Niche game or undermarketed?

[Athelas2211]

Nothing should be solely available on Steam, unless owners of game decide so (with their reasons).
I posted just to give people more info from the guys who did it.

[Kayoz]

I hate to nit-pick your post... but...

The following DOES NOT appear in his post. You have added it yourself. Yet in placing it in quotations - and bold - you are clearly trying to present it as part of the original post.

That makes what you posted - A LIE.

Need I explain in detail the level of dishonesty involved here?

ORIGINAL: athelas.loraiel

"by Frogboy (CEO of Stardock)
Yep. Across the board. Valve only charges 30% for sales that occur via them."

[Athelas2211]

You are nuts, Kayoz. At least F60.9 disorder.

I went and picked the last part of a whole thread with his posts relating to bussiness model he uses.

There are THREE separate posts I quoted with " "

If I was lying, why would I put by Frogboy into quotes and give link so everyone can check?

Master post is first one, the second two are at the end of the thread, IF I remember correctly.

This is the one you missed I guess:

http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/42 ... 9/#3373479

But finding "liars" and "witches" seems to be your "niche" and I'll gratefuly leave you to it.

You can apologize if you find it in yourself.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: athelas.loraiel
There are THREE separate posts I quoted with " "

You provided ONE link - which gives the distinct impression of ONE quote. If you insist that it's all correct since they're picked from the same thread - then I accuse you of cherry-picking and unverifiable use of quotations. I don't think anyone here wants to dig through a thread that is NINETEEN PAGES LONG. Yet somehow one line lifted from a 19 page thread is supposed to accurately represent what you say it does. No way am I going to try to read this whole bloody thread to verify your statement.

As for trusting Frogboy on technical matters, your last choice of quotations pretty much clears it up:

ORIGINAL: athelas.loraiel
10GB or whatever for every little update. And there is still the matter of the installer which would need to place the files.

Windows' MSI (or at least v3+) handles this internally. If you're including all the unaltered files in your patch, then that is YOUR FAULT as a designer, and not the fault of the installer.

As for the question of "which installer", I have no idea what he's talking about there. Pretty much every commercial installer out there uses MSI internally. They wrap it in their own pretty interface, but they all turn out a MSI package at the end. Long dead are the days of everyone making custom installers.

In the case he's talking about other OS' - then he needs to see what THEIR install systems offer, and STOP BLAMING OTHERS FOR ONE'S OWN CRAPPY IMPLEMENTATION before checking that out.

Ya, Frogboy is certainly one to trust.

[Kayoz]

As for your initial post, you wrote:

ORIGINAL: athelas.loraiel
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/426351 Post made by Stardock CEO (gaming company that is 20 years+ in the "game" and I think even Kayoz must agree that they know their game......so, give yourself a efw moments and read on.

Note:
1. Single link
2. "Post", not "posts".

You state that you're quoting from one post, then argue that you are citing 3 separate posts. So, which is it? One or three?

If someone is confused here, then it is you. Learn to English. You're doing it wrong.

[Athelas2211]

I can definitely see that your life is painful for you.
Probably for those around too.

(Re avatar pic")

upfiles/36946/A6D39DCEE1994DB58DA7CD68A5C66503.gif

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: athelas.loraiel

I can definitely see that your life is painful for you.
Probably for those around too.

(Re avatar pic")

upfiles/36946/A6D39DCEE1994DB58DA7CD68A5C66503.gif

Ad hominem attacks. Always the refuge of choice for the desperate.

[Athelas2211]

unfortunately, some folks dont see.

Since I didn't lie, (which you acused me of, and still haven't apologized for) and had no malicious intentions, only to get more info to the people about the bussiness model one company accepted,

I was hopeing you might get that as intention,

but obviously you can't get out of your tracks, so....

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: athelas.loraiel
Since I didn't lie, (which you acused me of, and still haven't apologized for) and had no malicious intentions, only to get more info to the people about the bussiness model one company accepted,

Unfortunately, you don't see that citing a single post - and including other posts - allegedly on the same subject - and including them in single citation - can be considered dishonest.

