Making More Out Of SEIV

Atrocities · #1 October 22nd, 2003, 10:16 PM

What amazes me is why more and more companies that have a franchise game fail to look into other markets for their products. Look at Tribes and Planet Siege, they both have excellent stories, great characters, vehicals, weapons, and bases and would make awsome toys for kids. Hell I know if I was a kid I would love to have my own PCP Atrocities Tribes Action figure set.

Books, trading cards, board games, comics, etc. Really the market is open to any company who would want to venture out into it. Id Software has to mention a few, and they have enjoyed a nice profit from it.

Aaron has a franchiseable product in SEIV if he chose to expand the brand and exploit the market by exploring other avenues for his product. I feel that he could exterminate the notion that pc games are limited to being just pc games.

Wouldn't you love to have a model of a Phong Battleship on your desk? Or a complete set of Eee action figures? How about a nice board game of SE IV with your friends. And trading cards, you can't forget about those trading cards. I will trade you my Terran Battle Cruiser for one of your Krel Race Portaits.

Look at what we have seen in the card industry over the Last decade. Visual art, comic book art, etc and if you applied this concept to SE IV - V and Starfury think of what you would have.

Books are another great area open for exploration as are comics and such.

Technical Manuals, back stories, ship scematics, etc are all untapped areas that could be exploited for profit or fun.

Hell I would love to make a nice card collection out of the ships and things I have made and then sell them. A set of 100 cards going for $20.00 bucks featuring all of my crappy *** work over the Last three years would be a must have for any hard core Space Empires fan.

(Ok I can hope can't I?)

You all get the idea. Many of us have created our own races with their own ships and story lines and we all love them. Now if you could expand that to include such things as trading cards, posters, stories, etc would you not want to do that?

Hell I know I would want to do it.

Richard · #2 October 22nd, 2003, 10:38 PM

Actually we're explorting other possibilities with the SE:IV franchise, but everything is far off in the future.

narf poit chez BOOM · #3 October 22nd, 2003, 10:43 PM

space empires books.

Instar · #4 October 22nd, 2003, 11:13 PM

I think Space Empires graphic novels (fancy way to say comic book) would be neato. It would be great to see it.

Deathstalker · #5 October 23rd, 2003, 12:53 AM

T-shirts and baseball caps, thats all I need. I mean, who wouldn't want a shirt with a Phong on it proclaiming 'Mineral Planets are best!' or a cap from the EEEvil Empire with the slogan accross the back 'i'm with EEEvil!'

[ October 22, 2003, 23:54: Message edited by: Deathstalker ]

SpaceBadger · #6 October 23rd, 2003, 01:11 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Atrocities:
Wouldn't you love to have a model of a Phong Battleship on your desk?

That's weird, I was just thinking about this today! My Dad's business is making vacuform aircraft model kits, and I was helping pack some for shipment this afternoon. One was a Curtiss XP-55 "Ascender", an odd-looking craft with a single pusher prop, backswept wings, and no tail assembly to speak of, that kinda looks like it ought to be dogfighting with X-wings and TIE-fighters out in an asteroid belt somewhere. I started musing then about how it might be fun to make some molds for SEIV ships! (Not for long, however; it is quite a bit of work to make a new mold for something we can't even sell.)

SpaceBadger

TerranC · #7 October 23rd, 2003, 02:02 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Atrocities:
Wouldn't you love to have a model of a Phong Battleship on your desk?

Of course I would. That's why I would download this:

Pepakura Designer

General Woundwort · #8 October 23rd, 2003, 10:03 AM

Hmm, perhaps a tabletop miniatures/cardboard counter starship cobmat game, approximating the SEIV ship design and combat rules? (Yeah, I know it's based on the old Starfire rules, but it's also different enough to stand on its own.)

gregebowman · #9 October 23rd, 2003, 04:25 PM

Count me in for the comics, graphic novels and novels. I've been collecting comics off and on for about 35 years. I used to collect cards, but now with packs costing anywhere from $2-$5 bucks apiece, that's a little too much for me. Unless you do like Atrocities mentioned and sell a complete set for like $20. That I could live with. I look forward to this, if it ever happens.

Baron Munchausen · #10 October 23rd, 2003, 05:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by SpaceBadger:

quote:
Originally posted by Atrocities:
Wouldn't you love to have a model of a Phong Battleship on your desk?

That's weird, I was just thinking about this today! My Dad's business is making vacuform aircraft model kits, and I was helping pack some for shipment this afternoon. One was a Curtiss XP-55 "Ascender", an odd-looking craft with a single pusher prop, backswept wings, and no tail assembly to speak of, that kinda looks like it ought to be dogfighting with X-wings and TIE-fighters out in an asteroid belt somewhere. I started musing then about how it might be fun to make some molds for SEIV ships! (Not for long, however; it is quite a bit of work to make a new mold for something we can't even sell.)

SpaceBadger

With the old-style manufacturing, yes it was a lot of work to create a new mold for a model because every mold had to be individually made for that particular model. There are new processes in the works that will basically dispose of the molding process. Thanks to the modern marvel of computer controlled manufacturing processes, "generic" machinery will be able to turn out whatever model you want without refitting.

It will then be much cheaper to order up a series of SE shipsets as pLastic or even metallic miniatures. Heck, we might be able to just send them our .X files and request a set like we currently send a Pagemaker file to the printshop and request a book printing.

[ October 23, 2003, 16:49: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]