SIlverHelm’s Online Games Network
What is SHOGN?
When our company SilverHelm Studios LLC. first began delivering pre-alpha demonstrations of Legends of Etherell to various publishers, it became quite apparent that our vision of a true MMORPG was not a high-interest product in the eyes of our prospective publishers/investor. After 3 years of repetition, it had become obviously clear that our largest investors and the most supportive entities of our product had been our online community. Following the close of our last corporate negotiations, our company made an overly ambition move to start gathering all independent MMO/MO developers that supported our cause to publish their products under a single network. We called the network SHOGN, which is short for SilverHelm’s Online Games Network. SHOGN represents our attempt at delivering an independent developer only, multi-player game network.
What can we provide?
Currently, both our business partners and our company handle all site related financing. Therefore, we are able to provide a professional website including forums, security, backups, promotion, and advertisements absolutely free of charge to development partners. All sites will be based on the current template for the sake of continuity and consistency (completed site). Each company executive/director or project manager will also have full access and be contractually responsible for the management of a crowd-funding application that is embedded into each site and the Paypal funds acquired. The module operates identical to that of Kickstarter, but it requires more member information and uses Paypal as its submission source. This is all tracked and submitted to the company executive/director or project manager via email for better management. We currently have a Google ad campaign scheduled for the last week of January until the second week of February. The goal is to begin drawing attention to the network and establishing a presence with gamers while implementing more features into the site. Our recent partnership with a server farm facility has granted us 3 dedicated server machines that are currently in use by various SHOGN publishing teams for testing of their product. We are expected to receive 3 more dedicated server machines in March. These will be allotted to teams that join based on their requirements.
Where is SHOGN progress-wise?
After 2 weeks of rigorous work, I’ve managed to get site security implemented as well as the structuring of the game site’s template. The site needs a bit more styling code and a bit more testing, but currently it’s in an early alpha stage awaiting input from gamers and communities like this. Here is a list of the games currently contracted to SHOGN:
Legends of Etherell (fantasy mmorpg):
official website (in-development)
facebook site
youtube site
Project Gorgon (fantasy mmorpg):
official website (in-development)
facebook site
youtube site
Elite Units: Agendas (near-future morpg/fps):
official website
facebook site
youtube site
Outlasting the Dead (zombie survival morpg/tps):
official website (in-development)
facebook site (in-development)
youtube site
Frontiers: (sci-fi mog/tps - single-player with co-op multiplayer)
official website (in-development)
facebook site (in-development)
youtube site
Weapons of Valor: (modern warfare mog/fps)
official website (in-development)
facebook site (in-development)
youtube site (in-development)
Unite Fighters Association: (smash bros. style mog)
official website (in-development)
facebook site (in-development)
youtube site (in-development)
What are the requirements?
It’s obvious that SHOGN is more than an idea, it’s an serious venture and a very ambitious one. That being said, we require that all companies/development teams understand this first and foremost. They must also be prepared to maintain contractual obligations to the network. In order for our network to grow, we also ask for exclusivity. Unlike most MMO/MOG websites, our strength lies in our developers strengths and their ability to attract and maintain a strong fanbase. To centralize all users to a common point exposes all sites within that network to a broader range of individuals as opposed to having products with multiple points of access. At SilverHelm Studios, we believe that this is possible with every product as long as it has the potential to be completed. There is always a niche market that is interested in a product, no matter the type of game, it’s genre, or it’s target audience. Therefore, we look for those elements in products before committing them to the network. We also require a fully playable rendition of the title to further access it’s potential as well as the dedication of the developers and their capacity to deliver a solid product release. In regards to financial requirements, we are offering 2 different royalty options. Developers can choose to allots SHOGN 20%-30% of the month revenue from elements of their final release; elements such as marketplace items, product sells, subscriptions, etc. This income is not used in anyway to fund SilverHelm Studios titles, its executives, or its member’s salaries. All proceeds will be dedicated to the promotion, advertising, and expansion of SHOGN. All financing earned from a team’s/company’s on-site crowd-funding application is in no way shared with other teams/companies within the network, nor does SilverHelm Studios ask for any portion of those earnings.
Are there any partnership benefits aside what has been shared?
Indeed, there are various benefits. One of the the overall goals for this network is to form a truly open partnership with our development brother/sisterhoods. We have currently created an atmosphere where developers all work together on a cross-team basis, quite often. For example, I’ve spent the last month working with the team behind Elite Units as a dedicated coder and Design Director, while the engineers behind Project Gorgon has been working with us to incorporate their new server architecture into Legends of Etherell. In return, our Lead Character Artist has been developing character art and armor for Gorgon, while they assist us. It’s a great system that has really helped all the current teams in our network to move forward in development quite a bit. For example, all development on Outlasting the Dead had halted, until one of the coders from Legends of Etherell scheduled some time to help push their development forward since their coder has been experiencing down time. Their project is now moving forward gradually thanks to the partnership arrangement. This is something that surely all teams won’t be able to commit to, but for those capable, it may prove invaluable to other network partners. Together we are stronger together than multiple cog in the massive corporate machine, and the completion of a single title means that much more exposure for our network as a complete collective and that in turn, bring more funding and support to our individual products.
What we need the most?
More than anything, we’d like the input and feedback of the independent developer community; what you feel would make this the ultimate place for indie developers to gather and publisher their titles. Unlike many networks looking to drain developers in order to build their network, we’re only looking to support developers that are capable of forward progress in order to build strong and dependable development teams. We have a sound business plan, and a few very structured teams with products already in fully playable pre-alpha builds. All we need now is more directions and suggestions to further strengthen our plan and improve upon our current perspectives. All feedback and suggestions are welcome; thanks in advance.