BUSINESS PLANS

The development project
This project consists of two phases.

We are currently in Phase 1. This is the design phase. The goal of this phase is to have a complete design document and a playable demo of the game by May 2003.
Phase 1 is non-commercial. This is important to ensure that quality is our primary concern. Phase 1 is a research project. The possiblity of failure is inherent to any research project. Phase 1 is non-commercial to allow for this possibility of failure. We obviously don't plan to fail, but success means nothing to us if it is not first and foremost creative success.

In October 2003, Phase 2 will start with setting up a business with investors in order to produce and publish the game. At that point we will obviously write up a real and formal business plan. This Phase will probably be 2-3 years long and involve extra team members.


Selling the game
The target audience of "8" is not the small group of hardcore gamers but rather a larger group of people interested in more poetic entertainment. We are not alone in this. Games like "Silent Hill", "Ico", "The Sims" and "Black & White" also address this audience. As violent games get more and more extreme, the need for more peaceful games increases. Also, as the game audience gets larger (and more mature), the demand for more sophisticated content and less complicated gameplay increases. For this new audience playing games should be fun, not work.

"8" definitely fits in with a relatively new trend in game design. In fact, we are doing our very best to make the game as conventional as we possibly can. Being the crazy artist types we are, we know that, even when we try to make a conventional game, it will still be very very edgy for some people's tastes.
One thing that sets "8" apart from a lot of games is that there will be no explicit violence in it. There will be violence implied in certain scenes, but never will the player have to exercise violence in any way. Also, the main character cannot die and will not get wounded. We find it surprising if not shocking that killing and dying have become standard elements in many games. In fact, most of htese games cannot be finished without the main character dying over and over again. "8" will be a world of uninterupted gameplay in which the adrenaline rushes come from elements in the gameworld's narrative rather than from artificially injected slash-and-hack or risky-venture scenes.
Another innovative aspect of "8" is that, despite of its saturation with narrative elements, the game itself will be virtually plotless. This is something that it does share with shooter games. The plot of the game can be very easily summarized: retreive the 8 stolen objects. No other information is required in order to play the game. We find convoluted plot lines in games cumbersome. They hamper gameplay more than they serve it. This does not, however, mean that the game's content should be flimsy, as is the cases in shooter games. "8" will stand stiff with narrative elements. The difference is that we will not connect these elements to form a plot. We leave that task to the player. In fact, we see discovering, or even making up, these stories, as an essential part of the gameplay. One could say that "8" has an interactive (rather than a fixed or branching) plot.
To stimulate the users creativity in putting together these plot lines, the game itself will be completely non-linear. This is also something that is rarely seen in contemporary games. Most games, apart from some simulation games perhaps, follow a linear thread. Either through the advancement in the story or by moving up to new levels. Some games branch a little or have a few different endings. But there are only a very limited number of ways to go from beginning to end. In "8", that number is infinite.

One of the things that may make "8" appealing to publishers, is that we see it as part of a series. Similar to Belgian comic strips like Tintin, this series will involve the same main characters put in very different situations. Each of these situations will be based on a classic fairy tale or other well known story. Every game will have a number as its title (though not consecutive). The idea is also to make each game relatively small. In our experience, only hardcore gamers ever finish the currently available large games. It seems a waste of time to make games that are larger than most people would play. Rather than making a few big productions, we would prefer to make a long series of smaller games (some 10 to 20 hours of gameplay per game). This does not mean that each game will be shallow. On the contrary: we see our games as poetry while the other games are prose. They will contain a dense concentration of elements rather than smearing them out over months and months of repetitive game)play and "clever" plot twists.
Smaller games will decrease the investment it takes for making a game and increase the amount of games put out. They also have the added advantage of providing the designer with more chances to try new things.
The mother of the Deaf Mute Girl in the Pretty White Dress is called Sheherazade which, as you know, is the also the name of storyteller in "1001 Nights". The frame story around our games consists of Sheherazade talking her daughter for a walk and possibly telling her stories. At certain points in the series, this frame story may come more to the fore than in "8".
It this point, however, we try not to think to much about the series, in favour of concentrating on this game, our first, which we want to be perfect. Also, we never mention this serial aspect in public. No need to create expectations that one might not be able to fulfill.