DF - coffee with Tasos

Da Bounca

Happening this afternoon. Looking forward to... well basically anything.
Translated page below.

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http://opencoffee.gr/2009/01/02/oc-ath-xviii-call/&sl=el&tl=en&hl=de&ie=UTF-8

KoKane

The Tassos Flabouras, Vice Aventurine, will present the Darkfall Online, an online game roles (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, MMORPG) Greek origin, which counts 3 million users, 10 million budget, 30 active developers and 6 years development, probably does not need to say anything more. The date of European (and world's first) movement of the game has been determined on January 22, which makes the presentation of Tassos-if anything-particularly highly.

I know its roughly translated but.... They're estimating 3 million users?

Leprachaun

Excellent PR :P
It's basically a tea party with Tasos :pac:

Leprachaun

Supposadly open beta is on the 15th and download will be via bittorrent. They also had to make some 'changes' to guarantee launch on the 22nd,whatever that means. *shrug*

KoKane

Yeh, theres a brief video of the presentation thing.

Translation of the video!


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You made a mistake about my presentation

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We don't have 3 million users or 50 employees
We have 30 employees and ...

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...about the 3 million users,

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Once a journalist asked us how many people
were following the development of our game

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It's a video game...
we will say more about it later

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At the moment we have about 300k registered
users at our forums... in our beta...

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Who are actually trying to get to our beta

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Of course our system cannot support 300K users
simultaneously at this stage.

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Our product is going to be released
very soon

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Darkfall is our product

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A few moments ago there was an
image of it here.

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It's an online video game

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Online... that is, it is played
through the internet

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It's a virtual world
that we have created

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It is located in a server somewhere
in Germany

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Where each users
plays a role

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That is, he has a character that
enters this virtual world

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And every other character he meet
in there, is another user

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from a another place in the world

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So, I could be playing with people
from all over the world

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The most well known game of the
genre is World of Warcraft

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And if you haven't heard of it, you
probably are not familiar with the genre

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They have announced having
around 10.5 million users

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without knowing what exactly happens
in China, in Russia

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and in other countries for which
we don't have good statistics

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11.5 million users for a product,

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Up until then, the genre had
to show as the highest

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500k users, from a previous game
called Everquest

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And in Asia there was something
similar

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We started some 6 years ago
this effort

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which it had already been started
as a concept in Norway from 4 people

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We went to find them

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We brought them here in Greece

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We incorparated with them

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The interesting bit is that a small
company from Norway,

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as soon as it left the country there
were headlines about it

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In the biggest Norwegian newspaper

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I am mentioning this because if
something like that happend

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to a Greek company, noone would have
noticed

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So how did Darkfall start out?

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We went to Norway and brought the
company to Greee

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we added Greek technical staff

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We brought Greek scientists back
from abroad

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who were working in foreign
companies

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We brought the technical expertise,
and we 've been in development now

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for 6 years non stop
following a very serious pace

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Because all our competitors
follow serious paces

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All our technology is
transferable/re-usable

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We we can make more games with it

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Our philosophy was this.

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What is it that the users (gamers)
from these games want

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and it is not given to them

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We were playing these games
ourselves, that's why we know them

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So moved in the opposite direction.
We thought about what the users wanted

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what we wanted, and why it wasn't
happening and how it could happen

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When we saw that it wasn't happening
because at that time

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There wasn't the technology that
could allow such things

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We decided to develop the technology
ourselves

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Which in hindsight, was a very good
decision

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But we have doubted this decision
many times over the years

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.. we have been developing a video
game for 6 years now

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To get an ida of what we are talking
about

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Becuase you may not be familiar
with it

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..a small video..

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Every one you see here is a
character played by a user

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In this case of course, it is us
playing in the office

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As you can see, it is
medieval fantasy

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Q: Do play with only with other
users or also with the computer?

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Yes, yes, both among themselves and
the computer

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There are .. creatures in the game
they can face

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This is for you to get an idea

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It is a virtual world which in
size is something like a small country

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And it supports, this virtual world,
10K users simultaneously

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More actually, but we put this as a
safety limit

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So, imagine 10K users per virtual
world

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to enter it, to socialise, and...
do what you see here

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Q:In terms of hardware, what are
we talking about?

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We talking about lots of servers

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hundreds of proccessors...
in Germany

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Q: how many?
80, but times 8 proccessors

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To get a magnitude of the
processing power.

