A simple thank you

[Arryn]

Annette said:
What's risks are you referring to? The risk of a high rate of customer dissatisfaction?

Fine, I'll rise to the bait by responding with "what dissatisfaction?" You mean the "dissatisfaction" of all the Dom 2 players who download the demo (which someone pointed out is about the same size as the regular Version of the game), fall in love with it, and then buy the game? The "dissatisfaction" of all the Dom 2 players who have to resort to masses of player-written documentation because of all the critical info needed to be able to successfully play the game in MP that is not present in the manual, said maunal being a key reason which Richard (and others) cite as to why a fully-working Version of Dom 2 isn't made available for download? The "dissatisfaction" in having to download a large file, when the demo is of comparable size? The "dissatisfaction" in having too many people queued up waiting to download patches, when I've yet to see anyone complain about such a thing?

So I ask you, what "dissatisfaction" are you referring to? So far, the only "dissatisfaction" I've seen mentioned on this forum is from people wishing for, what to them is, a more convenient and speedy way to get the game they want.

Yes, Annette, I'm well aware of Shrapnel's stance. Excuse me if I don't happen to agree with it, nor the justifications that have been used in support of it. You're entitled to your position. And, while I honestly like Shrapnel and its contribution to the gaming industry, please don't expect all of your customers to meekly accept everything that officials of Shrapnel say as Indisputable Truth merely because you (that's a general 'you', not you personally) say it. I gave up blind obedience and unquestioning belief well over three decades ago when I broke with Catholic church doctrine, and over two decades ago when I left the Republican party. Even in the military one is permitted (to a point), and even encouraged (to a degree), to question what one is told.

[Tim Brooks]

I hesitate to post here, as my Posts usually end discussions for some reason, but here goes...

please don't expect all of your customers to meekly accept everything that officials of Shrapnel say as Indisputable Truth merely because you (that's a general 'you', not you personally) say it.

Well, since Arryn thinks we (that's a personal 'we', not a general 'we') are lying to all of you I will answer her arguments for the others here that want more information as to our philosophy regarding downloads and who might entertain that we know a little about this business.

1. We have offered downloads in the past and still do, although our download games are also offered as physical product now. The games we offered as purely downloads are the worse selling games we have ever had. Why is that? We believe there are two main reasons. One, the fact that a whole lot of people don't like downloads (see 2 below) and two, the ease of piracy as the manual is in electronic format.

2. The games that are offered as either download or physical product are sold as physical product 4 to 1 over downloads. Why is that? Our guess is most people want physical product. When they spend money, they want something they can hold in their hands.

3. Downloads as a percentage of those games unit sales create over 10 times the customer service requests as do physical products. Add to that the increase in behind the scenes man hours of maintaing the servers for downloads and you have a big expense in downloadable products. This is not a bigger expense than offering physical product, which is quite expensive also, but on a par. So if we aren't saving money and we get more sales with physical products, why do downloads? Due to these facts, in June, I (that's a personal 'I', not a general 'I') made the decision that we would offer no new downloadable games. Expansions, however, may still be offered as downloads, we haven't decided yet on the avenue to take with them.

Shrapnel isn't remotely close to large enough to be able to afford to create the server farms needed for even a small-scale Version of that sort of thing. If they cannot afford to invest the resources to provide electronic downloads, nor are willing to take the risk, what makes you think they could do centralized server gaming (which is costlier and riskier)?

We are working on the finishing touches on our first MMP offering with our own dedicated servers (look for an announcement later this month) so we are probably a wee bit larger than Arryn thinks.

Oh and Arryn, if you are still reading this, please stop the flaming that is going on in this thread. Or I will stop it. And that is a personal 'I'.

There are some good discussions here folks. Please don't let my post end them.

Regards,

Tim Brooks
President
Shrapnel Games, Inc.

[Truper]

Tim: If you're going to be putting up the infrastructure for a MMP, I wonder if it would be too much to ask that Shrapnel run a dedicated Dom2 server. The community currently has access to the server run by St. Esben, but the demand for server time is greater than the supply. I've no clue whether you could justify the expense, but I thought I'd ask anyway

[Gandalf Parker]

Truper said:
Tim: If you're going to be putting up the infrastructure for a MMP, I wonder if it would be too much to ask that Shrapnel run a dedicated Dom2 server. The community currently has access to the server run by St. Esben, but the demand for server time is greater than the supply. I've no clue whether you could justify the expense, but I thought I'd ask anyway

Shrapnel has a number of games which could use a good PbEM game site. Dominions 2 and Space Empires IV are probably the 2 biggest crowds (both excellent games and for many of the same reasons if you want to check them out).

Thats why Ive been pushing for some of us to come together and create a generic web structure that can easily support adding different games.
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...5&o=93&fpart=1
Ive searched and searched, and Im very surprised that there doesnt seem to be one. The closest I could come up with as a ready-made package was one of the BBS packages which would amount to basically being a web-forum allowing uploads.

I would like to see one written as SysAdmin-upward (making best use of having the whole machine to itself), rather than WebMaster-downward (which is best for a package you might add to a machine as a user). I have a dedicated server I can use for it.

[Murph]

This has been an interesting thread for me (other than the flame war, which is actually the first really serious-seeming one that I've seen on a Shrapnel forum - usually people here are remarkably polite and reasonable - probably why I keep coming back).

I'm particularly interested because I've experienced all three of the distribution methods being discussed here, and I'm curious as to why some some methods seem to be prefered by people.

