hmm touchy subject here, but I gotta ask.

tkobo · Post by **tkobo** » Jun 09 2002

The forum traffic is extremely low.

The game superpowers,which in my opinion is very like your game, was released as a real mess.Even the dev's who made the game have gone on thier boards and admitted the game
was in bad shape and will take ALOT of work to put right.

Will either of these hurt your game ?

IE if forum participation does not grow,if the fanbase never shows itself to be very large will this game still be finished ?

Do you think that their failure to make a solid game will hurt your games fanbase growth and/or sales ?

Is there any chance of the vaporware beast showing its ugly head ?

Post by **George Geczy** » Jun 09 2002

Well, starting with last first, I can assure you that the vaporware beast will not chomp over here - Supreme Ruler 2010 has been in development over two years, and we since we have chosen not to sign with a publisher yet it also means there is no big advance check to walk away with!

We've started this forum somewhat quietly, with only a few mentions (ie in our own newsletter), but I imagine it will develop more visitors as it gets better known. Even more so once we do announce signing with a publisher. Though with SR2010 being 6 to 9 months off from release, it is hard to get a big "buzz" going.

SuperPower is a very interesting concept and game, and it is unfortunate that it was released in an unstable state. Though I don't recall if the exact reason was mentioned on the Golemlabs forums, it certainly seems as if publisher and marketing schedules got in the way of quality assurance and testing. We will not allow this to happen to our product, we are quite committed to being in control of the development cycle - it will be released when we are happy with it, and we are very picky people.

I would also note that Supreme Ruler 2010 is a much broader scope than SuperPower, as well as being different in many of the gameplay elements. SuperPower tends to be very heavily a political/diplomatic simulation, whereas SR2010 balances many more elements, including a tactical military side that is directly integrated into the game. We also feature a Campaign system for single player, and networked multi-player gameplay.

So, interesting question, and I would certainly hope that the public remains interested in looking at new ideas and concepts for real strategy games - there is more to the world than Command-and-Conquer clones and first person shooters

-- George.

<Lead Programmer, BattleGoat Studios>

Empier4552 · Post by **Empier4552** » Jun 10 2002

On 2002-06-09 18:09, tkobo wrote:
The forum traffic is extremely low.

The game superpowers,which in my opinion is very like your game, was released as a real mess.Even the dev's who made the game have gone on thier boards and admitted the game
was in bad shape and will take ALOT of work to put right.

Will either of these hurt your game ?

IE if forum participation does not grow,if the fanbase never shows itself to be very large will this game still be finished ?

Do you think that their failure to make a solid game will hurt your games fanbase growth and/or sales ?

Is there any chance of the vaporware beast showing its ugly head ?

I to have been debating that question. However as George said as SR2010 is announced and such more people will register. The thing is SR2010 hasn't gotten much publicity in my opinion. Heck I found it by CHANCE surfing the web. Now that there are so many dev diaries up though if a link to the forums is posted on each of those i'm sure that'll attract more visitors, and if us current fans just pass it on to other friends and such who'd enjoy the game it'd quickly grow i'm sure.

Post by **BattleGoat** » Jun 10 2002

As George mentioned, the Forum was launched only last week, and we wanted to have a few days of test and use time before we sent out a general Press Release.

We will be sending out a press release today though regarding the forum launch, so we expect that will pick up the traffic.

As for the impact of Super Power on our game's marketability... Well, whether mainstream publishers realize it or not, there is a very significant demand for Strategy Games (not just RTS) and the failure of one will not likely deter those purists from taking a look at another.

Super Power's disappointment might affect the buying habits of those that purchased it as their first true strategy game. The risk there is that some might be turned off from the genre entirely. But Hey! that's what demo versions are for. We are confident that when we do release a public demo of SR2010, it will prove to sceptics that a Strategy Game can have a more massive appeal.

Reddemon · Post by **Reddemon** » Jun 11 2002

I was wondering BG why a publisher? Everytime they get involve with a game they screw it up for us. They are always press for time and want the big bucks now. I say to hell with them all go self-publish. You have the net that reaches more people in this world then any publisher can reach. So use that to your advantage. I have bought games on the net before and I enjoyed them just as much as the store bought ones. Okay you dont get a pretty box nor a printed manual but who cares about that in the first place. The manual you will have it on the cd in a pdf format so we can print it out ourselves if we wanted to. The Cd will be in a nice little case with a cute picture on the cover. Now the product is not the manual or the case or the box its whats on that CD that counts. If the game is as good as you programmed it then it will sell by itself. Word of mouth is just as fast as the NET

. Just in the last week I have told 4 of my friends that are into games like this one you have and they cant wait to get there hands on it. Yes there is other logistical problems like who will burn all the cd's or how to recieve the orders, payment methods, shipping and so on and so on. The all can be done and have been done before but the trick now is to Advertise big and yes that does cost money but if done right you can stand to gain a whole lot more

Just my thoughts on this matter btw I hate publishers who doesnt let the programmers do there job as in the case with SUPER POWER. I dont want that to happen here with your game and I am willing to contribute funds from my garage sale of all those bad games I have bought in the past to help your company with this endeavor.

Atleast this way I know that my money didnt go to waste with all those other publishers.
Btw I probably wont make much on that sale

(A game design for the people by the people and with the people).

Well I will shut up now.

