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Baloogan fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Sep 24, 2013 |
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Sep 24, 2013 23:03
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It is however satisfying to see people waking up to their "in two years you are going to try to sell me a near-identical game for full price, aren't you" strategy.
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Sep 24, 2013 23:07
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The most annoying thing about this is that I really want the 'realistic naval sim' industry to make alot of money so I get more naval sims. But I don't want to pay 105 bux.
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Sep 24, 2013 23:13
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I just wish they'd listen to loving irrefutable proof after it's tarred and feathered on them. It's ridiculous and the fact that their business model loosely translates to, "Take the idiot first adopters' money and wait for the rest to give up hope," is a little insulting. It's not treating me like a customer so much as hostile bartering. I'm only hostile in return because the pricing is flat loving gouging, no two ways about it. Your loving metric is that people WILL buy it at that price, not what it should cost.
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Sep 24, 2013 23:28
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It's so unfair; Cross of Iron is a pretty cool game, and so is Unity of Command. And I really, really like the wargames that have been done in Let's Play (including Where There is Discord, even though that one's a board game). I want to buy and try these games, but dang, do they make it hard... 
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Sep 24, 2013 23:31
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Dark_Swordmaster posted:I just wish they'd listen to loving irrefutable proof after it's tarred and feathered on them. It's ridiculous and the fact that their business model loosely translates to, "Take the idiot first adopters' money and wait for the rest to give up hope," is a little insulting. It's not treating me like a customer so much as hostile bartering. I'm only hostile in return because the pricing is flat loving gouging, no two ways about it. Your loving metric is that people WILL buy it at that price, not what it should cost. Actually their business apparently grew by 100% over the last year, which they're really proud of. Of course, they're still orders of magnitude behind the general growth of digital distribution over the last ten years but don't let little details like that get them down!
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Sep 24, 2013 23:32
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Baloogan posted:The most annoying thing about this is that I really want the 'realistic naval sim' industry to make alot of money so I get more naval sims. But I don't want to pay 105 bux. What happened to that Naval Warfare game Paradox pushed out? Last I heard it kinda sucked, but I don't remember why.
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Sep 24, 2013 23:34
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You couldn't save. And it was crap.
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Sep 24, 2013 23:35
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It doesn't help that Erik is a smarmy prick who keeps making condescending remarks to people who disagree with him.
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Sep 25, 2013 00:12
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I think this is the only games thread on this forum where we can all come together and agree to not buy a game we all want. We've got self-help threads for people who buy games they never play and then we've got the grognard games.
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Sep 25, 2013 00:14
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People read the entire SimCity thread and STILL buy it...
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Sep 25, 2013 00:21
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I think you should y'all buy it
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Sep 25, 2013 00:21
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Alchenar posted:Actually their business apparently grew by 100% over the last year, which they're really proud of. Did they break down how much of that was them finally attempting sales? I know I only bought anything because of a decent price reduction.
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Sep 25, 2013 00:22
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Baloogan posted:I think you should y'all buy it I'll probably snag it at Christmas if they put it 20% off like they have in the past, otherwise I guess we're waiting till next Christmas!
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Sep 25, 2013 00:24
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Why can't some bedroom wargame programmers just say 'gently caress it' and go straight to Steam?
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Sep 25, 2013 00:31
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They are probably all locked in with lovely publishing deals with matrix, since thats just the way wargames get published.  Hopefuly someone will pluck up the courage to give them the middle finger and go to steam and if thats a sucess then it might open the eyes of the rest of them, but on the other hand if the first decently priced wargame flops then the rest will stick with matirx for who knows how long.
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Sep 25, 2013 00:38
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There are some wargames on Steam like Men of War. I don't think there are any full on hardcore grognard wargames yet, but as more and more devs migrate to Steam we should see some eventually.
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Sep 25, 2013 01:44
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I have a hard time calling Men of War a "war game." It's more like a cooler, better version of Company of Heroes. Don't get me wrong, Steam still got Unity of Command, but they don't have much else in the way of grognard.
