http://www.rpgwatch.com?rwsiteid=4 Watching out for news at Locus Inn http://www.rpgwatch.com?rwsiteid=4 http://www.rpgwatch.com/images/default.gif http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?rwsiteid=4&newsbit=18887 Swen "Lar" Vincke discusses why indie developers should think about retail releases more often compared to only going for digital publishing on his personal blog. Larian’s distribution strategy can be summarized as follows, sorted by how we prefer a sale to be made.... 2012-01-30T21:57:21+01:00 http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?rwsiteid=4&newsbit=18863 Rock Paper Shotgun has interviewed Swen "Lar" Vincke on Dragon Commander and on the move of Larian Studios to become self publishing. RPS: Yes, the game does seem quite different to your previous offerings, can you explain why you went that route? Vincke: I have this little notebook here full of game ideas that I’d like to do, and I’ve tried pitching them to publishers, several times, and I’ve never managed to get funding.... 2012-01-27T12:24:56+01:00 http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?rwsiteid=4&newsbit=18840 Swen "Lar" Vincke continues his articles on publishers with a short one about why developers should be carefull in discussing the marketing budget with examples of how that budget is sometimes spent. It’s extremely hard to argue whether or not marketing costs are allowed.... 2012-01-24T12:36:24+01:00 http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?rwsiteid=4&newsbit=18837 Larian has a free humorous Chinese New Year promo, offering up a Dragon Commander in-game item in return for your email address: Dear Customers, Today we celebrate the arrival of the year of the Black Water Dragon. The whole team of The Burning Imps, Inc.... 2012-01-23T21:06:31+01:00 http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?rwsiteid=4&newsbit=18829 Swen 'Lar' Vincke writes about the "quality over quantity" debate and his own internal battle with the subject. He also mentions Project E in passing and although fans will know this is a full RPG, he confirms it saying "project E is very much what people expect from us, a big RPG with all the stuff that goes with it".... 2012-01-21T00:42:37+01:00 http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?rwsiteid=4&newsbit=18799 Once again, Swen Vincke has blogged about Larian's plans to make "the very big RPG that will dwarf them all", with more interesting insight into the business side. On the cost of making Dragon Knight Saga: Here’s a break-down of what it cost us to make the Dragon Knight Saga 4M € employees 900K€ freelancers 270K€ outsourcing of artwork 200K€ hardware 700K€ software licenses 400K€ localisation for a total of 6,5M€.... 2012-01-16T21:13:11+01:00 http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?rwsiteid=4&newsbit=18783 Lar has made another update to his blog where he briefly explains the revenues of a game with the promise to explain more about this at a later stage. On a 39,95 game in Germany, this is a typical breakdown found in royalty reports (numbers rounded) The state (VAT 19%): -7,5€ Retail: -10€ Inflated publisher costs: -5€ (Logistics, sales and payment conditions) Cost of goods: -1,5€ Net revenue: 15,95€ So if you sell 100K units in Germany, your net revenue in theory is about 1,6M€.... 2012-01-13T09:46:20+01:00 http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?rwsiteid=4&newsbit=18746 Lar writes in his column today what moved him to make Larian Studios self funding. In it he writes about what publishing tasks can be done by Larian and that for getting boxed copies of the game in shops a publisher would still be needed. So after having sat through several of those defining first-impression moments where I saw the marketing guys pick up their blackberries after seeing a couple of minutes of footage of the games we were working on, I came to the conclusion that if the game wouldn’t look and move like a first person shooter at the same stage of development, and didn’t feature a big hook that could be communicated in one phrase, it would never work.... 2012-01-09T14:08:52+01:00 http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?rwsiteid=4&newsbit=18736 An English PC retail version of Larian's Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga is available in the UK as of today. Since mail order is strong in the UK it should be relatively easy to get your hands on a retail version now, if you still prefer boxed to digital.... 2012-01-06T13:40:20+01:00 http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?rwsiteid=4&newsbit=18729 Lar has updated his blog with an article on DRM, why he used to pirate games, bought them and what he sees as the future. But secondly, I think the entire DRM argument is part of a dying model, at least in its current form. Traditionally we expect people to pay for the entire experience present in the box, even if the game doesn’t turn out to be as expected.... 2012-01-05T15:01:25+01:00 http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?rwsiteid=4&newsbit=18676 Lar has a final blog post for 2011, wishing the community the best for the holiday season and summarising Larian's 2011. Lar confirms Dragon Commander for 2012 and covers off their ridiculously busy year - 5x kids games, an iPhone game, Dragon Commander, Project E and possibly a Facebook game.... 2011-12-21T23:52:19+01:00 http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?rwsiteid=4&newsbit=18659 An interesting post on Lar's World, with Swen Vincke thinking about the 6-figure cost of doing voiceovers for Dragon Commander and wondering if the money could be used better to develop other features. I'm pretty sure I know how our readers will feel - and also what the final result will be - but it's worth a read: I’m sitting with an egg.... 2011-12-19T23:39:31+01:00 http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?rwsiteid=4&newsbit=18633 Lar has blogged about putting controversial content into Dragon Commander such as "euthanasia, abortion, illegal immigrants, healthcare, same sex marriage, drugs, religious tolerance": So now we’re making Dragon Commander, and one of the things we’re trying to do with that  game is putting recognizable real world situations in a fantasy context.... 2011-12-14T20:59:38+01:00 http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?rwsiteid=4&newsbit=18600 Larian's Swen 'Lar' Swencke has launched a new blog that will hold his Larian "Status Updates" from now on. Lar hasn't penned a proper update yet bu there are some stories about publishers and royalties that might interest anyone that watches the business aspect of the games industry.... 2011-12-08T20:46:59+01:00 http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?rwsiteid=4&newsbit=18577 That was fast...Larian has released the DRM-removal patch for Dragon Knight Saga - it's a drop-in .exe replacement and make sure you pay attention to details (v1.4.9.70 required). 2011-12-02T21:12:07+01:00