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WEll, I just bought Dom II, so I'll be able to weigh in on that at some point...what a fool I am. There goes the rest of the year I think...

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Doesn't matter what SFs policy is, as the deal has to be agreed mutually, meaning that Aaron would hold most of the playing cards (he is providing the money maker), meaning he would only have agreed if he was happy enough with it

Plus most contracts of this sort will have a break deal incase either side decide the contract is no longer worth it

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Also note that MM is covering all development costs as well, so that alone gives him better $ and control than the usual deal - and the contract I'd say would be for SE:V only and not future releases.

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In order for SFI to have a contract with MM for several games already, that means they will mroe than likely be investing into the development of the rest of the series. Similar to how Ubisoft, EA games, and such has been running

I think it's more likely its game-by-game.

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I don't think that Development Funding is part of SFI's business model any more. They off-loaded all their development to MiST Land awhile ago. Although I get the impression that they still have 'creative control' on those projects. (more like an 'if you build it (for us) we guarantee publishing' sort of deal.)

So, I wouldn't worry about 'future' products from Aaron, everything will depend on how well sales of SE5 goes and the results of that are still a long ways off. Personally I think SE5 is going to be a roaring success.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

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I don't mean to revive this thread or anything, or to pore salt on an open wound, but one of the developers behind GalCiv had some very enlightening things to say about how strategy first stroked them out of a lot of money.

There is more, in post #7, he explains how they ripped them off.

LINK

In a nut shell he said that SF was a middle man and that they kept most of the revenue generated from the world wide sales of Gal Civ. They basically cheated Stardock and laid claim to the title as if they owned it.

I would be heart sick if Strategy First robbed Malfador the way they robbed Stardock. Blind.

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How dare they criticise SE! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. If that is the kind of illeducated people SF attracts we are better off without them. When SE5 comes out we must be careful to keep Intel to ourselves. If they are worthy of our company they can find us themselves. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

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In my eyes the reason why MOO comes up in conversations and SE doesn't according to these guys, is that though SE is better than MOO, it is a niche game and therefore doesn't attract that much attention to itself. Moreover, there has been just about no marketing at all for SE.

And if S1st both
-ripped money off StarDock AND
-is bankrupt,
I guess that they have a REALLY poor accounting deptment. I mean, you withhold quite substantial amounts of money from a developer and then you go bankrupt?

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Yea, THAT takes skill.

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And that skill is rare. They could market it, hire themselves out to make companies go bankrupt for tax purposes!

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Really. Where did you get this information? I would like to know why you "think" this?

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Apart from SEIV/Shrapnel sites, I have seen NO marketing AT ALL for the game. No ads, banners, whatever.

OK, so I may be wrong, but at least SE has received less makretingn than MOO, and MOO is more of a mainstream game.

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Aside from reviews and the banners of Shrapnel-aligned websites, I haven't seen ads for it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

But with this latest revelation about Strategy First.. One word comes to mind:

Enron

It actually reminds me to the dot com bubble burst too. I had a huge number of friends who had a 3rd party handle advertising on their site and paid them for those banner placements and then refused to pay the fees to the web master citing bankruptcy. Nearly all of them are website-less now or struggling.


As for GalCiv2, The reviews I saw of that game and the screenshots provided in those reviews are two seperate things. I felt like I was listening to a bible thumper in the reviews. I would give a game more serious consideration if it had a harsher, more realistic review. Hell, if I could I would give them. I'm yet to see a copy of GalCiv outside a last-chance, dent'n'bend bargin bin http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I'm also yet to see more than one copy of the game at the same time in the same store.

This is the only time I'm glad bush's new bankruptcy law will prevent a company from escaping its debts.

And God, Satan, and Dick Cheney forbid that SFI Screws MM, and they'll be hell for them to pay from all of us.

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Klvino... Strategy First is in Montreal.

So that law carries no weight http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

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We have done a ton of marketing for SE:IV but over time you spend less marketing effort on a 4+ year old game. Just because folks spend a lot of money on advertising doesn't mean it's smart. We have run ads in the major gaming magazines before but have found them to have little impac on sales. We ran banners for SE:IV for years on most of the major gaming sites, that is until the ROI on banner ads went through the floor.

