(Shocking) News!!!!!

[Puke]

The only reason I walk into retail stores anymore, is to see which of last year's great niche games i can pick up for under 10 bucks.

Its sad, really.

[tesco samoa]

well guess i will see people here and there....

[tesco samoa]

3 posts.

Either way. It was a good time for aaron here and I wish him luck on his new adventure with SEV.

If I like the game I will support the game as much as i can.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

The only reason I walk into retail stores is to see if a game I've heard about and want is there, and at how much it currently sells, and to pick a game up that I have been looking forward to for quite some time and is now about >$20 or something.

I hope this does not affect SEVI. I recall an excellent niche game with pretty crummy graphics (Settlers IV) that tried to go mainstream as "Settlers: Heritage of Kings". It threw just about EVERYTHING (some to think of it, not JUST ABOUT everything, simply EVERYTHING) that made it a Settlers game overboard and even though its graphics look "better" now, and it's a pretty good game in its own right, it has absolutely NO right to call itself a Settlers game. I hope this is NOT an omen regarding SEVI..... (as SEV is currently nearing beta and is thus purely Aaron's, but SEVI could very well be influenced by the dreaded Marketing Department)

[Evil_Duckie]

There's only a small number of computer games that manage to grab, and hold, my attention for a longer period of time. SE4 is one of them (as well as the SimCity and Civilization series, I keep going back to them). Unfortunately, they're not really the kind of games that sell well. If SE5 is going to go retail, it'll have to compete with the 3D shooters, sports and race games that are so popular at the moment. Tough job.

Coincidentally, a Belgian pc games magazine (imho the best on the Dutch market, as it focuses only on pc games) reviewed 3 games published by Matrix Games last month. 2 of the 3 were similar to SE: stat-heavy strategy games for the 'serious' gamer. They got mediocre scores because of the low-tech graphics and the 'lack of action'.

I don't think the general public will become excited about SE5 and I seriously hope this won't affect a possible SE6 (or the community) in a negative way.

[Alneyan]

Strategia => A translation is a mod will not be enough to break foreign markets (speaking of France at least): a translated manual could help, but there is little inside the files that can be a problem for the users. The explanations about what *is* an APB aren't needed to play the game; knowing how research works is, though I have found SE to be easy enough to understand. The main use of a translation is to make it easier to sell a game in those countries were foreign languages have a harder time (it would be much less of a factor in Scandinavia).

Tim => I should have been clearer. Does Strategy 1st go into "cheaper sales" as quickly as other publishers? Some publishers wait for a lot longer before dropping the prices of their games, while other publishers are much more willing to go to the magic $15 price tag. There may be a difference between the US market and here however: can the same edition of a game have a decreasing price in the US? Almost all games stick above $30 here when first published, and only drop to $15 in a new box, with even lower prices requiring another edition. Or is it just a matter of removing the manuals and changing the boxes, with the unsold full price CDs filling the "$15 edition" boxes?

Hmm, that wasn't any clearer, was it?

[Gandalf Parker]

As I understand it part of "game drops" happen because of discounts for bulk purchases. The stores drop the price for what they have in the warehouse, not the publisher. And many retailers have stopped purchasing from front-line publishers due to lack of agreements meeting the store policies (at least thats what the local retail store said. The stores want to allow returns all the way up channels (or re-shelving) for complaints the way they can with a toaster or a sweater. They can with game catridges and those cheap $10 3rd hand titles but not with sotware from the publisher. (Shrap can correct me on that)

Aaron is doing the standard high-stakes "gamble". He gambled that he had enough followers from his first games (am I remembering right?) to go with a publisher that managed all of the "work hour" stuff like online ordering, overseas coverage, publicity, reviews, coverage at trade shows, help-line support (like forums). In return he got almost instant flow of direct profit checks from beginning to end.

Now he apparently feels he has enough of a base to jump to the "shelfware and advertising" level. It doesnt take alot of reading in the games and development newsgroups to see the pros and cons of that. That goes from "work hours" to hefty "$$$ investment" by the publishers. And that has to be paid back before the developer sees anything from it. There are alot of gripe sessions from publishers naming major companies and complaining that they never saw any money on what they thought was a fairly popular game. They got a bigger base but no payoff so the next version switched publishers again to someone geared for steady checks. Maybe Aaron will come back for SEVI (Keep going Aaron. I want to see the advertising for SEX)

You know, nothing really stopped any of us personally (Aaron included) from doing the "advertising gamble for return" thing with our own moneys as a middle-man site.

Check out the "about us" on the main page and read why Shrapnel was created. It helps.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

You know what I hate about games lately? They're almost all sold in small "DVD boxes" instead of the "old" bix cardboard box. The small DVD boxes are pretty OK, but you get SO LITTLE in print..... I mean, in HOMM4 all that was in print was a tutorial guide, whereas in the "old" boxes there were usually good manuals, catalogues, sometimes extras.....

And the WORST part is multi-CD games with only a single CD slot in the box. It's SHEER INSANITY having to get one or more CDs out of the fricking thing (as some are MOST user-unfriendly and removing a disc from them involves lots of words that had you used them here would have immediately caused you to be kicked out of the forum) and then later having to do the same thing again.

And Aaron, I plead to you, PLEASE, follow your OWN imagination! Don't go with the Marketing Department! Approx. 80% of the games released lately are CRAP because of that dept..... the MarkDept currently seems to rule the games industry and get the overall quality of games down. Please, Aaron, don't succumb to this! Be original! Be creative! Be YOURSELF!

-----and as for the ASCII art ships.....

[XenoTheMorph]

This IS shocking!
I hope I'm wrong for Aarons sake but I think he is making a big mistake, staying with Shrapnel would be the better option IMO. (Not least because of the great community here, let alone the fact we have friendly talkative Publishers here )
*Looks up and waits for the sky to fall in for such blasphemy*

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

I'm hoping that Aaron will see "the light" and return to Shrapnel when SEV hits the market (or preferably before that)..... but when the game suddenly becomes a massive hit, and SEVI and possible SEVII don't suffer in gameplay, I would congratulate Aaron. But then I still think he should return to Shrapnel. Perhaps this will also attract more attention to Shrapnel in general as well.