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[BlindKitty]

So, the Chinese are actually trying to get completely independent in terms of weapons, so it seems there is a huge amount of guns created there... The list will be pretty long.

Older variants:
Type 56 assault rifle, a copy of AK rifles. Might be worth including to increase variation.
Type 63 assault rifle, closer to SKS than AK, but generally a mix of various Soviet weapons. Interesting from historical standpoint.
Type 69 RPG, because there is never enough rocket launchers.
Type 77 pistol, which is being phased out now, meaning there should be a large amount of those for sale in the near future.
Type 77 HMG, which fires 12.7mm cartridge, and is quite large.
Type 79 SMG, firing 7.62x25 Tokariev, considered a good CQB weapon.
Type 80 MG, using standard Soviet 7.62 WP cardridge.
Type 81 AR, another one created as a mix of various Soviet designs.
Type 87, the drum-fed automatic grenade launcher, using 35 mm grenades.

Newer variants:
95 family, consisting of AR (QBZ-95), squad automatic weapon (QBB-95) and carabine (QBZ-95B), using Chinese 5.8mm cartrige; also, 97 family for exports, using 5.56 NATO round, with QBZ-97, QBZ-97B and QBB-97.
88 'family' consisting of QBU (marksman rifle) and QJY (LMG), both also firing 5.8 mm cartridge.
QBZ-03, non-bullpup AR for 5.8 mm cartridge.
QCW-05, silenced SMG using shorter 5.8mm cartridge.
QSW-06, pistol using the same short 5.8x21mm cartridge as QCW-05.
JS 7.62, sniper rifle using older, 7.62x54 mm cartridge, quite modern - created in 2005.

I'm especially fond of modern variants of Chinese weapons, and those might be more popular than one would think due to their appearances in Battlefield series installations; I'm pretty sure most of those are in BF4, and some are present in BF3.

[10ebbor10]

Since it's 10 years in the future, do you have news ticker with fun and somewhat relevant information?

[LordSlowpoke]

+5 pts if you include a ticker that contains llamas

[hemmingjay]

There is a news ticker with randomized news reports as well as ones that affect elements of the game. Llamas might now be added as an easter egg

[hemmingjay]

I just wanted to post to say "Ouch. 3D modelling is expensive and time consuming." Every weapon eats away at potential profit. The game will most likely have 100 models in at launch and patch in another 100 in the next 2 weeks and a final 100 at 21-30 days post launch. I could have bought a very nice car instead. The next time you are about to criticize a game for having less than AAA graphics, consider that a single 3D model typically costs between $100-650 for good work without texturing. That runs another $50-250 per model.

[nenjin]

Welcome to running the whole show

[Sensei]

Where do you use those 3D models? Are there cutscenes with, say, people holding/handling them? If not, you might consider 2D pictures. Making 3D models is a lot of effort if the only benefit they're going to have is the ability to look at your guns and twirl them around.

[hemmingjay]

Sensei, My art director insists upon them so that we can offer multiple views of the same weapon in the store/catalog menu. Since looking at weapons is a big part of the attraction to a game like this, he felt that it was important to show. I wanted to spare no expense to deliver a good experience so I acquiesced.

[Meta]

Just a random thought/question: are you not taking risks by targeting a possibly small gamers niche? In my opinion weapons enthusiasts are "usually" FPS gamers, not gamers fond of strategy/simulation games.

[burningpet]

Sensei, My art director insists upon them so that we can offer multiple views of the same weapon in the store/catalog menu. Since looking at weapons is a big part of the attraction to a game like this, he felt that it was important to show. I wanted to spare no expense to deliver a good experience so I acquiesced.

I am not entirely convinced this is so critical. although extremely cool, i am not sure this will cause people to either buy the game or recommend it and with that time and expenses investment, you could practically insert double the weapons, which will be more appreciated if that means more obscure weapons.

[hemmingjay]

Just a random thought/question: are you not taking risks by targeting a possibly small gamers niche? In my opinion weapons enthusiasts are "usually" FPS gamers, not gamers fond of strategy/simulation games.

