So BZ is TOTALLY out of the HOPA business?  Just mobile games now?  And I really don't understand how games conceived and developed by BZ can be the intellectual property of BFG.  But I really don't understand much about computers or the gaming business.  I guess I should check out the BZ Forums.  Although they've never been overly informative.

For some developers BF is merely the distributer (they just sell the games), but for others they are also the publisher, which appears to mean they are much more involved in the producing of the game.  Each developer will have a contract and these will vary from  dev to dev, but here's some comments from the CEO of Eipix (BF publishes Eipix games and did publish BoomZap's games).  My comments about each comment will be the bits in parentheses.

If there were not for Big Fish we would still be a 3 man studio and hungry at that. Not glorifying anybody just saying that for independent devs life is HARD, and having a big publisher support you can really mean the difference between success and going bust.  (So I'd have to say that BF does bankroll some of their partner developers significantly.  A co-owner of BZ had repeatedly stated that not all publishers are the same and that BF is one of the top publishers.)

I would personally like to work with every customer to try to fix their problem, but there is the legal matter of what happens if the user creates some problems with his/her computer while trying to fix the game or send us data, which is why we are advised never to directly help customers in this way.  (I wonder just how much trouble it caused between BF and BZ when BZ was allowing people to submit problems with FTP games directly to BZ.)

Just had a meeting with Big Fish and it looks like Final Cut is here to stay. We might be actually accelerating that franchise a bit so you can expect more than just Final Cut 3 starting from early next year.  (So it appears that BF has some say in which games a developer works on)

A co-owner of BoomZap remarked that it cost upward of 1 million dollars to make a CE quality HOPA.  When you look at how many games each major developer is making each year, you know that they have to be getting funding from some outside source. 

That source is BF and I'm guessing that the developers sign over the intellectual properties rights in exchange for that funding. And that means that if BF chooses, we could see another developer continuing some or all of the BoomZap series.

I've also read on the BF blogs that BF meets with its partner developers and does sometimes suggest storylines and does offer some other creative input.



 

That's interesting, Tirama, on the inner workings of the gaming industry.

oscar...I thought The Emptiness was really good too.  There is plenty of help in the forum for this game in case you get stuck.  You might even see my help request from way back when I was playing and was answered by locojet.  I can just picture Tank listening to all the sounds and hiding out under the desk. 

I finished Sable Maze: Sullivan River CE.  Once I started playing I realized that I played this one before, but since I started it, I figured that I would finish it.  It was pretty good for a older game 9/2012. As freyasmom would say it was heavily colored with a blue crayon, but the story was pretty good and lasted all the way to the end of the game.  The graphics were clear and the VO were good.   I have not played any of the other Sable Maze games yet.

teeitup...I was this close (...) in buying a Veronica Rivers game.  Now I am glad I didn't get it.

lilyr -- considering the star ratings that the last 2 MCF games developed by BF received, I'm glad they got Elephant Games to make the newer ones.  I will never play Escape from Ravenhearst (3.6 star rating)  a 2nd time, it was just too gross, and didn't even bother buying Shadow Lake (2.6 star rating).

People seem to complain when a different developer takes over a series, but they tend to compare the newest game with the BEST the previous developer produced and forget how dissatified they had become with the later games in the series.  For instance, the Dark Parable games.  Eipix might not be Blue Tea, but in the later games, Blue Tea didn't sem like Blue Tea to me.

Tirama -- You're right about the series.  I didn't even (and won't) buy EFR based on the comments about how gross it was.  And a lot of other people had the same conclusion about Blue Tea.  I guess I was just nostalgic for the "good old days".

oscar -- fins crossed the floor and tub are in.