We have also used a lot of non traditional methods to market SE:IV and all of our games. I won't go into all of them because they are trade secrets http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

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David takes out his 'SFI rumor-mill gossip coin' and flips it,.. "WTH? Tails again! I'm getting tired of seeing only one side of the 'coin'"

I sure wish SFI would spill the beans and let the public know what their side of the story is,.. I find it strange that they go through serious finacial trouble (mainly due to in-house development and 'government contracts' forcing them to 'Create-new-jobs' in order to stay in business), and just when things are looking bright an 'outside developer' (who shall remain nameless in order not to spread bad news or tarnish their reputation) milks SFI for over $800,000 and that consequences of that saw 108 people loose their jobs and a number of 'other' developers saw their royalties seemingly go up in smoke. I understand their frustration, but there is absolutely no evidence that SFI is not trying to 'make-good' on those contracts. There has been no 'bankruptcy' declared or contracts deemed null and void. SFI filed for 'Bankruptcy-protection' which means that they have the chance to do everything in their power to make things right. getting rid of the in-house development (cash monkey) has greatly improved SFI's financial standing, in december they started showing a positive cash flow, it may not be enough to pay off 'ALL' their debts, but it is a step in the right direction.

Here's a scenario,.. in 3-4 months when things are going good and SFI manages to 'make-good' on their old contracts will those developers that are currently fueling 'negative press' be able to go back in time and say oops? Nope, and what is worse, never getting paid or being paid late. I think that if SFI was the 'Bad Company' that everyone makes it out to be they could have thrown in the towel long ago (when they were actually showing 'millions' of dollars in profit) and taken the money and ran. the fact that they are doing everything in their power to 'make-good' on their contracts says alot about integrty. The fact that they have also refused to enter the 'character-assination' game and bad mouth the people responsible for their financial woes is another sign of integrity.

Yes they have had extreme financial difficulties, but that was not by design or any mallicious intent. Stardock is as much a victim as SFI, so are many other fine developers. SFI is doing everything in it's power to turn things around and I for one believe they will succeed. One sign that they are succeedign at turning things around is this news..

Silverstar to Aquire SFI

This is not bad news, this is good news, it will help the company by opening up new avenues an in turn make future expansion into new markets available.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm really sick if hearing one side of the coin. and everything I said here is only a tiny part of the 'flip-side' I'm not in a position to know all the details, but what I know goes a long way to explaining why I'm optimistic about the future of SE5.

Nuf said,..

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

EDIT: this is not in response to Richard's post but to the negative press that has been spilled throughout this thread.

Well spoken David.
 

I really had no idea that another company squeezed $800k out of S1st..... my apologies to the company. Here's hoping SEV will generate enough money for them to release more games so that they can pay off their debts.

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Wow! That's amazing, and proves the point doesn't it. If we spent tens of thousands on those things and you didn't see them, then how effective are they?

Mainstream games that do well at retail have to be advertised differently than niche products -- even niche products at retail must be advertised differently. A publisher who pays $18,000 for a full page ad in CGW, to reach (based on CGW's stats) less than 15,000 people who are actally interested in the game, well they are just setting themselves up for bankruptcy, er disappoinment.

The reality is, I would bet that those that read CGW and are interested in a niche game with art budgets in the $ thousands (not $ millions!), difficult interface, and micromanagement features are way less than 15,000 people.

As for banner ads, well, they just don't work anymore. They haven't for over 4 years now. When we first started in 1999, we could advertise by banners, pay $200 - $500 for 300,000 impressions and get a click thru rate of 7.5% (that brought us about 22,000 clicks which turns into about 330 sales). Now the sites worth advertising on want $8,000 for those 300,000 impressions and the click thru rates are under .5% (that brings us less than 1500 clicks which turns into about 23 sales). So yea, lets do that!

We do alot of marketing, in non-tradtional ways, that get us the returns for our investments. How did you hear about SEIV? I know we have run polls before asking this question, and the top answer is word of mouth (a friend told me, I saw it in a forum or user group discussion, my friend at work was playing it, etc.). One of the hardest things we have to contend with regarding developers is to explain that word of mouth just doesn't happen. Someone just didn't wake up one morning and go, "I have a giant urge to go discuss Space Empires IV - I've never heard of it before, don't even know what it is, but hey, I'll just go talk about it." They talk about it because they FOUND out about it. And that just doesn't happen. That is marketing that gets games to that point.

