Hello,
I have received an offer to purchase the rights to Evolution.
I am setting a deadline for any other offers of: Friday 28th March 2008, 16:00 GMT.
Please submit all offers by this deadline, at which point they will be subject to consideration.
To clarify, what is included is:
I have received an offer to purchase the rights to Evolution.
I am setting a deadline for any other offers of: Friday 28th March 2008, 16:00 GMT.
Please submit all offers by this deadline, at which point they will be subject to consideration.
To clarify, what is included is:
- Complete Evolution 5 source code
- Documentation of the way Evolution is configured and required configuration of the software involved, including information required to control the ticker, creatures, items, R&D etc.
- Rights to the graphics commissioned from Irene Giura (the illustrations of each creature)
- Optionally, the server Evo is hosted on, either delivered or by transfering ownership within the company it is co-located with
For offers and enquiries, please email admin@neondragon.net . Please do not email enquiring how much is a fair offer, as it is up to the interested parties to decide upon and submit what they consider to be a fair, proportional and reasonable offer.
Kind regards,
neonDragon
---
Update (25/03/08)
After numerous requests I'll add the following information to clarify: Evo currently transfers about 160GB data out per month, with around 5.2 million hits.
Your Comments
Incognito wrote at March 18th 2008, 02:48:
/me submits a bid for 100 million trillion billion dollars
/me also laughs evily like dr. evil
Last modified at March 18th 2008, 02:49. Show History.
Thanatos wrote at March 18th 2008, 03:07:
Can't believe evo is up for sale. Truely is the end of an era. I first learnt about the game near its beginings through a friends whose brother went to uni with nD. That was quite a few years ago now! But thanks for making evo nD, although its road has been pretty rocky at times it's always still been here (well, nearly always) and played by plenty of people. I hope that whoever takes over can keep evo alive and who knows, it could be the best thing that could happen for the game.
The Jack wrote at March 18th 2008, 03:38:
who bought/placed bid on evo? what was the price? if its somewhere else who do we talk to about where the game is headed?
i really want to know the price i dont think it would be 10k gbp. what beats it?
Ship wrote at March 18th 2008, 04:30:
It's a blind bid Jack and the closing date has been posted. You might be close. Anty up if you want to play 
Bearsfan wrote at March 18th 2008, 05:47:
Thanks Neon for creating / maintaining Evo... even though I have been here only a short while, I have enjoyed the game and the many people I've "met" through your creation!
Peace be with you 
Patrickthestarfish wrote at March 18th 2008, 06:29:
i am gutted the creator is leaving!!!
good luck in the future neon!
Ashenn wrote at March 18th 2008, 10:21:
Thank god someones bought it or at least put a bid in for it.
It now mean that because they paid alot of money for it then whoever gets it will wanna take care of it and improve it. Maybe even listen to us.
I see a good future now. 
Araldia wrote at March 18th 2008, 10:30:
I imagine that the bidder is already part of the community. Good luck neon.
Orcs Of Morder wrote at March 18th 2008, 12:18:
I hope who ever bid on this game is part of the community, i mean...heck if he/she wasn't, then that would be a disaster!!
Araldia wrote at March 18th 2008, 13:23:
Darthsabre, having a lot of money to throw at it doesn't necessarily mean the best for the game. May the bidder thats going to do the best by the game win imho.
G Burdette wrote at March 18th 2008, 15:27:
It now mean that because they paid alot of money for it then whoever gets it will wanna take care of it and improve it. Maybe even listen to us.
I see a good future now.
Yeah. Maybe having it even become a pay-for-play game, to keep it online as well as recoup the expenses. I see no good from this.
Fluffy Mcblack wrote at March 18th 2008, 16:30:
Whoever's paying for it must have considered that, as nD keeps telling us, the donations do not cover the running costs - what ever could the future hold?
Darthsabre wrote at March 18th 2008, 17:05:
The number 1 priorety when evo gets back up and running is Marketing.
Evo needs new players
Woodrow Wilson Smith wrote at March 19th 2008, 04:24:
Does the purchase of Evolution 5 include a guarantee that you won't be developing Evolution 6 or anything similar? It seems odd that the Evo 6 code, which should be very far along now, isn't included in the purchase.
Water Son wrote at March 19th 2008, 11:20:
I smell a con!
I wonder how long it'll be till evo6 is released under a new name once evo5 is sold XD
That was a joke btw.
Evil Archkittens wrote at March 20th 2008, 07:38:
darthsabre: first off, the number one issue for the person buying the code will be to clean up and fix the code in the broken places. and clear the forums out..... after that, there are some features that need done to make new players WANT TO STAY.
secondly, if neon's going to release Ev6, then any smart buyer wouldnt be a buyer. that's like buying the IE7 codebase with MS in stated development on IE8 (which will suck even harder! :p )
unless, of course, the buyer has the skills and time to essentially fork evo, and make huge improvements on the existing codebase to rival what neon has stated ev6 will be like.
