shadowomf

Actually, I think I would have each one start with radomized gear. That way each time you play it's a unique experience right from the beginning.

Sure they will also be players that will restart until they get the item they want, but I believe if you limit the possible starting gear and if each item on it's own is just a small step to survival then it will work.

Offtopic:

Also I would consider having only very few actual weapons and mostly just stuff you can find in a normal household, maybe shops, hardware stores.

For example if you take a look at the walking dead, all characters in the series are armed to the teeth. If you take a look at your own environment, would you really have easy access to such an arsenal in case a zombie outbreak happens? If you live in a country with reasonable gun controls, it's very unlikely that you can come up with a way to get your hands one some. E.g. in Germany the only places I would expect weapons are:

a) the police stations

b) military stations

c) shooting ranges

d) ambassies

e) maybe a few selected security services

f) some hunters home or maybe from one of the selected few that did actually do the paperwork to get a permit

Though even if you know that there might be guns, they are all locked up, the only way to get to them is crack the safe or get them from someone who has access to the gun. (There is always the black market, but let's assume the normal citizen doesn't shop there regularly.)

In any case, I think it's not only more reasonable, but it can also be used to make the game much harder.

Yes, for the few that do find a gun, it would be a huge advantage, people could rob you at gun point, hold you hostage and whatever they might come up with and they are more inclined to try, since the probability that the other person has a gun and shoots first are tiny. If you do combine this with a very limited ammunition supply guns could make players kings, but only as long as they can convince people that they will actually use them.

In theory you would have to buy maya (the full version) anyway if you have already used it. And even then you would be in a legal gray zone.

How could you be in the software/games business and not know it would be illegal to use unlicensed or wrongly licensed software? Did you really not know or are you just looking for someone that give you another justification to use unlicensed software?

Even if nobody is asking you for it if you are a business you should always pay the (non-free) software you are using. Why should anybody be more willing to pay for your software than you are willing to pay for other products?

If you still decide to use unlicensed software in your company, remember it just needs one angry employee to vent his anger and you might face a lawsuit.

I believe it would be better to offer multiple payment options.

Often one single payment option is not available in all countries or the user just did not participate or some other stuff.

For example I don't know a single person that uses Flattr and getting anyone to create a new account just to make voluntary payments does sound unlikely.

Don't limit yourself to one option.

I believe Minecraft did get it right (at least for their kind of game) and get funding as well as publicity at once.

his however as Rattenhirn already said only works if your game has a high replayability. If it's more story centered and you have see pretty much all of it after playing through it once you can't release your alpha to the public.

Regarding your microfunding idea:

There are already crowd funding sites that target games and gamers.

Having an account that you can preload with some investment value isn't new for crowd funding as far as I know.

I believe the only new thing is the long runtime instead of a limited funding campaign. However most businesses or project need a certain amount of money before it makes sense to actually start them.

If you start because you have 1 month of 6 month planned development time financed and then don't get the money to continue you have a lot of disappointed investors. If the only feasable way for you to finish the game is by depending on more crowdfunds in the future I would say you are screwing the investors.

Pre-Alpha or concept stage games will always have a hard time to get funding, anywhere. (Not impossible but almost.)

You will always have to give the investors something to convince them that you can make more with their money than they would get by just earning interests on their bank account.

If you don't have the name, the rich uncle, or something to show that you can actually realize your project, it's hard to get anything. Everybody has a game idea and most of the time people don't want to hear about them.

And regarding niche games or creative designs. If the investors are interested it will get funded and will probably also make money.

If you can't get enough investors to pay 5$, how will you get customers to pay for the finished product?

I would also recommend to you to take the per hour payment.

However I would also recommend to you, that you don't work on it for free and then expect the complete payment at the end.

Just let yourself get paid per month (or week if this is more common in your country), as "Servant of the Lord" suggested.

Make sure you bring all important parts of your agreement to paper and get them to sign it.

What's important? What you will get, what you will have to deliver, in what time frame you have to deliver and how it will be decided if you have delivered your work in the before mentioned time frame (e.g. make sure everybody has the same understanding of an alpha and about what you will give them).

By the way, even though alpha sounds like an early stage, it's actually much work and much of the game has to be finished to actually be called an alpha. Make sure you don't underestimate the time you will need to get it done.

And some other things you should do:

-Don't promise stuff you wouldn't want in a written contract. In many countries even a vocal agreement is legally binding.

-Make sure you do tax the income properly and pay the relevant insurances (social, pension, health care, unemployment, ...). If your employer is legally entitled to do so, make sure your friends are paying the necessary insurances.

-If you go the route with the monthly payments and they don't pay, make sure to contact a lawyer (even better, contact a lowyer before you enter an agreement with our friends). In some cases even if they don't pay you fast enough you will still have to keep working, you can't just quit or stop working just because they didn't pay you last week (milestones would be one way to solve this problem and will also give you a better way to notice if you're behind schedule).

-If they are forming a company you could also ask for shares instead of the x% of the games profit. It could be more profitable in the long run.

-If you take the x% of revenue road, make sure you did understand what part of what earnings you will get. Don't let yourself get screwed, take x% from the sales (before any cos where divided). Else they can use all kinds of cost to reduce the money you would get, e.g. by marketing cost or by discounts.

-If you don't like any of their offers, there is always the choice of not participating, which is also okay. Maybe you could spend the time that you would use for this project for something better, let it be family time, a more interesting project or just relaxing at the beach. You just have to decide if you want to use the done work for yourself, let them use it for free or wish to sell it to them.

-And of course you could also ask for more $/hour or %. Try to estimate how much work you will have to do, what cost you will have, if you want to do it for the money of maybe just for your portfolio (make sure you have the rights to use it in your portfolio in any case) and how much of the money you own will end up on your bank account. Then decide how much money you think you (your time and work force) are worth. I believe 20$/hour ist pretty low even for a graduate. But you will have to decide yourself.

However you decide, I would love to hear about the outcome.

And of course I wish you best luck.

ps: sorry for all the commas and braces... (It's just that I always find stuff that I wish to clarify, in case my English explanation wasn't good enough.)