We don't discuss the many ways we market, because our competition isn't there - you won't find SF there - and we don't want then there. Hell, we want our competition paying $18,000 for ads that don't reach their market. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

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I think I discovered SE when searching for free games. Looked at it, decided to try it, liked it but didn't want to buy it because it was shareware. Then space empires 4 came, and I got it!

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Enron is a recent example on a larger scale, but Strategy 1st being a gaming company it reminds me of the shenanigans around TSR when Dungeons & Dragons was the 'Next Big Thing'. He was screwed right & left by people who wanted to live the 'corporate lifestyle' just like those dot-con guys a couple decades later. His wife was actually bargaining with 'her half' of his shares in the company behind his back while their divorce was in progress. Gygax own website seems to be down or inaccessible, but here are some other accounts I've managed to find:

http://www.atlasofadventure.com/Archive/gygaxfaq.asp

http://www.rubycovenant.com.au/viewt...30&start=0

I imagine that something very similar going on at Strategy 1st could produce just those 'impossible' results of non-payment to developers and bankruptcy at the same time. All the money would be going into limousines, 'expense accounts' for free travel around the world, salaried 'jobs' for relatives who never show up to work, and etc. just like happened at TSR. This is not looking good for MM. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

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I have done a lot more looking and David is correct. If Malfador has confidence in SFI, then so do I. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

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I originally found SEIV through one of the game download sites (CNet or ZdNet?). I like strategy games and found the demo on the site. After a game or two, I went to Shrapnel and ordered the game.

In my opinion, free downloads of the demos is the best way to reach those who like this type of game.

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I agree Greybeard. I found out about the SE series by doing a search on the internet for "space strategy games". Found the demo for SEIII, got it, bought the game. That's why I bought SEIV, because I liked the genre and had previous experience with the game. And to be honest, how many people actually like 'space strategy games'???

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I bumped into SE II shortly after going online for the first time. Took a while to figure it out then spent a lot of late nights because I was sure that tem more turns would win the game. Then I bought a full copy and spent a lot of sleepless weekends because I just knew that 10 more turns would win the game. Any of you been around long enough to remember resolving combat between two really big SE II fleets on an old 75 MHz system? When SE III came out I quickly bought a copy and spent way too much time with it. Soon after I stumbled across the old Borg Forum, and have been addicted to multiplayer ever since. When SE IV came out, it took me a long time to warm up to it. I think the missing right clicks really took me a long time to accept. And the first release had a lot of problems running on the systems I had back then. It actually seemed to run more reliably on my older SDram systems. And I never really got a good with SE4 as I did with SE III.

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I think that MOO3 proved, by all the hype and anticipation it generated, that there is a good market for a deep, well developed space strategy game.

Unfortunately, MOO3 certainly wasn't that game. I'm cheering for SE:V to fill the void. Hopefully, it can generate enough good press to build anticipation and (re)build the market.

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Marketing.
Marketing.
Marketing.

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If you're keeping score that's 3 for marketing and 0 for dumb luck.

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http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

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I found out about SE by seeing my older brother playing SE III (unregistered) and asking something along the lines of "What's that? It looks interesting." I have no idea how he found it.

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Well, I can't find a user "marketing", and dumbluck hasn't even posted to this thread. I think it's a bit unfair to be keeping score against him when he hasn't even posted! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I think what the Shrapnel folks are trying to get across is that it's better to make it easy for people *looking* for a game to find at Shrapnel. This works infinitely (or at least, a great deal) better than Grand Spamming people who couldn't give a damn. It's better to quietly release playable demos to free download sites, and anywhere that will offer free or subsidized bandwidth for hosting mirrors. It's better for them to create the atmosphere they did in the forums, effectively making an army of salespeople and tech support. And although the games might not get huge recognition (ie, front page) in any of the game review publications, Shrapnel games ARE in those publications. So, invest a lot of time into making contacts within the industry, slowly spreading awareness of a game for "free", instead of investing a lot of money that could be better spent making more games.

And really, in the end, it looks like the strategy is to market the games in a way that makes everyone *think* they stumbled onto a treasure trove by... *drumroll...* Pure Dumb Luck. Very sneaky devious, and I like it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Hope I didn't give away too many secrets! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

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Hi David,

hey, I don't think we've seen "just tails" in this thread. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Look at my post a while back, I explicitly mentioned the buyout by Silverstar and that that's a good thing for SFI. No one here has an interested to badmouth anyone - it's just that many people are deeply concerned about the future of the Space Empires series, because they love the work of you two. I think, based on SFI's history, these concerns have to be expected. After all, *if* something goes wrong in the end, is a small developer like Malfador really in a position to finance or occupy itself with lengthy lawsuits?

