I would support paying for a beta only because I have seen a lot of good information and videos and it really shows this team is dedicated to their project.If this was some fiasco like fighter ops and paying to see a few screen shots once a year or less I would definately pass.

Count me in too, I'd happily pay pre beta and/or make some donations if needed, over the years I've blown a stupid amount of money on booze, town escapades and even dumber stuff that I won't get into here so throwing some cash these guys way for what will no doubt be a most excellent sim when it's done seems like a damn good investment to me.

OK, here's me and my wild idea...

What if you (CH devs) could release a very small sample to wet our appetite? My real life experience with businesses, retail and customer/client concepts tell me this is often a successful way of attracting people towards your product and creating a motivation to invest in your product. A sort of trial version and yet no trial. I know I'm sounding like I'm on something right now so let me explain what I mean.

* One flyable area only, e.g. a shooting range.
* Area of max. 4km by 4km.
* Limited fuel which only allows a max. time on station of 30 minutes.
* Limited ordnance consisting of max. 300rds. and two pods each carrying max. 8 rockets with only one type of warhead available.
* No real targets like insurgents and technicals, just stationary practice targets like found on a shooting range.
* Full functioning Apache except for systems which are not yet developed or limited by the above.

Pros:
+ Give people a little more than video clips and sceenshots to really see what a great product is being constructed in your 2 man workshop.
+ Have them beg for more to come, convince them the provide funding so you have yourself some more space.
+ Every hardware is different, if bugs start to appear this might give you new insights in the programming long before you're about to release a near-complete product.
+ Downloadeable through a simple and cheap hosting service that offers nothing but a large data throughput, no publishers or whatsoever needed.

Cons:
- Requires top notch built-in security to prevent unlocking of the limitations and further development of the game for the freeware and/or warez market, because then you're definitely done!
- You would need a way of handling incoming comments because it'll probably start raining feedback (pos. and neg.) the moment you make the download available.
- You fill in the rest...
- Spouse already downloading PDF templates of divorce papers... Children complaining daddy's always busy lately.


Like I said in the opening of this post, it's just a wild idea. Perhaps you already had something similar in mind, perhaps not. Just give it some thought and tell me why my idea is a bad one.

Jp

Jaypee,

Your idea is a good one. Infact it's so good we actually thought of it this time last year. Since then we've been working on putting out a target range with a fully functioning AH-64D (sans the hellfires). Unfortunately development over the last 4 or 5 months has ground to a halt and we've long since passed our unrealistic self-imposed deadline.

Cheers

I heard about the target range, just didn't know the idea was to launch it with roughly the similar thought in mind as I suggested.

Good luck!

Might try a kickstarter campaign for funding. I know I'd be willing to chip in a chunk of change to support you guys, particularly if you guys have some good swag for the higher levels

-Jenrick

I agree that you guys should consider doing a kickstarter project. There are a lot of fans there looking to donate to hardcore/oldschool games.

Here's some info about the recent popularity of Kickstarter:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/201...-funded-gaming/
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-0...ump-in-business

Cheers

The buzz around kickstarter over the last couple of months has been pretty incredible. 3.3 mil USD pledged to the development of Double Fine based purely on the memories of a bunch of games released nearly 20 years ago! That's trading on nostalgia like never before, and it's a huge responsibility for the guys making that game. What's going to happen in 18 months time if they have nothing tangible to show? If it were a publisher backing the project they could force the developer's hand and/or reclaim assets. With 87,142 mini-investors I can see some legal nastiness on the horizon. I hope it doesn't come to that as I was a huge fan of Day of the Tentacle and I'm looking forward to playing double fine. I'm just not sure if I agree that putting cash in developers hand will necessarily make them work.

Cheers

Kickstarter available in UK in the fall:
kickstarter on twitter

Richard posted a new comment on the blog and it's all looking good. Game still in progress, but it's vacation, so not much going on right now. Although, i'd love to see that vid he's talking about...