Beats me.
Since I believe there is some kind of royalty payment to the developer who lists their games on TG, there should be some value (in terms of cards) given to players who download the game as part of TG.
          
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Seems like there are positive signals regarding a possible hosting of Star Chamber on TG.net.
The fact that both are award winning and highly rated space TBS games make for a great partnership in my opinion.
I really hope some of you will get into the game if this partnership does materalize.
You guys would really love the intense head-to-head competitive games held over 30-45 minutes each which are usually decided by a single move.
[Message Edited]
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I'd personally like to look into it if it becomes hosted over TG.net, but I don't really have extra money to pay for a subscription now. Would it be covered in the costs of TG.net?
   
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Discussions are still preliminary so I've no idea whether there is an intention to include a Star Chamber subscription as part of TG.net.
What I do anticipate is that TG.net subscribers would get a Star Chamber Starter Package as part of TG.net. That would be enough for players to try out the full game to see if they like to get into it more.
Personally, I think the $6 SC monthly subscription is great value for money as you get cards and tickets with value in excess of $6 and also the opportunity to participiate in subscriber only tournaments, such as the highly prestigious Galaxy Cup.
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I did some analysis on starting a business here in Singapore and at this point in time, I'm not yet able to overcome two main roadblocks.
Firstly, Singapore is extremely small both in terms of market size and physical space. For any business that I could conceivably start with my current skills and capital, there are established competitors a stone's throw away. The market here is quite efficient due to highly developed communications, thus it is difficult to make supernormal profits without key differentiating factors in my product or service.
That is my second problem. I currently do not possess any skill or product which could be differentiated against my potential competition.
Have you patented your invention yet?
Note that you need not go down the business route if your passion is with inventing. You could license your invention to businesses and make money out of it that way.
You should consider that four years could be a very long time if your invention relates to technologies that have a very short commercial shelf life.
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Niche products such as yours are well suited for small startups, especially if there are few competitors.
Does your tens of sales per year represent a global market demand or just the US market? Are there any global competitors that you are aware of?
If you can successfully differentiate your product in the minds of your customers in terms of product quality, my opinion is that you should not undercut your competitor in terms of price. Price it above your competitor so that both of you can enjoy monopolistic profits.
You should also consider a scenario where you license your invention to the current monopoly and see what you can get out of that. This is not an easy analysis though as you probably wouldn't know how they would be willing to pay in terms of license fees. There is also the possibility that they will challenge your patent once they get news of it so a solid patent is important. Patenting is a very expensive process though. I hear US patent attorneys charge hundreds of dollars an hour. Who is bearing the patent costs?
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Just curious, anyone know what happened to Matthew? Haven't seen him for a long time. 
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but Matthew did submit a game. . . 
    
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I can read this thread from work, as long as no-one catches me. I just didn't have anything to say on the subject of the microscope-component trade.
I got some professional feeback on my novel. He advises me to rewrite it but not to bin it. I may even read the rest of what he wrote at some point. Why is it that advice always feels like criticism, and criticism always feels like being kicked in the teeth?
 
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#1641
by Citizen CypherPax - 8/12/2004 1:33:57 PM
Vincible,
You seem to have a great business case. There's a myth that business are hard to run, but over the first five years of their life only about 5% of business fail a year. If you can find the time - it probably won't be that hard for you to get your business off the ground now.
I ran (run) a small software business which I suspended because I acquired a large client who hired me. I'm currently in the process of helping my wife start a decorating business... believe or not, the business end is largely the same. The hard part is finding a idea to commercialize.
Setting up a partnership is something you can do quickly and relatively cheaply in most states. I'd be happy to chat if you're interested, but you're better off talking to someone in your field who has had experience commercializing a product if you can.
I'd advise you to go for it now -- I don't know how familiar you are with IP law - but it doesn't favor you unless MIT chooses to get involved. Patent cases that a LONG time to resolve and probably more money that you'd make given your market size (particularly in a federal court if you competitor is based in another state). Software is definitely a different animal than your type of research, but you might want to consider moving fast..
With a speciality product, your competition is also not likely to be charging list price. I did tech sales for specialized production systems where price list was twice cost - but typically sales where about 25-40% profit. If your competition is a public company, you should be able to ballpark how much they're actually charging and roughly what percentage they claim as profits. Also, if they're selling to a public organization (i.e. a state school) - you can often dig up records of the transaction or a budget.
Also, I wouldn't share your production costs in a public forum. Don't forget to build in the labor cost as a salary (especially if you do the work yourself). You need to include wages, benefits, taxes, and insurance as part of your cost as it will:
1. Provide a more realistic business plan.
2. Most likely help with your taxes (given your potential revenues you may consider an LLC or even a corporation instead of a partnership but I'm not an accountant so I can't make a recommendation other than my accountant had me set up as LLC after it was clear yearly revenues would be over 200K. You sound like you'd be in the same boat rather quickly...).
Good luck...
Michael (Cypher)  Email
  
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I haven't experienced any problem with the metaverse. My score seems to go down once per month, when I shift into a new block or whatever, and then go up on my next couple of games.
I've been modding GalCiv, trying to fix the things I find annoying about it. My main changes are:
All the buildings I never bothered building have been improved. (It seemed odd that I could build a galactic empire without a single hospital and no-one would mind...)
A super gaia-transformation type planetary improvement, which takes ages to build. (so there is almost always something left worth building... I hate it when I'm wasting money because I need to build things on some planets but have nothing left to build on others.)
A couple of +1 sensor bonuses in previously useless techs, for ease of scouting.
Galactic Domination Philosophy now gives you some bonuses (I never research it, but it's always irritated me).
Anti-matter missiles halved in power, in order to make it more balanced for the bots, who don't know how to use them.
Battle-hammers are replaced with a defensive ship, like a superior Battle-axe that can hold off a Battleship. (I was hoping the AI would recognise the value of these and not leave his planets unguarded.)
And, for less clicking, I reduced the number of ships I needed to build:
A bigger combat transport, earned with Ranger tech.
An instant-terror star upgrade, which costs 10,000BC but only takes one constructor.
An expensive but instant culture-palace upgrade.
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