I'd really appreciate if SFI were a little more open about what caused their problems. The explanation that an outside developer milked 800.000$ from them comes as a total surprise to me, and at the moment I don't really see how this could have happened. I just don't see any developer involved who even was in a position to demand that much money from SFI. (SFI didn't have so many successful outside developers besides Stardock, and Stardock didn't do such a thing, they are the ones who didn't get paid). To be honest, to me the explanation that SFI's cash-monkey in-house development used up all this money to produce games that didn't nearly generate enough revenue, sounds much more likely. Also I wonder, if SFI's financial breakdown can be explained so easily by this so far rather mysterious third party, then why weren't the developers who waited (and are still waiting) for their royalties told about it? I'm not saying that it's impossible, but please understand, from my perspective the details as of now don't fit together very well.

Anyway, the decision to go with SFI has been made, and so we can't do anything else but keeping our fingers crossed that things will turn out the way you hope. And that's exactly what I'll do. Fortunately, there's no one making ridiculous announcements like "SFI are eeeevil, I won't buy anything from them", so even if people are skeptical about SFI's trustworthiness, this won't hurt sales.

I certainly will buy SEV, no matter who distributes it. What I heard about the game so far sounds great. I just hope that you and Aaron really get the money you deserve for your outstanding, dedicated work.

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It seems to me that if Malfador want to change of distributor, well, that's his business. As a grognard, I'll still check Shrapnell, Matrix and Stardock on a regular basis anyway.

However, I do question the wisdom of going from direct sales to channel sales for a niche product. As I recall the mass of sales for Gal Civ were done via resellers (their 100000 copies sold) but the money came almost exclusively from direct sales. I hope to be wrong, but I fear Malfador is heading for a world of pain.

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I've heard many excuses from Strategy First why they couldn't pay us at Stardock the hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties, but never have I heard anything about some rogue third party developer screwing them of $800k or whatever.

I do NOT think Strategy First is a dishonest company. I actually like the people who work there. But Strategy First has a LOT of people that they owe money to. Millions of dollars are owed to various people and companies.

With Galactic Civilizations, Stardock developed the game on its own. It did most of the box design. It did most of the marketing. It handled virtually all the support. It made the demo. It distributed the demo onto sites. It created and maintained the website for the game. It handled the distribution of game updates (including paying for all the bandwidth).

In short, Strategy First's contribution to the success of Galactic Civilizations was minimal IMO. They essentially took our game, put it in a box, and turned it over to Encore to distribute into the stores. And then only have paid a fraction of the royalties that they owe. Which we find pretty maddening considering how much of their job we did for them.

I think they have made a good faith attempt to try to pay us what they can. But at Stardock, we don't mess with royalty money owed to others. When we have collected money that is to be paid as a royalty to a third party, it is seperated from our general fund precisely so that we don't get tempted to spend money that should be reserved for third parties. That's what Strategy First should have done in my opinion. But they didn't.

And Stardock isn't the only ones who were hurt by Strategy First's financial short-falls. And there's no reason to think that the same thing won't happen again.

I just hope the author of Space Empires V isn't choosing publishers for the wrong reasons. If he thinks that Galactic Civilizations was successful thanks to Strategy First, he's wrong IMO.

Galactic Civilizations succeeded because:

(a) It's a good game.
(b) It happened to come out right when Master of Orion 3 came out which was not well received by fans.
(c) It had very good word of mouth
(d) It got very good reviews (which, btw, Stardock was the one who sent the game out to most of the reviewers who reviewed the game)
(e) Its developer provided a year+ of FREE updates to the game to keep it fresh and new.
(f) The distributor, Encore, was able to get it into lots of stores adn thus capitalize and A,B,C,D and E.

That isn't to say that Strategy First won't pay the Space Empires V developer. I have no idea. But if he's counting on them to make Space Empires V a "big hit" then past performance should be considered.

-
Brad Wardell
Designer of Galactic Civilizations
http://www.galciv.com

Incidentally, for Galactic Civilizations II we're publishing it ourselves and have had no trouble getting contracts for most of the major retail stores negotiated.

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No need to spill the beans.
I have personally sold at least 3 copies of SEIV for you...word of mouth works best!

That, and good reviews from people who care. Like underdogs.org...