Define small niche. Let me be overly cautious and say that 5-7% of gamers would be interested in a gun based business strategy game. Seem fair? 5% of PC Gamers (that buy four games a year or more) = 4,450,000 according to an average of 2013's figures. Let's say that because I chose my publisher well, who sold well over a million copies of a similar themed game on PC and another 3 million on mobile, that I expose my game to 1/3 of that 4.45 million interested gamers. Now let's say that I can only convince 1/8 of them to buy my game at launch price.  That doesn't take into account crossover interest from people that like strategy games, people that like guns, people that like business/tycoon games which would probably double or triple the final number, but we will ignore it for now to be conservative. That's roughly 185,000 sales at my launch price. I am trying to assume I will only sell 30k copies but in truth, my partners are talking about numbers much bigger than I was talking about here and I have received one generous purchase offer. However, I will pay my team bonuses, make sure I set aside double my projected budget for the Weapon Factory Tycoon Game TM and pay myself a decent salary before giving the rest to charity. I am keeping the game price low so that I don't make a ton of money even if I happen to sell a lot of copies. I don't believe in taking advantage of an audience. Fair price for fair entertainment. If we treat it like a commodity then we rob it of the magic that made it wonderful and we begin to consume for the sake of consumption and wonder why we feel hollow even though we buy and play more games than ever. The solution, imho, is to return to some classic game styles and focus on simple joys. When we play a game we should be closing out the world and stepping into a world that was made for our joy and wonderment. All too often now we are shopping while playing games, or integrating our egos digitally and broadcasting our apathetic screenbased, formulaic routines based on the information from the excel documents we have open in another tab or on another monitor. Is that my phone vibrating or is it the controller on the desk or is it yet a phone in the game? I'll check it when I am finished eating these chips and checking the latest snarky, too cool for gaming school editorial piece on the latest hipster game website that pretends that it doesn't only write about games that suck up to them or pay $10k a week in advertising. Somewhere in there is a game and a gamer, but they couldn't be further apart.

I want to change that. I'm not saying I did it with Arms Dealer. I'm not even saying I can. All I am saying is I care about gamers. I miss gamers. And when I make a game, it's like I am ringing a triangle and calling to those who once spent their entire night in the dark just playing a game. Nothing. Else.

[Meta]

Aha Thank you a lot for this lengthy and awesome reply and good luck!

(PS: I want to sig your post, but not enough place )

[Anvilfolk]

I approve of this entire thing.

[hemmingjay]

I approve of this entire thing.

I couldn't ask for higher praise than that! We are spending the entire day plugging menu elements into the GUI. It's not fun but it's super satisfying as we finish each cool menu.

[BlindKitty]

Sensei, My art director insists upon them so that we can offer multiple views of the same weapon in the store/catalog menu. Since looking at weapons is a big part of the attraction to a game like this, he felt that it was important to show. I wanted to spare no expense to deliver a good experience so I acquiesced.

I am not entirely convinced this is so critical. although extremely cool, i am not sure this will cause people to either buy the game or recommend it and with that time and expenses investment, you could practically insert double the weapons, which will be more appreciated if that means more obscure weapons.

It has been noted before, but I will chime in with my two cents - it is not really all that good idea to insert many more weapons. Hell, I don't think I could name a hundred different guns from the period without looking at the Wikipedia or somewhere, not the mention three hundred (which is the target amount). JA2 with Wildfire and a few other mods was somewhere around that number, and including like 20 various AK variants in every possible caliber. And already some of those were only produced in minimal amounts, and let us not forget that we are talking about serious gun running here, not moving single guns through the border (which could actually be a game on its own merit, but that's beside the point), which means we need to put our hands on major amounts of most of the guns. And what is more, I think using 3D models can actually add a lot of cool factor to the game that's mostly menus; while it may not influence buy decision, it will certainly improve the satisfaction from play for a large number of users, I think. I could live with text only game, but well, I know I'm a minority.