Today on the SEGA News Bits we have not only one, but two videos for you to enjoy. Why two? Well, we ran too long and I decided it was best to cut the conversation into two separate videos. The above video is Barry’s initial impressions of Hucast Games’ Dreamcast Shoot ’em up Ghost Blade. The second video has us talking about the article that DCGX wrote about Hucast games (the publisher of Ghost Blade). Its a great article, check it out.
If you want to see our video on our Ghost Blade impressions, thats above and if you wanna see us whine about the Dreamcast indie scene you can watch that below. If you like what you see don’t forget to comment, like, share and subscribe to us on YouTube.
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Unboxing: Pier Solar Japanese packaging for the SEGA Dreamcast
1) Yes, Rene is primarily an artist.
He does the graphics, Timm does the coding. I don’t know why people think he is not with NGDT. I interviewed him for this site after Dux came out! He was promoting Fast-Striker. He even gave George a review copy. All you have to do is open any NGDT games manual to see his name clearly printed.
2) Alice’s Mom’s Rescue was announced for March 23rd 2015, it came out on February 9th.
http://www.alice.hucast.com/
3) For Dux Rene hired KTX Software to do the programming. when they screwed up he gave out free revision discs. You do realize that shipping those games would actually cost 1/3rd of total profits right. Note that I said Total and not Gross.
The original Dux only had only a thousand units and fortunately most of the people had ordered Redux so they got it shipped for free. Redux was also KTX’s fault and after Redux Hucast and KTX have parted ways. Leona’s Tricky Adventure is the only indie game Rene has not promoted he usually promotes/stocks all indie games whether he publishes them or not.
He hired a new programmer for Ghost Blade who was forced to quit in the middle of Ghost Blade’s development due to War in his country. I could go on but DCS has already covered all of this all you have to do is go on the game page.
3) If you don’t like there shipping why do you order from them? He is partnered with Play-Asia for distribution and has openly said he wants international customers to order through them (he deleted the blog post where he said he won’t be doing international shipping otherwise I would have linked it).
4) Read the release date:
http://www.alice.hucast.com/
Read the release date:
http://www.dreamcast-scene.com/games/alice-moms-rescue/
Hucast does not burn cd’s. They are pressed in China. They have to be flown to Germany tested and then shipped out. Sturmwind had to go through 3 print runs before booting on a Dreamcast. Pressing Disc’s is not the same as burning disc’s on your computer.
4) Neo XYX sold out a year before it was released so how could sales be a factor?
DCS/DC Emu writer Christuserloser directly asked NGDT why they don’t develop for Dreamcast:
They actually stopped developing because of the hate they received from the scene over Razion.
5) If you’re tired of Shmups pre-order Alice Dreams Tournament here 🙂
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1911102035/alice-dreams-tournament-for-sega-dreamcast?ref=nav_search
I have question the role you play with Hucast. You seem to be on the PR defense force, often arguing the most inconsequential things and ignoring the important points. DCGX said Last Hope sold well, you disagree and write on and on about it despite it being an inconsequential point. You keep bringing up Alice’s Mom Rescue releasing ahead of schedule, ignoring that it was a game already made and ready for release which Rene merely published. Not to mention, Alice was not the focus of the article, Hucast developed games like Dix, Redux, and Ghost Blade were. People ordered from Hucast, they should not be told they should have ordered from play-Asia. It is not the customers fault for ordering from Hucast. It’s all on Hucast.
You also are promoting Alice Dreams Tournament in the comments for no reason other than that you are affiliated with them somehow, but refuse to say in what capacity. As is you are coming off as a incognito PR representative, which makes it hard to believe anything you say.
Hey,
I just commented on stuff that I found inaccurate. I am not acting as Hucast’s PR representative as I am not. I was educating you on things you are unaware about, they didn’t seem inconsequential to me.
That said, you are correct I work with a number of publishers and developers as a PR consultant including Alice Dreams Tournament but you already know that cause I PM’ed you last month. I apologize for the shameless plug there, but you guys did say you are tired of shmups so I thought I should share.
Hucast has their fair share of questionable marketing and management issues. They ignoring the whole Caravan mode removal thing is wrong, he should have addressed it better. I am not arguing against that.
The sales print information was taken directly from NG:Dev.Team’s website as they used to share that in the post. You can go through archive.org to read them.
Back to Ghost Blade the game was announced for a December 2013 release. It was delayed for over a year, due to things that he could not control.
http://www.dreamcast-scene.com/news/war-impacts-the-development-of-ghost-blade/
He is not a programmer, go through any of your Hucast game manuals and read his role.
Off course none of this excuses Hucast for improper communication, but knowing how few units they actually move is not inconsequential. I shared that information with you so you could understand the true economics of the business. George was off the opinion the DC Scene does along the lines of 10,000 units. Even Pier Solar being cross platform only had 3,519 backers.
Tim and Rene all members of the Dreamcast scene have jobs. At some point Rene had to make the tough decision to delay the game or release it without Caravan. He opted to go silent and get some return on investment, just like he remained silent about the resolution of Redux. On the flip side he does offer free revision discs, yes he charges for shipping but he has to. He is not a million dollar corporation. International shipping is expensive and you should be mindful about the economics.
Lastly, comments like they are just “burning disc’s” is just wrong. You should realize that and not write them off as something inconsequential.
I am sorry that you perceive me sharing business economics with you is perceived as inconsequential PR talk. But indie development is an extremely hard business and I feel sympathy for these developers.
On an unrelated note:
http://www.destructoid.com/indie-dev-s-angry-rant-demonstrates-the-stress-after-being-kickstarted-314636.phtml
^ Yes, I did pre-kickstarter PR for Elysian Shadows.
Edit: I meant Tim and Rene are the only few full time indie developers other developers like Duranik, Senile Team etc have jobs.
I really like these SEGA News Bits. I find myself checking them out more than any of the other podcast I come across.
Why is it that new Dreamcast stuff is always restricted to shmups? It’s great that there still getting made and all, but why only one genre, is it because it’s the cheapest to produce or something?
I think its just cheaper to produce, this is why SEGA Saturn had a ton of them too.