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newest rumor/truth, Sega just bought out Creative Assembly, (There goes the Total War games down the tubes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif )

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I agree with you completely Psyringe!

I am glad to see Brad stopping in. One of the things I enjoy about you Brad is your entrenched in the community more then I have ever seen any game company owner or CEO has in the past. I have been around this industry from the very beginnings. Talking about the early and late 70's.

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Hell, this looks like it's going to be a bad choice, I'd say if you can change back, go ahead, but in the end it's your game.

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I am intrigued by the discussion of marketing in this thread. How did I “discover” this game? Back when I had a boring chemical sales job, a weekly search on CNET’s Downloads netted SE 3. Downloaded demo, loved it, sent demo to all family & friends who enjoy that type of game, eventually bought full game. What marketing was that? Most of the games at that time on CNET were garbage, so a few lines of description in that sea of trash was nothing that any marketer to be proud of.

In the “business” I was an “inside sales” contact. Already bought product, and likely to buy again, as are most of us who are fans of SE. I received an email from MM when one of the SEIV demos came out, downloaded gold demo from CNET (again sent to all family & friends who enjoy this type of game). Liked it even better than SE III, bought it and made sure all said family and friends bought a copy of their own to stop sponging off of my copy and to support Mr. Hall. With all due respect, how are those 10 sales a plus for anyone’s marketing department? Inside sales are easy to close.

Now where does marketing come in? After enjoying many hours learning not to right click in SEIV, I read the book that came with the game. The other book-not the manual-the sales one. It was near Christmas and relatives were inquiring what I wanted. Dungeon Odyssey caught my attention. So off to the Shrapnel web page. That’s marketing. Getting someone to buy your product that would not have otherwise. Kudos to whoever designed that book. You got the sale.

I wonder how much cross-over Strategy First is expecting to get from the SE audience, or if their marketing is even considering it.

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Based on Brad's comments, many of his feelings on why his game did well should be consistent with SE:V when it's released, so perhaps SE:V will do well regardless of who publishes it.

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Yeah, but what if it does well and Malfador still doesn't get any money fron SF? That's what I'm worried about.

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Then we'll sue Strategy First for the money.

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Should have asked Brad about that part. It seems Stardock had its fair (and unfair) part of publishers going out of business. If you believe you'll get a cent from a company going out of business, please tell me the name of the business you're running, I'll make sure you never get a cent from me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

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while it might sell well, it remains to be seen wither MM will be paid. Stardock distributed and collected revenue for its own product online, so the only thing they lost out on because of SF was the retail and mail order sales.

MM does not have their own distribution channel, and has not published downloadables in the past. therefore, they stand to lose a lot more if SF does not come through.

Class action from the creditors could potentially freeze SF's assets, but that isnt really good for anyone. It basically assures you will only get a small fraction of what you are owed, if anything, and then will have to negotiate a new publishing deal with someone else...

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You know, SF needs to clear up this whole matter once and for all.

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But there were no computer games back then, except Pong http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I know, because I was there, and played Pong, (in the bowling alley, with my mother, may she rest in peace).

So I figure you must be talking boardgames. You remember SPI, then? Big Jim Dunnagan? (Dunnigan? Hell, I don't remember how he spelled it)

What a talented group that was, at its peak. Mark Herman was, IMO, one of the 3 best boardgame designers that ever drew breath. Mech War 2, that awesome Pacific War carrier sim, Central America...great work all.

Wonder what happened to all those guys? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

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Just heard that one of SPI's cofounders (Redmond A. Simonsen) died about a week ago. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

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Redmond A. Simonson died recently.

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Oh man, that's too bad. And he was only 62...I'm almost...erm, let's not think about that!

On the original topic of this thread...Odd news!

I don't think Malfador is going to get what they're looking for out of this. I wish Aaron all the best of luck, but I suspect he's going to regret this decision.

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With all the talk of the old days, and with the eminent beta test drawing a few of the old guys back into the forums, I though I’d give everyone a little trip back to the days of the Ladder. With what I had to do to get past my ISPs firewall, this might be the last time I put it up. But for your viewing pleasure here is the old SE III (SE4) Ladder.

SE Ladder

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How did I get into this? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I found SEIV from a review in CGW! (BIG ad dollars at work) I downloaded the demo, and, ummmm... kinda went crazy until the purchased game arrived....

A Rabid fan? Me? Surely you jest.....