It's not my fault that you didn't bother to provide links to the other quotes you provided. That's your responsibility. Not mine.

I'm not sure what you're on about the "business model". Contracts with Steam are locked behind NDAs. The statement of 30% only reveals a tiny fraction of the "business model". What obligations and duties are placed on either side, for example. What restrictions are placed on the entity selling their wares on Steam? None of that is addressed anywhere in your post, so I don't think anyone can seriously call your post a discussion of the "business model". It's little more than cherry-picking quotes (which may or may not be out of context) supportive of steam, while purposefully avoiding the presentation of anything to the contrary. Sorry to burst your bubble, but there's far more to business contracts than "you take X% and the rest is mine". Many a lawyer would be out of work if that were the case.

You know who DOES have that information? The bods at Steam and the bods at Matrix. Matrix knows their reasons for not entering into a business contract with Steam. In the absence of any substantiated information to the contrary, I don't see it as unreasonable to accept Erik's decision as the "correct" one. Actually, it's disrespectful to constantly second-guess his decisions without having access to the information which he made his decisions on.

As for why you decided to include the installer issue, I'm still waiting for an explanation. Installer size (specifically, patches) as a basis for his decision to go with Steam is patently absurd. (At least on a Windows platform) Yet oddly, my queries have elicited nothing but silence from you.

ORIGINAL: athelas.loraiel
I was hopeing you might get that as intention,

The default "intention" for someone who provides a cited quotation and the cited material does not have the quote which is being claimed - well, intentions are usually pretty clear in that case. I can't guess what your intentions were, but the usual reason is to quote someone out of context or to attribute a quote to them that they never made. I'm not telepathic. I can't guess what you were intending. What I can state, however, is the fact that the citation that you provided does not have the quotations you referred to.

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Icemania
At this rate, by the time they get around to Distant Worlds 2, they could have a lot more competition. Maybe I'm an optimist, but the current crop of 4X games is the weakest I can remember, so surely someone will take advantage and initiate some serious 4X projects in the next few years. Look at Star Citizen in a supposedly small and dead genre not unlike 4X. $21M in funding, massive publicity, and we hope a great game on the way.

Fortune favours the bold.

ORIGINAL: Icemania
And a few days later ... GalCiv 3 is announced.

ORIGINAL: athelas.loraiel
GalCiv3 is announced, sold like hell in founder/supporter edition and here is something to be remembered by. (Stardock does only steam now, and of course, their own DRM free download).

Perhaps we should completely park the debate on Steam.

I say this with respect to the community but the fact is that we are a small community so I remain completely and utterly bemused by a mod focused expansion as the next step for Distant Worlds. And no doubt the next expansion will retain the same marketing strategy.

[Icemania]

The other thing I find bemusing is the fact that the original Distant Worlds is still available. I never played it but after reading the SpaceSector review from a few years ago why wouldn't they make the base / minimum game at least ROTS?

[CyclopsSlayer]

ORIGINAL: Icemania

The other thing I find bemusing is the fact that the original Distant Worlds is still available. I never played it but after reading the SpaceSector review from a few years ago why wouldn't they make the base / minimum game at least ROTS?

Good point.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Icemania
why wouldn't they make the base / minimum game at least ROTS?

What is ROTS?

[Osito]

I suspect I'm missing the point here, but I'll bite:

Return of the Shakturi

[Icemania]

YABA

MML [:)]

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Osito

I suspect I'm missing the point here, but I'll bite:

Return of the Shakturi

That makes sense. Too many acronyms being used without context or explanation.

I guess the real question is - how much of a barrier to sales is the price? Sure, there are a few people posting complaints about the price - but what fraction of DW's market do they really represent? If they are an insignificant minority; and the majority of DW's market demographics consists of middle-aged professional males... then pricing probably isn't an issue. Lowering it won't result in justifiably increased sales. It might also go some way to explain why DW is generally so poorly marketed.

[Osito]

I have wondered about the price myself. Some of those contributing to this thread seem to be of the view that setting a lower price would inevitably lead to higher sales volumes and greater profits. In many cases that works, but it certainly doesn't work for everything.

