DLing Vendetta and selling activation keys instead of tangible disks also makes Piracy much easier. Guild is a small company, so piracy would hurt them a lot more than it would someone like EA or MS. They can't just absorb a million dollar loss in sales due to potential pirates. That's why I'm all for selling discs instead, although it wouldn't be all that hard to pirate those either.

For the merchandising aspect.

You do not have to go out to make $3000 by merchandising. I have merchandised all sorts of things from family reunions to sports tournaments. It is extremely cheap actually, it does not have a huge profit margin but I would think 500-1000 is better then 0.

Find a small supplier to deal with small amounts. Here the local newspaper runs a sideline merchandising business. They make coffee mugs, shirts, hats etc. and it is very cheap since they have to compete with the big guys around. They also offer orders in increments of 50 which is nice.

Don't expect a visible profit of more then 10-15%- the money will not roll in from it thats for sure... however if you get a few people wearing the stuff to net-meets or gaming conventions you will spark some interest.

Guild is a small company so you need to think in small terms. A few hundred dollars is not that much, but spreading the word of Guild is worth a lot.

If nobody bought your stuff then you would be stuck with it of course heh. Maybe make some sort of pre-order thing to see what the interest is.

Celebrim, take a look at the link I provided above. There are options where there are NO EXPENSES involved. You pay NOTHING and you get SOMETHING out of it. So yeah, I'd consider something like that if I were running off of donations. Getting a check in the mail on a monthly basis without having to manage inventory and production costs is certainly better than getting no money at all and giving up on the whole idea of producing merchandise. You make the fans happy and you get money in your pockets. How can this be a bad thing?

Don't want to have to deal with another business managing your merchandise? No problem!

I've got a friend here in college that has a band which makes some good money off of merchandise. Now, it's not a band that's popular nationwide or anything, but it goes around touring, has its own website, and gives out promotional CDs. The material used to produce their t-shirts and sweatshirts is transfer paper. Granted there are varying qualities of transfer paper out there that range from total suckage to absolute l33tn3ss, typically a stack of 12 transfer paper sheets costs no more than $14. Each shirt sells for about $10 each. Anyway, if he were to use up the whole stack and sell all twelve t-shirts, he'd get $120 out of a small investment of $14. That IS a big deal.

Still, I'd much rather try out cafepress.com before producing merchandise on my own. I doubt the devs have the time to sit around and print t-shirts all day, rather than working on the game. What do they have to lose? It's totally free! I'm sure cafepress.com isn't the only company that offers such a deal either. You gotta get out there and do research to find the best deals.

Will I buy the game? Absolutely.

Asp

Rather off-topic, but speaking of merchandising. What if someone came up with a flyer for Vendetta? Perhaps with a screenshot and the Vendetta website. I'd be willing to post a few around campus, that might help get the word out.

I4ve had lotta fun with Vendetta , sadly , it's old now , it was the time of serial capping , massive war in s7 and all...

Now thre game is something a bit lazy, but even if i don't play as often as i play for other games , if the fee isn't more than FFXI one , then yes i'll pay my due to Guild to have brought me some hours of hapyness in the ONLY space fight game i've ever take some pleasure to play with..

Yes u'll probably see me

P.S: Do they accept €uros? =)

Just curious.

I'll advance order this game and a year's subscription just as soon as it becomes available. Who else will I see around the universe once the final product is out?

/me has no money. But I will get the 'rents to pay for it.

so

/me will!

Heh heh, the " 'rents".

Yeah i dunno about advanced ordering, i don't usually do that, but when it is released I'll try to get my hands on a copy.

Depends on the cost. The devs have said in the past that they'll try to keep it a very cheap monthly fee. Realistically it all depends on the publisher (if they can find one). I'd personally be willing to pay for a yearly subscription fee of up to $50. If it's anything more I'll probably pass. I'm not a big fan of games that cost $10 a month. That's just way too much for what I can afford.

I also encourage you to donate to Guild Software if you haven't. They're going to need better equipment in the future, so donating now may help keep costs down in the long run. They're practically developing the game off of nothing now. And by nothing I mean very little. Or who knows, maybe it IS nothing.

=/

I'll pay anything. ANYTHING!!1!

well atm I would not because I am broke....by the time it comes out I would pay a decent amount.

heh I started a change jar when it gets to a decent amount I will cash it in and send Guild whatever is in it. Its only around 10 bucks atm. Its amazing how much change you get in a few weeks though.

I will pay for 3 or 6 months once final version is available.

It's pretty likely I will. Obviously it depends on the price and my finacial situation at the time, but trying to guess what all of that will be like, I'll probably buy it.

If I can I certantly plan to buy this game. I think that guild ought to look into self publishing tho. With as far as they have come on their own, I'd kinda hate to see a publisher come in and take over. They gotta do what they have to do tho, It's awful hard to eat when you're broke, and they definitely deserve some compensation for this.

I will pay a crappier player that always dies 5 million credits a month to pay for my account lol

I'll pay, but you guys need to know that the monthly fee isn't to line there pockets with gold, it's to pay for the server, upgrades for the server, the connection the server needs, etc.

Don't forget expenses already incurred. There's been a lot of time put in to Vendetta with no income coming out of it.

So what exactly do the devs "do" for a living anyway?

Given how much time I've spent with this product, price really isn't the question - though obviously if the product were priced at well above whatever is the market price for MMORPG's at the time of release that would end my interest. I don't find that really likely though, because certainly Vendetta's problems are not what could be called 'cost overruns'. Therefore whether or not I will buy depends almost entirely on the quality of the final product.

In my opinion, and of course my uninformed opinion doesn't count for anything, Vendetta desparately needs a cash infusion to add content and untimately to pay marketing costs. I think my reasoning should be obvious, and I won't participate in a thread discussing why for equally obvious reasons, except to say to those that think Guildsoft should self-publish that usually by this point in production there is a glut of content compared to the completeness of the code.

I certainly hope to buy this game, if that is anything like an answer.