(Shocking) News!!!!!

[Arkcon]

I said *woah* too, and I was worried. Where will we get useful tips and tricks, friendly OT discussions, and give feedback to modders? And selling SE5 through commercial outlets? *shudder* How many "Sphereworld components won't fit on a baseship, and all my colonys are empty"-type questions will we have to field.

Then I see that Shrapnel Games is going to keep an SE5 forum up for us. That's nice of them.

So ... give some thanks the folks at Shrapnel. Click on something in the border. Dunno if it'll help, but I like to give support back where I can.

[Renegade 13]

Holy crap! This sucks, I always had nothing but good things to say about Shrapnel and their support....I doubt I can say the same thing about Strategy First....Damn. And I sure as hell hope that switching publishers won't increase the price of SEV when it comes out...I'm not exactly rolling in cash, and I can't afford an increase.

Does anyone have any idea why Aaron is going away from Shrapnel, and heading for the retail market?? The obvious consideration is that he thinks he can make more money, but I'm not sure if that's going to happen. I mean, how many people do you know that actually enjoy strategy games, especially games like SEIV?? As a proportion of the gaming population it is quite small, and I'm not so sure SEV will do well in retail. I sure hope it does, that'd be great, but I have my doubts. Obviously Aaron doesn't though.

[Suicide Junkie]

We only hope he makes enough changes in his game to allow for a broader audience.

I fear that dumbing it down to mass-market levels will totally ruin the game.

Hopefully it will just mean dumbed down and graphics-intensive stock settings, with higher quality** mods for the rest of us.

-----

** Complex, challenging and imagination-firing, with lots of decisions to consider among designs, strategies and development. To hell with graphics; make it a good, hearty spreadsheeter, and use an ASCII-art shipset

[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.

[Renegade 13]

Wouldn't it be cool if we could keep the Shrapnel SEV community here a 'secret' that only old SEIV players knew, and kept the stupid whining kiddies and the like away from this place?? We should try. Keep the Strategy First forums for the frustrated kiddies.

You know, maybe we are all being too negative about this. I'm sure that, even though publishers are being switched, we'll all of us here still buy the game. I mean, basically he'll have the same amount of sales guaranteed as he got for SEIV, so maybe it's not such a risk for such potential gain. But what do I know.

[DarkAnt]

I don't think we should. Although I contemplated it myself, we should really try to bring some extra traffic here and help out shrapnel some. After all, they are letting us use their forum.

[ironman]

I have a few Strategy First games and if "They" think that SE 5 is as good for a Strategy First lable then go for it.

[Caduceus]

This is probably the best forum I've ever been on. I truly appreciate Shrapnel supporting us and our addiction. But, business is business. Aaron wants to try something different. Nobody knows how this will all turn out. I had noticed a lack of information from Shrapnel regarding SEV, but hadn't put it together yet.

[boran_blok]

Now this might be a bit ignorant, but cant he use both ?
(Shrapnel online, strategy first offline)

Those two markets are so far apart,

And imho yes, SE5 will not sell as much retail, ppls will see the screens and the not too flashy graphics and wont buy it.
One biiig suggestion for aron, if you go retail, make sure to include a VERY VERY GOOD tutorial, otherwise ppls will get it, open box, play it, dont get what the hell is going on and just quit.

[AMF]

boran_blok said:
One biiig suggestion for aron, if you go retail, make sure to include a VERY VERY GOOD tutorial, otherwise ppls will get it, open box, play it, dont get what the hell is going on and just quit.

Yeah, a good tutorial is absolutely vital for the retail market I beleive. I confess, I'm one of those typical dorks who assumes that the game will spoonfeed me as soon as I start it up the first time, and when I did that with SE4 the first time I admit to being lost for a while - until I actually read the manual and did the tutorial - and by that point you've probably already lost a fair percentage of the people....