// Aporia News 2.5

Recently on the unforums message boards, a user wrote a post regarding the Aporia Agathon Project and the potential budget behind the project in regards to a thread entitled: “Making a profitable ARG.”

Those of us who are working on Aporia Agathon had a little chuckle when we read it, but it did make us appreciate the respect the community has for our work. The comment mentioned our ability to hire 20 people with our financial backing. Unfortunately for Aporia Agathon, we cannot say that this is true. We can, however, say that we have plenty of experienced staff members working on the project that helps stretch the dollar out a good bit.

To date the budget for Aporia Agathon has been handled directly from my pockets without any financial backing from any entity. We do have other staff members who are willing to make financial contributions beyond their volunteer efforts, which will help the game to appear financially bigger than it is. I would have to say that so far I have spent right at $1,000 on the budget, if not a little bit less.

Our ability to reach out and hire people isn’t too far from imagination though. At any given time we are able to reach out to a number of “contractors” to help work on financially backed projects. This ability is what helps us when understanding what we can or cannot do for our future clients. The nice thing about this approach is that while we have some amazing people working on Aporia Agathon, I am fully confident that I can direct my attention toward a financially backed game for a period of time without taking away any of the volunteer staff from Aporia Agathon. Having talked with them in the past about such opportunities, each has shown a profound desire to ensure that this game we’re producing independently has the opportunity to entertain the masses.

It is truly amazing how dedicated the staff is to this game as many have put in countless hours towards the development of this game without any desire for reimbursing their time. We have a number of potential revenue generating ideas which we will push throughout the game to try to build a larger financial structure for the game in support of various activities we would like to do for the players. Current plans have any and all revenue generated through the course of the game to be put directly back into the game, though there is one idea which we have discussed that would not be available until near the close of the game and which will allow me to disburse some financial compensation for the work on the project.

We are all looking forward to launching this game for our audience and we look forward to the feedback we receive from our audience. Our current approach of teasing the game prior to launch is something that happens rarely, if ever, in our genre. We will release some numbers later in May to show the amount of interest gained through a slow tease of the game prior to launch. Other information on an educational basis of this approach may be released later into the summer after the game is well under way.

With all of that said, we thank you for the respect you have shown to our work by assuming this game is financially backed and able to hire 20 people at will. We feel this comment reflects positively upon the efforts of everyone involved in the project. Finally, for those of you planning to attend ARGfest-o-con in Boston - many of our staff members are really looking forward to meeting you (not all of them though due to individual budget constraints).