Bye

I'll be back

tkobo · Post by **tkobo** » Jun 11 2002

Shrapnel always says it does excellent on its own.
They have made more than a few posts saying they will not use publishers or the retail system in which they explain the problems both seem to cause.

I forget who did combat mission, but they also said they did extremely well on net only sales.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: tkobo on 2002-06-11 13:09 ]</font>

lemmy · Post by **lemmy** » Jun 11 2002

Shrapnel always says it does excellent on its own.
They have made more than a few posts saying they will not use publishers or the retail system in which they explain the problems both seem to cause.

Shrapnel actually is a publisher, but only sells online, and from what i hear, their developers are a lot better of then those with for example Infogrames.

here's a quote from Richard Arnese, a top dog at Shrapnel on another forum about SE4 and Malfador (SE4 developer).

Actually your mistaken. Malfador would have seen some increase in sales due to being in retail but they would have been at 1/20th to 1/10th the amount that they get per sale with us, plus then having to pay marketing costs and waiting 3-6 months to get paid.

To make the same money in retail they would have had to sell 500,000 units in retail. There is no way that MOO3 or SE:IV could have sold that many in retail.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.p ... genumber=2

tkobo · Post by **tkobo** » Jun 11 2002

"Shrapnel actually is a publisher"
Yes technicality they are a publisher.
But they differ in so many ways from the majority of game publishers that it seems to me to be a diservice to them to call them such.

The fact that the majority of their developers are self funded and are not making their games with large advances from Shrapnel is a big difference that eliminates many of the pitfalls of having a publisher.

The fact that retail is not done makes distrubution much less of a hassle and cost.
(although they have mentioned "thinking about" doing some retail in europe).

The fact that the developers do not have to wait months to get money for there sold products is also a major difference.

In one post, they explained how many dev companies end up "trapped" in a cycle of funding for thier games becuase they dont get thier money fast enough,forcing them to rely on the publishers again and again for the dev costs of any new projects in an endless cycle.

I think of Shrapnel more as a co-op of game dev companies than a publisher,it seems to me to be a definition that fits them better.

Forgot to mention I really love SE4 and se4 gold.The way the incorporated all the player feedback and and different mod ideas into se4 gold was a true example of how games should be made.
The playes really had a large impact on the game.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: tkobo on 2002-06-11 14:23 ]</font>

Post by **George Geczy** » Jun 12 2002

I'm glad to hear people supporting companies like Shrapenel, they certainly do make top-quality products.

It is certainly a possibility for us to work with a company like that, but we do want to get the game as widely released and distributed as possible. So there are a lot of pluses and minuses to consider.

Though we will certainly not let any publisher get in the way of us making a quality, intelligent, 'finished' product.

-- George.

<Lead Programmer, BattleGoat Studios>

Reddemon · Post by **Reddemon** » Jun 12 2002

You see BG what i got started.

If this could happen with only one post just imagine what can happen in 9 mos when you go live. There is tons of forums out there pple can drop msgs, websites with links, banner popups and a whole sluth of things. Btw what about stuff for us to build a fan site that can really help out your company in the advertising. Look at the game called EVE, its an online game that will rock when it gets release this Fall or winter. They have about 20 fan sites already established and a countless amount of pple waiting for it to go online now. http://www.eve-online.com/.

Reddemon · Post by **Reddemon** » Jun 13 2002

Hey TKOBO i just have to tell you thank you for reminding me about shrapnel games. I just ordered SE 4 Gold and it should be here by tomorrow. I forgot completely about them and there games until your post. I decided to look them up again and found that SE 4 is SE 4 Gold now:P I figure i will play that until SR2010 comes out because the way its going Stars! is not going to happen anytime soon.

Mustang · Post by **Mustang** » Jun 14 2002

I bought Superpower and was REALLLY disappointed in its failure to deliver an enjoyable playing experience. Even though I downloaded the patch 1.1, I still had difficulties with it, and the AI simply didn't make logic decisions. I mean, since would Vietnam invade Sweden or take over half of Europe while everyone stood around? I know they are trying to come out with another patch, but I feel the game's potential will never be reached because of the bugs.
I saw a post where someone questioned whether SR2010 would have a chance in light of Superpower's alleged "failure". I believe if the programmers see what is happenning to SP and Golemlabs, then lessons should be learned and mistakes avoided. I know I'll give SR2010 a try because I'm interested in this type of game-unfortunately for Golemlabs, they already got my $30 and I don't plan on buying anything else from them UNLESS I see a DRAMATIC improvement in the quality of their games. Based on the forum boards over there, I seriously doubt it this will happen.
I encourage the programmers to do this game right - just make it affordable ($30-$45).

Post by **George Geczy** » Jun 15 2002

Btw what about stuff for us to build a fan site that can really help out your company in the advertising.

If there was interest in building a fan site we would certainly help out, but of course being 9 months off means that there is only so much new info etc to be released at any given time.

With this forum we had two goals in mind: 1) Build some more attention and awareness for Supreme Ruler 2010 (obviously), and 2) Use the forum to get ideas, feedback and suggestions.

Since we are still up to the waist in our development cycle, this is the ideal time to listen to ideas and get responses to what we are doing so far. As was mentioned in another thread, by the time we go to Beta it is likely too late to make any major design changes.

-- George.