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It is enough to recreate a
virtual world

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Notice here the tree leaves
moving, and for every tree

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Lots of things going on, there
are million of objects

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tens of thousands of users

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this interaction you see here

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it requires a huge proccessing power

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Q: Is there as plot in the game?
Yes, there is one... but

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we are actually interested in...

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We call this a 'sandbox game'
meaning that...

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what we actually have made is
give the users a virtual world

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that provides them with a relatively
absolute freedom

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When I say 'relatively absolute'...
well you can't just do anything

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Whereas in other game there is a...
linear progression

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Meaning, you have to do there do
this, in order to progress

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You can't just move freely, which
annoyed us as players

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And we decided to make what we
actaully to play as gamers

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and thinking along those lines

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I think we have created something
unique

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Because a small company with zero
marketing budget

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which has at this movement million
of people following the game

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and we are being told we are the
most anticipated online game

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in the world

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Of course you could challenge that

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However, in every poll that is what
happens, from a large community

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That is quite an achievement

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And this is partly due to
the fact

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to provide what the users actually
wants

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(You have 2 more minutes for the
presentation)

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I will tell you then something which
can inspire you maybe

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Let's not talk just about the game
itself but also how it was created

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As we said we moved backwards,
what does the user want?

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We turned to the world market
from the start

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The Greek market only interests
because we are here

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The way in which we function is
to make the right partnerships

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but always based on what WE
want to do

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We had publishers coming to us
... large companies

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All have heard of them, that are
familiar with the genre

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Which have to told us
'Take this money, lots of it,

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we will take care of the publishing
for Europe, US, anywhwre..

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but we want you to do this thing'

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Which thing, it may not be
compatible with what WE want

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You may argue that we had the luxury
to do something like that

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No, actually we didn't

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and we have made lots of
sacrifices

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But we would have never made it

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if we couldn't make it as we
wanted, as we believed

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We have a partnership now with a
company, Audiovisual SA

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for the distribution of the game
in Europe

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With a deal which...

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was the deal that WE wanted

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We were looking and found a
company

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that was willing to accept our terms

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So we started from what the users
wanted

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Or rather, what they 'actually' want

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because there is a diffence between
what they want

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and what they think they want

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This is very important

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And, when someone tells you
'I want this'

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It doesn't neccessarily mean that
is what he really want

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In practice, there is often
a difference

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I could be talking all day but

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Q: What percentage from the company
are actually in the Board?

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We are 8 people in the Board from
the 30 people in the company

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and we are all actively
involved in the project

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Q: What will be the cost of the game
subscription?

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It's a bit lower that the
competition

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about 10 to 11 euroes
per month

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Q: And when is it being released?

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22nd of january is our launch date

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[They say something about a demo tha
Tasos hadn't time to prepare]

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Q: And where is the game being
launched?

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Worldwide. We are launching in
Europe with the US also taking part

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And we have seen that our game can
run problem-free from our tests

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Q: A large portion of your audience
is mad about WoW,

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why would a WoW player leave a game
he's been playing for years

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and come to you?

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We could be talking all day about
the things that make Darkfall unique.

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One thing is what I already
mentioned earlier about the company

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Another one is the level of
interaction we allow among our users

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that you cant find in WoW

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And let us not go into graphics
and users per server

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There is no doubt that WoW
is a great game

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But it's a different game

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We dont want WoW's users

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We want that part of the users which
are not covered by what WoW offers

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And they play WoW and say 'Why can't
I do this and that and that'

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Q:You mentioned something about 6
years development, Greek you brought

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from abroad, a company from Norway
.. and you are still in beta...

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how exactly....ehh..

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You mean, how we can justify all
these years, right?

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One of the hardest undertaking in
the computer industry, is video games

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And in video games, the hardest you
can make is this type of games

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We also made the technology from
scratch, which is re-usable

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If we had to make this game now, it
could only take us a couple of years

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assuming we had the same team

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We had less people ... than...

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Some large companies have
around 300 people

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To produce some similar, or rather
not even something like that

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80 million euroes budget and an
additional 80 for marketing

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Q: My question is how did you get
fundng, even if it was for 2 persons,

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even for 2 people working for
6 years....

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Yes, the budget we had to work with
was..... END OF BATTERY!!!!

Kiith

Now thats what i call a wall of text!