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Sep 25, 2013 02:01
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Alchenar posted:Actually their business apparently grew by 100% over the last year, which they're really proud of. I would love to see them break that out by title and/or platform. ArchangeI posted:What happened to that Naval Warfare game Paradox pushed out? Last I heard it kinda sucked, but I don't remember why. No, according to Matrix Johan and Paradox just don't know how to market these games. If those guys took that pile of poo poo to Matrix it would sell like hotcakes. Just like Pride of Nations did. 
vyshka fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Sep 25, 2013 |
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Sep 25, 2013 02:03
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I could have sworn Panzer Corps was on steam. It's kind of crazy that it's not, it's a perfect fit of wargame/easy to play/reasonably priced that it could make money hand over fist there.
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Sep 25, 2013 02:04
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Panzer Corps is actually waiting to be Greenlit on Steam so here's the page if you want to vote on it: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=131062882 Personally I'd love to get more into these games but I get scared off by archaic download stores and bad prices. gently caress, just lower prices down to like $30-40 for flagship games and give me a Steam key and I'd gladly take the plunge on a few. Pornographic Memory fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Sep 25, 2013 |
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Sep 25, 2013 02:12
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If Dominions 3 can get on steam with this as the gameplay video anything can get on steam.
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Sep 25, 2013 02:14
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uPen posted:If Dominions 3 can get on steam with this as the gameplay video anything can get on steam. Basically all you need to do to get on Steam now with Greenlight is get enough votes. So yeah, almost anything can get onto Steam. Greenlight is basically equivilant to Valve opening the doors wide and shouting "COME ON IN!" If you can't get enough votes to get something greenlit then your game is a serious sack of poo poo.
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Sep 25, 2013 03:20
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Neruz posted:Basically all you need to do to get on Steam now with Greenlight is get enough votes. So yeah, almost anything can get onto Steam. It's more like if you can't get enough votes to get something greenlit, you need to figure out how to market your game better/hope you get lucky. Valve has only greenlit 250 games or so in the year since Greenlight started, and many of those approvals have been in the past couple of months. Anyone who attempted an initial Kickstarter/marketing push back when Valve was hardly approving anything is in trouble now, since the rankings are relative to the current highest-performing vote-getters. There doesn't seem to be a "get x lifetime votes and get greenlit" absolute threshold for games with a long tail that will never get into the top 100 now. Already well-known games with a pent up demand for a PC and/or Steam version, such as Agarest War and Higurashi (and Dominions 3), were greenlit quickly. Considering that thousands of people had already played those games, they didn't need the marketing. You can develop the greatest game ever made, but it won't be greenlit if nobody knows it exists. I honestly have no idea how well-known Panzer Corps is outside of the Matrix forums, or how persistent the developers have been in trying to get the game greenlit.
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Sep 25, 2013 04:13
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Baloogan posted:The most annoying thing about this is that I really want the 'realistic naval sim' industry to make alot of money so I get more naval sims. But I don't want to pay 105 bux. Dammit, I'm going to have to contact a Mod and get the thread title upgraded now aren't I! Bloody Matrix inflation. Jesus, Someone mentioned Dom3 getting onto steam - this is only after they jumped ship from Shrapnel games and set a realistic price, Dominions 4 is on preorder for only £22.99! That's over half what I paid for Dom3, and made me buy it instantly. I really hope that more and more wargamers jump ship from Matrix and go Greenlight. - And this is from someone who has over a dozen matrix games installed on his HD at this moment.
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Sep 25, 2013 07:20
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V for Vegas posted:It doesn't help that Erik is a smarmy prick who keeps making condescending remarks to people who disagree with him. I love how his response to me pointing out that they've tried to act like they're Rockstar selling GTA V is "I'm sorry, you can't compare a niche wargame with GTA V  "As if that wasn't entirely my point.
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Sep 25, 2013 08:42
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uPen posted:If Dominions 3 can get on steam with this as the gameplay video anything can get on steam. Not to mention this quote quote:OK, let’s get one thing clear. A lot of people will not appreciate Dominions 3
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Sep 25, 2013 09:04
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Welp, just straight up called-out Matrix for being negligent publishers. I wonder what reaction that gets.