I've bought most games in retail stores, in fact, I bought GalCiv that way - which I did not like a fraction as much as I liked SE IV, truth be known. And I didn't see much different about GalCiv than your general retail game. Needed to be patched, and generally paid a lot of money for something i ended up not being crazy about - par for the course.

I bought Dom2 through Shrapnel's website, after I got the demo in PC Gamer. Played the demo until I loved it so much I had to buy the game, then bought the game Online - my first Online purchase - and now comes the kicker - waited 2 weeks to get the game, because I live in a small town in Canada and they apparently carried my copy to me ON FOOT!

But that wait did give me a chance to play the demo through, oh, 40 times or so. So basically I experienced all the drawbacks of the on-line system; I was reluctant to order something on-line, had to wait a long time for my product and even had to use customer service for my out-of-US credit card.

And guess what, they were great! Shrapnel was very responsive and helped me out - which is big for me, as I'm a customer service manager - and I was fully happy when I finally got my order.

And I ordered SE IV not too long after- no fear or worries this time, and it only took a week. No problem after the Last time. All the problems i had didn't turn me off one bit from ordering Online - why? Because the product was great - the service was great and the support was great.

Now, I've also gotten software Online via DD, and haven't been much impressed - albeit that it was mostly apps. Long download times (even now that i'm on ADSL) for the complex stuff, and exactly the same reluctance to provide credit card info Online. So how is direct download better? If you want this game - or any other Shrapnel Game - you'll buy it, hells with how you have to do it.

I thought the real problem with Shrapnel was not their distribution - which keeps their costs down and lets them pay devs more, but their marketing. Lets face it, for a lot of people, they go and browse the game store and see if anything looks cool, and that's how they find out about stuff, or they hear about it on game review sites or in magazines. I'm a serious strategy game player and I'd never heard of Shrapnel until I saw the demo in PCG (I think it was PCG anyways, quite a while ago).

I don't think Shrapnel needs to put games on shelves in stores, or allow you to download their games directly, although both I'm sure open up their own portion of market share - they need to make more great games and get the word out there through marketing that they exist - Field of Dreams was wrong - you have to build it AND tell them about it, before they come... How you get them to it will work itself out, because people will come to quality.

We all did.

Well, that's my rant. And let me do what this thread was intended to do in the first place - say "Thanks Illwinter, thanks Shrapnel - thanks to all the forum junkies. I spend more time than is healthy here, and I don't feel bad about it at all."

[quantum_mechani]

Murph said:
"Thanks Illwinter, thanks Shrapnel - thanks to all the forum junkies.

Wow, back on topic after 6 pages- I can't belive it!

[Cainehill]

It's almost all on topic. Some of it is merely ... palatable.

And say,QM! When is the next Twilight due, since you say your email of working?

[Tim Brooks]

Murph:

I thought the real problem with Shrapnel was not their distribution - which keeps their costs down and lets them pay devs more, but their marketing.

We actually do alot of marketing - the PC Gamer Demo was how you heard about us right? The problem is we are dealing in niche markets, and there is no good way to reach the niches. You either have to pay alot of money through magazine ads to reach a small percentage of potential customers, or rely on reviews to do this for you. PCG or CGW wants close to $20,000 for a full page ad, and we reach mainly people that aren't even interested in our type of products. It just doesn't make sense to do this.

The hardest thing we do is try to find avenues to reach our niche customer base that is cost effective. The best ways we have found to do this is through paid search engine listings. Truth be told, the fans themselves (word of mouth) equates to more sales than anything we do marketing wise.

[PDF]

This thread became interesting again... Thanks Shrapnel !

I'm an advocate of downloadable products, but that may be because
1/ I'm not in the US so have difficulty finding some of *my niche* games
2/ I've a good DSL bw and I'm savvy enough with tech things to manage that without too much problems
3/ I don't fear buying Online (much less than carrying banknotes in my wallet in fact )
4/ I'm not convinced that piracy would make a sensible hit to games like Shrapnel's ones - the guys pirating that woul anyway never have bought the game whatsoever, at 99%...

But I agree that the tech infrastructure isn't quite ready, and requires too much investment for a company like Shrapnel when compared to possible profit.
Some people (Stardock-type) will have offer other companies secure and efficient d/l platforms to make this profitable to small publishers- and big ones will surely be scared to death by piracy issue for some years more !

BTW Tim if you want a full page in PC4War, the French mag which has proudly edited more than 20 pages on Dom2 in 3 issues , sure it's less than 20K $ !!

[Gandalf Parker]

Murph said:
I don't think Shrapnel needs to put games on shelves in stores, or allow you to download their games directly, although both I'm sure open up their own portion of market share - they need to make more great games and get the word out there through marketing that they exist - Field of Dreams was wrong - you have to build it AND tell them about it, before they come... How you get them to it will work itself out, because people will come to quality.

There is a difference between marketing and publicity. Both are things that the publisher handles. Publicity requires time and effort, while Marketing requires money (ads, visits). If you remember, companies like Intel had full page ads for every one of their titles in every game magazine and they went bankrupt. An extreme example I know but it points out the diffrence. Marketing is like chain-store retail. It serves to increase brand-name and logo recognition, but it creates a larger gap before there are profit checks in the mail. Its all gambling.

I think Shrapnel does the publicity very well. I dont think there is a game magazine or major game site or forum or games newsgroup that you cant do a search for Dominions on. And the info is correct (you would be amazed at how many emails it takes to correct little things). If you see any gaps, let us know.

Im outside my element (I should stick to talking about servers) but I think marketing would be more than a decision of the publisher. Since it involves money-investment it would be more of a discussion between publisher and developer. Just a guess