone fits into either group, most people are at a point somewhere along the line. So that's the basis for the Jaguar end-user community as I'm looking at it, and the requirements of every individual along that line should be considered when a dev produces a game.
So on to business... I'll mention different ways of going about things, some of which are compatible with each other or can overlap. Pros, cons & other notes included.
Possible directions to take:
Do nothing.
Continue to produce games & put them on cartridges & produce all the paraphenalia that comes along with a release such as printed boxes & manuals, overlays, inserts, physical carts & chips, etc.
pros:
No cost to developer other than drain on resources in making, printing, managing, posting, money handling, tax issues, etc.
cons:
Open to rom dumping
Open to possible play in emulators (although it should not be too difficult to create code that will crash/hang any or all of the current emulators).
Open to play on dev hardware such as skunkboards, flash carts & alpine boards. It should not be too difficult to prevent code running on these unless they offer precise & 100% timed cartridge emulation (Too technical for me to comment further).
Soft or limited release
The developer produces a manual, packaging, label & whatever else is required & sells those and only those physical items or virtual versions as downloads to be made up by the end user, adding in whatever level of extra compensation above the costs of those physical items he or she wishes to receive for their efforts, not only in producing these but also developing the software. Have someone with technical experience & hardware required produce the carts.
pros: less hassle for devs (less management of resources, money, etc)
less outlay for devs (cart programming hardware, boards, chips, any other physical cart stuff)
more of the work outsourced to someone who knows their stuff & could buy things in bulk for multiple releases & reduce costs to the end user. They could decide on the level of compensation for their efforts.
cons: not everyone would be interested in taking the DIY route. solution?: maybe another outside source could work similarly to the cart producer to do the non-carts stuff. There are many community members who would love to have more involvement in their hobby & this could be an outlet for their creative energies.
maybe there aren't so many people interested in being the hardware guy, but I imagine there would be at least one person in the US & one in Europe.
Software only release
The developer produces a downloadable game file that can be played on which ever of the current dev solutions are compatible. Possibly allow play in emulators if required for people who no longer or never owned a Jaguar. Manual, box art etc can be downloaded as in the above method & charged or given away as the dev sees fit. Payment can be required for download with the proceeds going to the devs or to charity or whatever the dev decides works for them. Optional payments with minimum but no maximum level would also possible - requiring trust placed in end user but also the opportunity for end users to pour praise on the dev or their chosen charity financially.
pros: no extra cost to devs
little effort or management required to get a game out
no dev time wasted on physical production except testing on various hardware
any bugs in the software can easily be fixed
easy & cheap to implement a simple watermarking of files compared to burning similar unique files to roms
cons: open to abuse from sharing & illegal downloads
collectors prefer physical products
Software only - registration
Similar to above, but only a demo version is available freely to being with. Registration brings a full version, a personal 'thank you' form the dev & a user who is happy to spend on a product they believe in. It could also involve some kind of packaging/printed manual/diy files being made available.
Restricted release to known good people
The developer only sells their game to people they know to be trustworthy.
pros: buyers should be trustworthy & the game should stay safe
creates a special feeling for collectors to know they are trusted & deserving
cons: resale cannot realistically be restricted
trust can be misplaced. You cannot truly know another person well enough, esp. over the 'net. Later disagreements could lead to vengeful actions such as giving the game to a rom dumper.
very limited scope for potential buyers, possibly leading to low volume/high costs for production materials.
Other points:
Hardware protection : Dongles or similar
The developer creates (or has made by a suitable techie) a hardware add-on such as a dongle. This could even be linked to a unique code in the game software making it for individual use only.
pros:
would help protect from casual rom dumping
cons:
cost of initial development & cost of physical hardware.
still susceptible to attack from hackers.
hardware can fail, it's one more thing that can go wrong.
Software protections: To stop emulators, dumping, dev hardware etc.
pros:
little cost to implement other that of time & effort.
cons:
protections can be cracked.
could introduce the 'sport' of hacking/cracking to the jaguar community.
At the beginning I referred to the two ends of the Jaguar end user scale. Now I'd like to explore beyond those.
romzkiddiez - Are they even worth a mention? I believe so, just for completeness. Who are they? What do they do? I think the best way to look at them is this. They take stuff they have no right to take and they may even play it, but I'm not sure they always even bother - it could be a compulsion or something, but their aim is to collect something in a very different way to genuine collectors. They burn CDs & DVDs of romz & then file the discs away. So in a way they are a type of collector, yes, but the kind that doesn't serve the community in any way. Are they dangerous? Potentially, if they are the kinds of people who trade in such things - it happens, but they were never likely to be a genuine part of the community & put anything back in at all. They are so far outside the scope of the term community that they are only worth considering regarding their negative effects on the real community, they bring nothing back. They would never have been a lost sale as they do not buy games. Devs can consider them or ignore them in their decision making.
End bit (don't say phew! I know it's a long post
So there's my initial thoughts. Of course, a jumbled up mix of many of those ideas is also possible, depending on how it suits any particular dev or team. I'd love some serious, flame-free discussion on the above thoughts & also like to hear of other solutions that anyone has. It would be a great achievement to pull resources together for the benefit of everyone in the whole community & also to get feedback not only from the devs but the end users and anyone else who has an idea or a view from their perspective.
Personally, I feel it basically boils down to devs having to have a reasonable level of trust in the community & balancing that with how much time they want to spend preventing those on the fringes or outside from having the game without any payback. If we take a step back & approach the problems with a fresh look and maybe the jaguar community ends up a better place for collectors, gamers, techies & devs alike. I'm not going to go into the details of how my group plan to do their game distribution yet as basically we've not decided 100%. It'll be based on much that I have written about above but nothing is set in concrete & I would like to learn more form the community before taking those kinds of decisions.
My 2p.
-kZa/reboot
ps feel free to pm me if you'd prefer not to put your ideas forward in person for whatever reason, I really do want to hear form everyone who believes they have something worth discussing/adding/pointing out - whatever it is