Darthsabre wrote at March 20th 2008, 10:48:
Would the URL still be ev5.neondragon.net of will it change?
Evil Archkittens wrote at March 20th 2008, 15:07:
that depends on if the person bid on redirects. if they buy the game but magically forgot to buy the right to have neon redirect that webspace to the new location of the game, then we will have to remember a new web address. the best bet here for stability is to go to isit530.com
Black-Velvet wrote at March 21st 2008, 04:08:
Well with good marketing and perhaps a small yearly subscription of which i wouldnt mind paying would help to develope this game to its maximise potential.
Who ever buys this will be doing it as a bussiness venture with knowledge of programming and an eye for a good deal.
With the buyers money at stake i would like to think that his general attitude to EVO and to us" his customers " a better general atsmophere will prevail
Oropher wrote at March 21st 2008, 10:41:
As Judal said, it does not cost money to run Evo. Something around 100$ a year. It's not about money, it is about time, which is even more precious. Some people here are totally obsessed with money and they waiste their time talking about money...
Fallen Warrior wrote at March 21st 2008, 12:16:
Well whoever buys the game should enjoy the honeymoon period as it will soon become like it is now if people don't like what they see.
Good Luck ND with the future
Rufus Gonzo Iii wrote at March 21st 2008, 13:56:
As with all "dotcom" companies the value is almost entirely based on number of active users... with a small value being attached to intelectual property (the code) and the platform..... which incidentaly depreciates hugely.
With this in mind the value of Evolution 5 may not actually be that high.
Then there's the case of recouping the cost of that purchase for the new owner....... something that isn;t actually supposed to be happening now.
The only way I can see this being a "Go'er" is as a labour of love....... adding the running costs to the purchace costs just make it untenable as it will no doubt be highly over valued.
690 registered (some innactive) users is not that big a draw.
Then add in the fact that the details surrounding Evo 6 seem sketchy at best and the unlikely event that there is much in the way of "The Books" to look at ........ I reckon you'd need your bumbs read..... no matter how much you love the game.
Oropher wrote at March 21st 2008, 15:30:
Well said Gonzo.
That is, we don't know what was the amount offered. And we will probably never know it. I just hope the buyer is from the Evo community, not some random guy/company roaming for $$$ opportunities on E bay.
Hand wrote at March 21st 2008, 17:00:
From what I have been told. The servers neon got from donations for evo6 would cost £450 month for the electricity to run it. So it's not all that cheap.
Rufus Gonzo Iii wrote at March 21st 2008, 17:27:
£450 a month?
Who told you that?
They were 1U rack mount servers if I remember rightly.... let's say for arguments sake they had redundant PSU's you'd be looking at about 350w x 2 so 700w per server max..... it's highly unlikely they have 2 PSUs.
With the average cost pKWH of electricity being 6.8p that'd cost you :- £856.80.
So half that if they have one PSU.
Besides.... do you reckon This 690 user game takes 10 rackmounted servers to run.... do you for one minute imagine that any part of the code is on those servers?
Here's the crunch though..... it's all about location fees.... you're gonna have to find someone with a big fat rack with at least 10 U's space free for you to hire.... then he's gonna charge you for bandwidth and maintainance and access.....
PS. The calculations in this post are based on 5 amps...... it's highly likely that the servers involved will only draw a 10th of that at a time.
On further inspection you can get 1U colocation packages for around £60 per month subject to 100GB total cumulutive bandwidth used.
It's be useful to know how much Evo actually uses.
Last modified at March 21st 2008, 17:32. Show History.
Hand wrote at March 22nd 2008, 00:59:
I was told it in a nice conversation with Araldia.
And no, I don't think those servers have a single piece of code on them.
Araldia wrote at March 22nd 2008, 16:12:
As my words are yet again being used by others to make their points, heres the conversation.
[2008-03-14 23:30:52] <Quixon> Wow, I'm surprised more people aren't questioning the server donations
[2008-03-14 23:30:52] <Araldia> he hasn't got them set up
[2008-03-14 23:30:58] <Araldia> and wont be able to afford it
[2008-03-14 23:31:05] <Araldia> 450 a month for electricity
[2008-03-14 23:31:12] <Quixon> oooch
[2008-03-14 23:31:17] <Araldia> they are not good enough for the hosting
[2008-03-14 23:31:23] <Araldia> hosting business
[2008-03-14 23:31:33] <Quixon> double ooch
[2008-03-14 23:31:35] <Araldia> the servers for that got paid for by business grant
[2008-03-14 23:31:47] <Araldia> he has no need to use the ev6 ebay specials for that
I would also like to point out that just because I was admin, does not mean I ACTUALLY know the ins and outs of neons business, any opinions I give are just that, and generally my personal analysis of things.