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Sep 25, 2013 13:03
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Alchenar posted:Welp, just straight up called-out Matrix for being negligent publishers. I wonder what reaction that gets. Jim D Burns posted:The notion you can sell 100,000 more units to the masses if only you let them see is a very naive position to take and probably stems more from a selfish desire to get something for yourself cheaper than from logical marketing sense. Now that we know your nefarious plan is just to get the game cheaper for yourself it's a lot easier to ignore your points! How dare you suggest that letting more people know about a game means that more people know about the game and would consider buying it? That's just ridiculous 
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Sep 25, 2013 14:43
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I liked the last part of that guy's response to Alchenar, where he says that wargames don't sell well because they're work, and most people don't want to play games that are work. So close...
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Sep 25, 2013 14:58
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quote:The notion you can sell 100,000 more units to the masses if only you let them see is a very naive position to take and probably stems more from a selfish desire to get something for yourself cheaper than from logical marketing sense. Holy poo poo.  This is possibly the dumbest thing I have ever read in my entire life.Forget trying to convince Matrix, someone should contact Gaben and say "Hey, there's this whole basically untapped market over here that just needs demos and reasonable prices and also you'll get the satisfaction of running a bunch of total shitlords out of business."
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Sep 25, 2013 15:07
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Tolan posted:I liked the last part of that guy's response to Alchenar, where he says that wargames don't sell well because they're work, and most people don't want to play games that are work. I actually typed up a decent effortpost for that thread talking about how lower price points combined with more advertising could make a huge difference in the number of people who buy the game but I quoted somebody who posted a link and the Matrix forums ate the whole thing The worst part is that Command has a scenario editor, and so it makes sense that more people playing the game = more content = more people playing the game... but nope, gotta price it at $75-$95. Imagine if it was $40 and they'd done even the tiniest amount of advertising -- hell, give Tim Stone a copy and ask if he might write about it in the Flare Path column on RockPaperShotgun, try getting it on Steam or Desura, anything. It boggles the mind that people who make these games look at Matrix and go "hey yeah, there's a publisher who knows what they're doing, gotta stick with them." e: for bonus pain, note that the Command devs actually seem to have tried to make a non-awful interface/polish their game somewhat and consider the World That Might Have Been if they had marketed, priced, and distributed the game in ways that make sense. I can't wait for the day where some small dev group decides that Matrix isn't the way to go and succeeds spectacularly enough to cause some kind of grognard renaissance. A man can dream, right? Cabbage Disrespect fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Sep 25, 2013 |
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Sep 25, 2013 15:12
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What annoys me about the flare path is the fact that its 90% train/lorry/civ flight sims ,with grog games given a small paragraph at the end.
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Sep 25, 2013 15:48
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Grey Hunter posted:What annoys me about the flare path is the fact that its 90% train/lorry/civ flight sims ,with grog games given a small paragraph at the end. Yeah, I didn't intend to suggest that it was a great marketing idea or anything, just that the lack of trying things like that suggests that Matrix isn't even attempting the bare minimum of advertising.
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Sep 25, 2013 16:01
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Mr. Showtime posted:Yeah, I didn't intend to suggest that it was a great marketing idea or anything, just that the lack of trying things like that suggests that Matrix isn't even attempting the bare minimum of advertising. I'd say people like Grey Hunter, uPen, Jakse, and certain Youtube players (they may not be of the highest quality, but they're certainly trying), as well as threads like this, have done more advertising for them than they've done themselves. I certainly wouldn't have found these sorts of games interesting (or even joined this forum) without Grey's WitP Let's Play.
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Sep 25, 2013 16:05
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Grey Hunter posted:What annoys me about the flare path is the fact that its 90% train/lorry/civ flight sims ,with grog games given a small paragraph at the end. I think you're exaggerating, a lot of time it's wargames all the way, it's just that there's not that many of them being published to fill a weekly column by themselves.
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Sep 25, 2013 16:05
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Grey Hunter posted:What annoys me about the flare path is the fact that its 90% train/lorry/civ flight sims ,with grog games given a small paragraph at the end. Hey man, Sid Meier's Ace Patrol was on it one day! And I paid $4 for a loving fake strategy phone game on Steam...
