(Shocking) News!!!!!

[Gandalf Parker]

Tim Brooks said:
I believe I know why Aaron went with Strategy First, based on our convesations of last year. My understanding is his decision was based on the sales of Galactic Civ, a true expception to the niche market rule (name another niche market game in the last 6 years that has done anywhere near that well). If I am not mistaken GC sold over 100,000 units at retail, but this was not due to Strategy First's market penetration, but to Brad Wardell's name and standing in this industry. Search for GC on any search engine, and you come up with not Strategy First entries, but Brad Wardell entries. Now, do a search for SEIV and see who comes up?

Thats highly unfortunate. I know of Brad Wardell and GalCiv for many MANY years. Any conversation in AI newsgroups brought him and the game to mention as a prime example of game AI. I was always peeved that it was an OS/2 game making use of the multi-tasking in that OS. When I heard that BW was jumping on WinXP as possibly finally being able to run the game properly I rushed to pre-order it. (unfortunately so far Im not thrilled with the porting of it)

From what I see in newsgroups I think that a definate sizeable chunk of GalCiv sales was due to it showing up on shelves but it was because of old-timers like me seeing it and saying "is that the GalCiv I kept hearing about and could never run". There was a ready-made market if you could catch the eye of the people who normaly dont glance at the games anymore. Im not sure if there is much of a "lost gamers" market with fond memories of SEIII and SEIV to be snagged by SEV. There probably is but Im not sure that they cant mostly still be reached by newsgroups and game-mag reviews. Maybe there are, time will tell.

[tesco samoa]

Back again.

Tim to quote you

All the above quote actually says is that the Space Empires IV crowd is vocal and the game has enjoyed longevity - which, I believe we all knew . We wish we could get the wargamers to be this vocal here, but they have a vast forum network that extends beyond the Intel Forums. The reality though is that SEIV was not our 'best selling game by far'. It however has been in our top 3 sellers since its release over 5 years ago. In 2004 it was beat out by Dominions II, which was our top seller, and, in fact, SEIV came in 4th place for the year.

I do not quite follow this... So for 3 years it sold away and then in year 4 D2 took over for year sales and then to date this year 4th place... So does this mean it is only the best selling game by a little then
No disrespect. Just trying to understand the paragraph.

[Tim Brooks]

tesco samoa said:
I do not quite follow this... So for 3 years it sold away and then in year 4 D2 took over for year sales and then to date this year 4th place... So does this mean it is only the best selling game by a little then
No disrespect. Just trying to understand the paragraph.

Sorry tesco, what I meant is that on our 'all time' top sellers list, SEIV is in the top 3, not our "best seller by far". Last year, 2004, Dominions II was our number one seller and SEIV was 4th.

This is not meant to discount SEIV in any way, we are proud to call it a best selling Shrapnel game, it just shows how much our fan base has grown since we started in business. Heck our new releases now do in a month what it took SEIV several months to do back in 2000, when it was first released.

[Will]

Tim Brooks said:

Sorry tesco, what I meant is that on our 'all time' top sellers list, SEIV is in the top 3, not our "best seller by far". Last year, 2004, Dominions II was our number one seller and SEIV was 4th.

This is not meant to discount SEIV in any way, we are proud to call it a best selling Shrapnel game, it just shows how much our fan base has grown since we started in business. Heck our new releases now do in a month what it took SEIV several months to do back in 2000, when it was first released.

Sooo, Tim... When's the IPO?

As for the publisher jump, it of course could be a mixed blessing. It sounds like Aaron will be leveraging a bit of SF's resources to get more mainstream advertising and reviews, as well as helping out with translations and such. It's much easier and better to have a professional translator make a non-english version of a game, both the internal description bits and the manuals and such. That opens up the market quite a bit.

The mainstream part is what worries me. The majority of gamers I know in person prefer console games, and the PC games they play are either A) a shoot-'em-up, or B) the Sims, or C) Snood. I still don't get the Snood crowd. Regardless, I have no idea if SEV will fit into the mainstream. I hope it will.

Also, kudos to the wonderful Shrapnel people! Keeping the forums goes beyond anything expected from customer service. Now you said something about selling off existing stocks of SEIV and SE:Starfury... You all are still the publisher for those games, right? (and Dungeon Odyssey?) You'll still be selling those, right? I could understand not ordering any more copies of SEIV once SEV comes out, since people will naturally go with the newest version, but SE:SF should still have some life in it, I think.

/me needs to go to the Shrapnel Store and make some purchaces soon...

[Suicide Junkie]

Will said:
Also, kudos to the wonderful Shrapnel people! Keeping the forums goes beyond anything expected from customer service. Now you said something about selling off existing stocks of SEIV and SE:Starfury... You all are still the publisher for those games, right? (and Dungeon Odyssey?) You'll still be selling those, right? I could understand not ordering any more copies of SEIV once SEV comes out, since people will naturally go with the newest version, but SE:SF should still have some life in it, I think.