Last modified at March 22nd 2008, 16:13. Show History.
G Burdette wrote at March 22nd 2008, 19:32:
So, in other words, the "evo-thon" that some of us donated to, were for servers that will never be used? Can I assume that neon will be placing those servers back on eBay?
Now, I'm not complaining in the least about paying anything to neon for this game. I think I've gotten my money's worth for what I paid. But, other are going to argue that they donated during this "funds drive" so that neon would be able to win the auction on servers that were specifically for Evo6 (a game that will never see the light of day, now.) Are those that donated solely for the servers going to be reimbursed, or is it going to be a matter of, "There's nothing I can do about it, but thanks for the money."?
Rufus Gonzo Iii wrote at March 23rd 2008, 08:22:
Stepped....
But that's nothing new.... loads of people are unhappy about loads of different things.... it's the human condition.
Ithryn wrote at March 23rd 2008, 15:12:
Well, tbh. Neon said he was quitting Ev5.
So you donated to the servers for ev6? He *could* still make it, did he ever say there was an official release date?
Symptomatic wrote at March 24th 2008, 00:15:
He could also refund all of the donation money that's not going to be used for evo 6.
Rig0 wrote at March 24th 2008, 03:51:
The servers are purchased. Can't just send back the money. And any donations he currently has should be going to pay for collocation as long as possible.
Symptomatic wrote at March 24th 2008, 03:59:
I wonder how to turn those servers back into the peoples' money. I know this may be pretty radical, but people put pictures of their stuff online for bidding when they want to turn it into money. I heard that when someone wins, they give you money for whatever they were bidding. It may just be some rumor, but it might be worth looking into.
Rig0 wrote at March 24th 2008, 05:32:
Assuming there is a buyer, and neon is willing to accept the offer, the servers purchased with donation money should go to that buyer. Neon doesn't need them anyways.
Symptomatic wrote at March 24th 2008, 07:34:
That does not quite work, seeing as the potential buyer is not required to have any ambition towards evo 6 or evo5. Also, the thought of getting those servers in the deal will make the offers in the blind auction more generous, possibly turning a profit from the donation drive. Of course, who's to know in a blind auction? exactly
Araldia wrote at March 24th 2008, 21:15:
Let us just hope that the interested party/parties have an awareness of what is going on, and a plan to ensure the best for the game and the community.
I assume that every bidder will have communication with Neon about what they require and that no matter what speculation is put forward here, the winning bidder will be the one to take issues up with.
Mgd wrote at March 27th 2008, 00:56:
I don't want to buy the game but how much do I have to pay to make sure these christian ads never appear when I am playing evo ever again.
Hand wrote at March 27th 2008, 07:30:
£20 got me a gold star, so that should be sufficient to block the ads.
Araldia wrote at March 28th 2008, 20:40:
Well the dead line neon gave was for close of bids. He has not said when he will be announcing anything
Spacephoenix wrote at March 29th 2008, 06:05:
According to a thread in the forum neon is visiting a relative in Australia, i doubt he will look at any bids until he returns from Australia.
Araldia wrote at March 29th 2008, 12:16:
Spacephoenix they do have internet and electricity in other parts of the world. We even have players from korea.
Hoskatch Is Out wrote at March 29th 2008, 13:08:
What?!?!? You mean I'm not the only one? 
I thought everyone was from somewhere special in the universe....nutters....
/me walks off, kicking a can.....
Oropher wrote at March 29th 2008, 16:14:
Welcome to all the Korean players in Evolution! Bring some more!
No1 Jew Fan Mel Gibbson wrote at March 31st 2008, 10:04:
who ever buys evo better not fuck it up its a gd game.
i think the ticks should b every 15 or 30 mins an hour is to long.
its still a brilliant game tho!
thx nd
Red Kcs2c wrote at April 2nd 2008, 22:18:
one hour ticks are the worst possible length, except for all the other ones
Hoskatch Is Out wrote at April 5th 2008, 22:50:
He's not?!?!
Oh, noes! Does that mean my entire quantum mechanics theories are trash?!?! Oh dear....
Rig0 wrote at April 7th 2008, 16:58:
So was this offer fact or fiction? Tomorrow will be 3 weeks from the original offer and over a week since the deadline. Just another example of a complete lack of communication... Evo's #1 problem.
Rig0 wrote at April 8th 2008, 00:54:
Darn, I was really hoping for some new owners that were interested in making Evo great again.