The Business of Software

The Asteroid Jane demo is now available.

The two-week beta test was an excellent experience. We've only done an extensive beta-test with two of our most recent products, and this one confirms, once again, that no matter how much testing one does in-house, nothing beats a solid public beta-test.

The game is not yet available for purchase from Antair.com directly since we've set up an exclusive launch with ClickGamer.com, which will take place sometime next week, but the demo is available to the general public right now.

Those of you who do not have a BlackBerry handheld device can still view the video trailer of the game. If public response proves to be as good as that of the beta testers, we will port the game to Windows and Mac as well.

http://www.antair.com/blackberry/asteroidjane/

- Cheers

Good going Andrey!

Thanks Bob. This is the first product coming out of the previously announced joint venture between myself and Gavin Bowman -- a fantastic experience. Many uISV's in general would benefit from joint ventures.

Congratulations! You're certainly covering a lot of different scopes with your products, good diversifying. Good luck with the early sales.

Hi Andrey,

Congratulations on what looks like another promising title.

When you have time, can you elaborate on how your collaboration a little more.  I'm very interested in understanding how the project work was divided up and then integrated, and also how the financials are being run.

Thanks,

Congrats Andrey! :-)

The first few sales from the beta testers came in about 15 minutes ago. So we're off to a good start.

For the joint venture, I won't go into too many details since I'm not the only one involved, but I'll elaborate a bit more.

Gav and I joined forces a few months ago when we both realized, after a brief conversation (although we've known one another for quite a while prior to that), that we both love video games, but our software companies are not exactly in that field. Still, since Antair almost prides itself as being a no-niche software shop, we decided that we'll have a go at it together, with Antair being responsible for the product, but development, support, revenues, and marketing being evenly split between Gavin and myself.

The benefits are numerous:

1 - The development time is decreased quite a bit. We're in different time-zones, so Gav works on the game when I'm asleep, and I work on the game when Gav is asleep. In this sense, the game was being worked on almost continuously, 24 hours a day.

2 - Our skill sets complement each other very well. I can have the comparative advantage in certain areas, and Gav has the comparative advantage in other areas. We can split up tasks as they fit, and we get higher quality work done.

3 - It's so much easier to track down bugs. We can bounce ideas off one another, and it works much better than working alone and hitting your head against the wall when you're stuck. There are times, when I was stuck with something in the game engine, then I send off a quick note to Gav before going to sleep, and when I wake up, the bug is fixed and I have a great new bit of code all done and ready to go -- it's a fantastic feeling.

4 - It's not lonely anymore sitting at home coding away for 14 hours -- Skype is a great tool.

If you can find a person with similar interests with whom you get along well, and who's in a position to pursue a joint venture, I highly recommend it.

We're now starting work on our next game project together, and will probably work on non-gaming products along the way as well.

Hi Andrey,

Thanks for the details on your collaboration.  Your game will certainly be a success for the two of you, and your model a benefit for the entire community.

Congratulations and great to hear the benefits of your cooperation together.