[Murph]

Well, that worked better than I thought it would. Back on track and everything, which is good, because this is an interesting thread.

As to publicity and marketing, I know exactly the difficulties being described with niche markets. I'm helping a friend develop a board game for Columbia Games based on the Peloponnesian War (Pre-Roman Athens vs Sparta - but I'm sure most everyone on this forum does NOT need me to tell them that). Board wargaming is as niche as niche markets get, so the way we're doing it is developing the game, setting up options for pre-sales and printing and shipping dependant upon the amount of interest as shown by pre-sales numbers.

Of course, we both have other jobs... But the niche problem is the same. Actually, sometimes the thing to do is really burrow into your specific niche - for example, this game is going to be: 3 hours long, 2-player, at least 2 scenarios, using the core block rules - everything else is up in the air, but with boardgames, you almost have to pick a niche and go with it.

It's not exactly the same with computer games of course, there are notable cross-genre (and what's a genre but a pretty big niche, really) successes - sweet Rome: Total War, my copies in the mail.. But by-en-large, cross-genre is more of a risk than simply doing something within established fields. Hence all the Diablo, or Warcraft or FPS clones out there.

So yes, how do you do niche marketing? Word of mouth is best, really, although making your product available in demo form is a good way to get people (like me) interested. I absolutely agree that a full-page ad in PCG is not the way to go for Dom2, but similarly, neither is investing all the money in server architecture and software development so that a few people can buy and download the game Online. I mean, the point of any business is to figure out the way that works best for you - that is effective both in terms of cost and time and customer happiness. If Shrapnel feels that they found there solid ground on this, wicked, because it means that we can get the benefits of great developers work, AND that they can get the benefits of our cash money.

Oh, and Saxon and deccan, I've been to south america where free trade and privatization, enforced by the World Bank and the WTO have allowed multi-national corporations to gain control of water supplies and other essentials of life. I'm all for limited free trade and privatization, but I have grave concerns about "free" trade that the WTO enforces, which does not allow countries to stop selling products or resources once they start.

I live in an area with vast water and energy resources, and as the water and envery shortages get worse in the next 20 years, I fully expect to see armed US soldiers on the dams and rivers that flow past my door, and free trade will justify their being there. But that's a whole other can of worms.