As we’re still waiting on the final bits and bobs to be finalised (which means we’re unlikely to be able to launch our Kickstarter campaign tomorrow, as planned), we thought we’d take the opportunity to expand a little bit on how we’re approaching the freeware vs. payware situation that a few of you have been commenting on! With GeneRally’s heritage as a freeware game, there has obviously been much discussion about whether GeneRally 2 will follow down the same path as its predecessor or not. This is something that we’ve thought long and hard about, and believe that we’ve got a fair, workable solution for.

Background

GeneRally was essentially the by-product of the summer coding project of two Finnish students – Hannu & Jukka. When they set out to create GeneRally, neither of them foresaw the way in which the game’s popularity would explode and they certainly didn’t envision the size to which the GR community has grown. Over this time, hundreds of thousands of community-created tracks and cars have been downloaded millions of times, and GeneRally has grown and developed into a real success story of the indie gaming world. For Hannu & Jukka, releasing GeneRally to the public was the act of taking their personal project and sharing it with the world.

GeneRally 2 is a very different beast. Not only does it need to faithfully reproduce the feel and style of GeneRally, but it also needs to support an already established community, with already established hopes, expectations and requirements. Since GeneRally was released, the community has come to rely on staples such as Juan’s Car Editor, or Snakeditor to facilitate in the creation of cars & tracks and they (amongst other utilities) have created not only a nicer environment for the track/car creating community to work with, but also a level of expectation.

When it comes to developing GeneRally 2, these are factors that we have to consider. We need to consider providing a track editor with greater functionality than what exists at the moment and we have to consider providing a car editor for the very first time (with all of the complications that entails). Furthermore, we are aiming to facilitate the use of existing GeneRally tracks in GeneRally 2, so as not to waste or diminish the extraordinary talents displayed by the community.

What this means for us, today, is that GeneRally 2 is a much larger and much more ambitious project than GeneRally was at its inception. With this larger scope, comes an increase not only in the time that needs to be invested, but also in the costs incurred in the general production and distribution of the game itself. With such a large scope, we have to look at ways to simplify our tasks as developers, to ensure that GeneRally 2 is a game that we can deliver in a timely fashion, to our high standards – and some of these simplifications come with a monetary cost that we cannot cover ourselves.

So, what are we doing?

Our plan is simple: GeneRally 2 will cost a minimum of £8 to obtain via Kickstarter (i.e. every tier from the £8 tier upwards will receive the game). At release, GeneRally 2 will be sold for a minimum of £8, so if you do plan on purchasing, you won’t be disadvantaged in any way by doing so as part of our Kickstarter process. Quite simply, we need this money to be able to afford to develop the game that we want to make, and that you want to see.

However, what we will also be doing is offering a freeware version of GeneRally 2 at release. This version will be 100% compatible with the paid version, but will be (as a minimum) as feature-complete as GeneRally 1, and be compatible with all GeneRally 2 tracks, cars and save games. It will include all of our core gameplay mechanics as well as the track editor, the car editor, cross-platform support, improved graphics, controller support, etc. It will not include features developed as a direct result of the Kickstarter funding process (such as stretch goals, or features we were able to raise additional budget for), such as online multiplayer, dynamic weather, random track generation, or the like. We believe that these features will serve as a fair and reasonable ‘reward’ for those who contributed to the funding process, whilst not creating an artificial divide within the community.

This plan comes out of our desire to treat our existing community with the respect and admiration it deserves and also out of discussion with the game’s original creators, Hannu & Jukka, who have given this fundraising process their endorsement. In the world’s current economic state, we as individuals are not able to pour our life savings into creating a game without hope of breaking even. If we are unable to raise the money to cover these costs in some form or other (Kickstarter or otherwise), it is unlikely that GeneRally 2 will see the light of day at all, let alone as a freeware download.

By utilising Kickstarter, we are offering the opportunity for everyone involved to get something out of the donation process: we receive your funds to develop GeneRally 2 (and can stop worrying about that); and you receive not only the game, but also the various combinations of perks/rewards that we’re offering (and may well never be offered again). Other donation methods (such as accepting casual donations via PayPal, for example) would not permit us to offer the rewards that we’ll be able to offer with Kickstarter (due to bulk vs. single item reward fulfilment prices) and we won’t be able to offer a guarantee of a completed product (as there’s no guarantee we’ll ever hit our funding target).

Summary

Whilst in an ideal world, some glorious benefactor would offer to support us full-time, with all costs covered, to produce the world’s best top-down arcade racing game – the reality is somewhat different. By offering our fundamental set of gameplay features for free, we are upholding the heritage of GeneRally as a freeware title – and by offering a concrete incentive to our Kickstarter backers, we are not simply asking for donations and giving nothing in return.

We hope you’ll agree that this is a fair and straightforward way for us to facilitate the development of GeneRally 2, whilst still ensuring that GeneRally 2 follows closely in its predecessor’s path.

Stay tuned over the next few days to our Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts for the announcement of our eventual Kickstarter launch date – we’ll let you know as soon as we know!

– James, Markku & Kimmo