Something else I've wondered about is whether it would have been a good thing if DW had had better exposure when it first came out. I didn't play the original game, but I've read a lot of hearsay (and a few reviews) suggesting that it was not a very good game on release. If that were the case, it may have done more harm than good to have mass-market exposure at that time.

Even now, the game has many flaws (I say that as someone who believes DW [Edit: DW:Legends/Shadows, that is] is one of the best computer strategy games I've ever played); for example, although I can live with the font size, it's still a problem on higher resolutions. Given those flaws, it could be counter-productive to make this game more widely available, if it simply results in a high level of publicity from people who bought the game and hated it. If DW2 could overcome those flaws, then it might make sense not to put much more marketing work into DW1, but to push DW2 much more strongly if and when it's released.

All speculation of course.

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

ORIGINAL: Osito

I suspect I'm missing the point here, but I'll bite:

Return of the Shakturi

That makes sense. Too many acronyms being used without context or explanation.

Here I was thinking you made a clever play on the acronym to indicate that you agreed!

The context for the acronmyn was blatantly obvious as I'm sure you are well aware.

In my industry, which will safely remain anonymous, reputation is crucial if you want to maximise long-term profit.

If I was responsible for a game that scored 5/10 on a Space Strategy gaming site, I would be hiding that product from public view as quickly as I could, and ensuring that the base product had at least a reasonable level of quality, which ROTS provides. While nothing can make up for the initial reputational damage, further damage from customers new to the product over time can be reduced (although not eliminated as of course the original review exists).

I assume the Matrix view is that most customers that purchase Distant Worlds will then purchase at least some of the expansions. I can understand this logic to maximise short-term profit. But I would also expect others are put off long-term.

So the question becomes one of short-term versus long-term. Is it surprising ... no! But I do find it bemusing. Perhaps my industry is fundamentally different to gaming ... but I doubt it.

ORIGINAL: Kayoz
I guess the real question is - how much of a barrier to sales is the price? Sure, there are a few people posting complaints about the price - but what fraction of DW's market do they really represent? If they are an insignificant minority; and the majority of DW's market demographics consists of middle-aged professional males... then pricing probably isn't an issue. Lowering it won't result in justifiably increased sales. It might also go some way to explain why DW is generally so poorly marketed.

Agree. That said, I would suggest the marketing is so poor that there are plenty of middle-aged professionals who remain unaware of the product. To be clear my point is not about pricing it's about what the entry level product should be.

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Osito
I have wondered about the price myself. Some of those contributing to this thread seem to be of the view that setting a lower price would inevitably lead to higher sales volumes and greater profits. In many cases that works, but it certainly doesn't work for everything.

Something else I've wondered about is whether it would have been a good thing if DW had had better exposure when it first came out. I didn't play the original game, but I've read a lot of hearsay (and a few reviews) suggesting that it was not a very good game on release. If that were the case, it may have done more harm than good to have mass-market exposure at that time.

Even now, the game has many flaws (I say that as someone who believes DW is one of the best computer strategy games I've ever played); for example, although I can live with the font size, it's still a problem on higher resolutions. Given those flaws, it could be counter-productive to make this game more widely available, if it simply results in a high level of publicity from people who bought the game and hated it. If DW2 could overcome those flaws, then it might make sense not to put much more marketing work into DW1, but to push DW2 much more strongly if and when it's released.

All speculation of course.

I agree Osito. As I've suggested before it's more than time to go big and bold with DW2 ... and I really hope Matrix realise their marketing strategy needs to fundamentally change with it. But in parallel I would also not continue to offer a massively inferior original DW product to the market.

[wodin]

x4 space games are not a niche genre. May not be as huge as say FPS games but they are still popular and have a big market share. After the disaster of Master of Orion 3 I think developers and publisher shied away from them. Though Space Empires and then Galactic Civ were popular proving there was a market out there. Remember Sci Fi in general has a massive fan base..couple that with PC gamers which I'm sure has a big proportion of geeks and geeks on the whole are well into sci fi add that to a game where you need to use your brain your onto a winner.

Oh before I get abuse..I'm what people would class as a geek and have geek interests..and I'm proud to call myself one.