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Sep 25, 2013 16:09
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Mr. Showtime posted:Yeah, I didn't intend to suggest that it was a great marketing idea or anything, just that the lack of trying things like that suggests that Matrix isn't even attempting the bare minimum of advertising. Official Matrix response: "Reviewers are dumb and will just give our games bad reviews". Because Civ 5 and Arma and EU4 all got poor reviews and sold badly for being complex games ahahfghfhfghfgfg. He doesn't even respect the fact that a review in the 70's that goes "This is a really niche game with a bunch of flaws that's only going to be worthwhile to someone with a specific interest in the genre" in a mainstream games site is still a shitload of publicity. Millions of people will see that your game exists. Only a tiny fraction of those have to be interested in the game, and a tiny fraction of those actually proceeding to buy it, for knocking up a press release and sending it to the usual suspects to be worth it. Of course IGN will have someone sit down and review the game if they get a press copy. It's their business to do so. This isn't fourth dimensional chess style business strategy here that you need decades of experience in the industry to work out, this is basic stuff that any non-negligent publisher should be doing. If I was bringing a product to any market and found out that the people I had a contract with to distribute it had done literally nothing to promote it even to people who would be effectively offering to provide mass publicity for free then I would be furious. Compare contrast the reviews that Matrix and Paradox gave on Three Moves Ahead on consecutive weeks: they really don't believe they're in the video games or even entertainment market. They believe their entire market is obsessive wargames hobbyists and that's all they'll even consider marketing to. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Sep 25, 2013 |
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Sep 25, 2013 16:13
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Tolan posted:I liked the last part of that guy's response to Alchenar, where he says that wargames don't sell well because they're work, and most people don't want to play games that are work. Well, the only reason people try so hard to like these games despite their poo poo UIs is because they already shelled out 60-80 bucks for it, but they need to remain niche so they can continue justifying their high prices, so the devs need to keep making GBS threads out bad UIs because a more accessible interface would mean actually having to exert some effort at UI design to please the casuals and giving in to cheap sales figures and ... gently caress it, I can't follow this logic anymore. Can someone convince Shenandoah Studios to port Battle of the Bulge to Android and/or the PC? And while you're at it ring up Firaxis to start on Sid Meier's Gettysburg HD and for GOG to pick up all the old QQP and SSI wargames. Dark_Swordmaster posted:Hey man, Sid Meier's Ace Patrol was on it one day! Ace Patrol is the spiritual descendant of Charlie Moylan's Flight Commander -> Over the Reich -> Achtung Spitfire games. Don't hate  Alchenar posted:Official Matrix response: "Reviewers are dumb and will just give our games bad reviews". I read that line too and thought it was a bunch of horseshit: At the very minimum, "dumb reviewers" scored War in the East precisely because they're going to be blown away by how DEEP and COMPLEX it is without exploiting the gently caress out of the game to the point where Panzers can be encircling Moscow after a dozen turns or something similarly ridiculous. Grognard games being too complicated to review effectively actually works in the devs' favor if the assumption is that reviewers "don't get it". I mean, come on now: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/gary-grigsbys-war-in-the-east-the-german-soviet-war-1941-1945 gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Sep 25, 2013 |
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Sep 25, 2013 16:16
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Davin Valkri posted:I'd say people like Grey Hunter, uPen, Jakse, and certain Youtube players (they may not be of the highest quality, but they're certainly trying), as well as threads like this, have done more advertising for them than they've done themselves. I certainly wouldn't have found these sorts of games interesting (or even joined this forum) without Grey's WitP Let's Play. Grey Hunter's LPs are what got me into groggy poo poo, too -- it's a genre I was only vaguely aware of before I encountered it there, and I'd probably never have bought any of the games were it not for actually being able to see somebody play it. Not only do they need better advertising, they need to actually offer some demos. You'd think that Matrix would learn from Paradox's success, but all they've done is convince themselves that their only demographic are crusty die-hard fans and that they can't possibly sell anything to anyone else.
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Sep 25, 2013 16:34
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