/me needs to go to the Shrapnel Store and make some purchaces soon...

Doesn't SE3 still sell copies?

I would expect that the SE4 and SF games will still sell after SE5 has had its 15 minutes of retail fame.
Trying to sell them while SE5 is breaking into the market is probably not a good idea, of course, but it shouldn't kill the market.
There is bound to be a surge of people interested in the whole series.

[Phoenix-D]

Suicide Junkie said:

Doesn't SE3 still sell copies?

I would expect that the SE4 and SF games will still sell after SE5 has had its 15 minutes of retail fame.
Trying to sell them while SE5 is breaking into the market is probably not a good idea, of course, but it shouldn't kill the market.
There is bound to be a surge of people interested in the whole series.

Any additional SE4 copies would probably have to be made by Strategy first, unless MM made a deal with Shrapnel to continue production.

[Suicide Junkie]

SE4 has nothing to do with S1st.
Why would they make copies?

[mac5732]

IMHO, I think we all need to just sit back, take a deep breath or two, (maybe a brewski to help drown any sorrows) and look at the total picture. This is a business, and Aaron, like any other buisness person, looks ahead to further his growth as well as income. He apparently wants to try something new and look into other possible markets. Thats business. I/we/whomever, apparantly are upset which is normal reaction. However, Aaron has been with Shrapnel and all of us for a long time and I don't think he would turn out a half baked game. If he did, I'm sure most of us would not buy it, further, I would bet that some of us would say so in other forums as well. Therefore, Aaron has everything to gain by putting out another quality product and everything to lose if he doesn't. I know its hard for us addicted rapid fans to make/see a change, but, lets wait and see how the game turns out. After all, we'll still be here and Aaron knows where to find us and Shrapnel. I wish him the best of luck, and still hope he drops in on the forum and in the IRC SE4 chat room once in awhile. Life goes on and so will Space Empires (hopefully). Thanks to the great people at Shrapnel, we will still have a SEV forum here for us to use/talk/complain/gripe/mod/etc. What other company have you ever seen who would post a forum on a competitors game? None that I know of. Tks Shrapnel we appreciate it. The real question is do we combine the SEV and SEIV forums into l or keep them seperate? There are pros and cons for both. We have time to decide and let Shrapnel know. Oh well, my 2 cents, I'm going to go have a brewski or two to enrich my depression over this

[Tim Brooks]

Hi Will:

...will be leveraging a bit of SF's resources to get more mainstream advertising and reviews

Again, some misinformation control. Shrapnel Games had SEIV reviewed by every mainstream print and web publication in both the US and Europe, receiving over a dozen industry awards.

As to SF's resources, they are controlled by the bankruptcy courts.

Regardless, I have no idea if SEV will fit into the mainstream. I hope it will.

I believe everyone here feels that way.

Also, kudos to the wonderful Shrapnel people! Keeping the forums goes beyond anything expected from customer service.

We would miss you guys if you left, so we hope you stay here. These forums are yours.

Now you said something about selling off existing stocks of SEIV and SE:Starfury... You all are still the publisher for those games, right? (and Dungeon Odyssey?)

Until current stocks are depleted. Coming from a development, not publishing background, I do not believe in owning rights to our developers games. The rights stay with the developer after the contract period expires. Aaron came to us after we declined an offer to do a catalog exchange with Strategy First and asked us not to print any more Starfury or SEIV. We, of course, agreed. We would have taken Dungeon Odyssey out of print later this year anyway, so doing it a bit earlier just makes the break with Malfador easier.

We will, of course, still support both Space Empires products and Dungeon Odyssey through customer service and here through the forums, even after the inventories are depleted.

me needs to go to the Shrapnel Store and make some purchaces soon...

I wouldn't take too long. Projections are for SEIV to sell out in 2 weeks or so, and Starfury a bit longer.

[Will]

Tim Brooks said:
Hi Will:

Again, some misinformation control. Shrapnel Games had SEIV reviewed by every mainstream print and web publication in both the US and Europe, receiving over a dozen industry awards.

As to SF's resources, they are controlled by the bankruptcy courts.

Sorry, didn't mean that as a slight to Shrapnel. I just meant that many of the print reviewers shove niche and independant game publishers into small sections of the magazine. With a retail publisher, I think it might be easier to get a proper (at least full page) review. If Shrapnel has managed that, I was not aware, and that would definitely be good news.

Anyway, just ordered Starfury and Gold... I was going to throw in Dominions as well, but I think it's bad enough that I'll be failing the rest of the semester now that I have those two games, I don't need to add a third and $50 to that at the same time. Besides, DomIII is coming out Soon(tm), right?

And I'm assuming that's a "No Comment" on the IPO, eh?