Proposal

From Shadowrun: Awakened

Shadowrun Awakened is an open source project run purely by volunteers. This means we are not specifically looking to turn our project into a published video game product. That said, there is a certain amount of support that some organizations are able to offer us. Given that they would not need to fund the project outright, they should be enticed by the idea of our project. To entice them further, we are producing a proposal targeting organizations that can help our project.

Who can help us?

There are a variety of organizations that are connected to Shadowrun in one form or another:

• Microsoft - Microsoft Game Studios bought FASA interactive following the breakup of FASA. This means Microsoft owns all digital interactive rights for Shadowrun. We were able to secure a non-commercial development license from them. Sending a proposal to Microsoft could result in backing ranging from some advertising help to publishing our game one day.
• WizKids - WizKids owns a large body of the Shadowrun intellectual property. Pretty much, anything other than Shadowrun video games can be made by WizKids (or licensed to other vendors). WizKids could offer us license to older Shadowrun material for inclusion in our game. This would include fiction material made in the days of FASA and old graphics.
• FanPro - FanPro has a license from WizKids to produce the Shadowrun roleplaying game. All of their materials belong to WizKidz once they are published, so getting WizKids on board is the key license for the project; however, FanPro still has a major outlet to the fan base and their own stake in potentially helping us.

How do we convince them to help?

Amongst all of these organizations, they all have one thing in common: they function on revenues. Any venture, big or small, should be able to return to them in the form of money. That is just a fact of life called capitalism. To entice them to help us, we must assure them that their support of our project will return to them as revenue. This is the key fulcrum of any proposal we would make to them. Primarily, we can offer each of them exposure of their product to a community of consumers. We do this innately as it is a Shadowrun game, but we can also do it explicitly in the form of "advergaming". For Microsoft in particular, we offer a special opportunity to gain a lot of free investment in selling a Shadowrun MMO to the game community at large. In the very least, we are a giant feasibility study on how sound an investment an SRMMO would be.

What goes into the proposal

Not everyone comes to a point in their life where they need to write a proposal, but there is an everyday occurrence that mirrors writing a proposal: job interviews. Whenever you sit down to get a job, you are trying to explain why the person across the table should invest in your talents. You must convince that person you are smart enough to understand the job and efficient enough to get that job done. Proposals are no different except we also must express how necessary our proposed "job" is to the interviewer.

To prove necessity, we must provide an analysis of the market of MMOs and the marketability of Shadowrun as an MMO. We must explore how much money current MMOs make and develop how much money we would expect to make based on market share. For our purposes, we are in a weak position to make such observations (Microsoft is much better outfitted for such analysis), consequently, we should not focus on it as the organization is probably more aware of the stakes as we are. Marketability as an MMO is probably more crucial. We must support an argument stating why Shadowrun is "special" enough to turn revenue as an MMO. Being able to prove that all of Dumpshock is ready to sign up, shell out, and play would be a good example.

To convince the organization on our understanding, we must produce products that describe our understanding. This includes succinct, but comprehensive design documentation. We need to provide a clear vision for the product and the means we are going to use to exploit to make it a solid venture. Work products for this include: game mechanics designs, technical designs & models, along with feasibility on turning these designs into reality. A description of all game mechanics would be a good example.

Proving it can be done intersect with proving we understand. While presenting feasibility, we must also draw describe our schedule and expectations for completion. We must produce tangible samples and proof that we are capable. On a low-level, this includes describing our process and selling it as efficient and effective. Ideally, this would include some demonstration of our product.

Producing the Proposal

Currently, all of our work products at this state are valid source material for the proposal. The very existence of this wiki and our other points of development infrastructure prove that we are capable of completing the project. We must move quickly to push out some early materials concerning a version 1.0 of the SRA and transform it and boil it down to start the project.

It has been discussed that market feasibility is one of our weak points. No member has yet to emerge with the skill or experience necessary to articulate a cogent argument for SRA's revenue potential.

The chief writer and editor of the proposal is currently Erik Ralston Email. He is organizing all special efforts for the proposal and will continue to update others as to our needs.