SE:V Poll

[Barnacle Bill]

frightlever said:
Maybe. But will he do it in his spare time for no remuneration? The rights were sold to Strategy First so they could quite possibly pull an Atari and not fund patches beyond fixing bugs. No hate please, I'm just saying.

Strategy First published several Paradox games, yet Paradox also produces free patches for years (until the title is replaced by a sequel) like Aaron. The principle way that Strategy First gummed up the gears in Paradox games was in the early days when there was a separate executable for North America so patches would languish in Strategy First QA for days/weeks after the Euros got theirs. Eventually Paradox went to global executables even on the older games still being supported, and that stopped being a problem. So, while Strategy First isn't my favorite game published, I don't think they are going to force any major change in Aaron's tradition of long-term support.

Basically, there are not very many companies doing detailed high-depth thinking-man's strategy games, and it is a nitch market compared to consoles or even PC RTS, First Person Shooters, etc... The ones that do, and their star designers, acquire a following that they don't dare disappoint. The "usual suspects" are around for years. You see that on this board for MM and on their own board for Paradox. I think switching to the mass market technique (shove it out the door unready, never patch it) would be suicide in this environment. I suspect that even the MBA types understand this...