OT = How Does Shrapnel Stay In Business

[Richard]

You have to remember that less than 1% of folks who buy a game stop by the forums ever. Actually SE:IV is a fairly active forum for a gaming site. If you go to the big boys web sites you will rarely find more than that number of hard core posters...

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Sarge is coming...

Richard Arnesen
Director of Covert Ops
Shrapnel Games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com

[geoschmo]

Plus, what Richard failed to mention because he is so humble, is that Shrapnel is pretty much a one-man operation...HIM!

(And he is probably ridiculously underpaid for the amount of work he does, so that helps to keep the overhead low. )

Geo

Edit: Richard must have liked the nice things I said about him. I got promoted to Major with that post.

[This message has been edited by geoschmo (edited 31 July 2001).]

[capnq]

There's an old rule of thumb that goes all the way back to the days of FidoNet, at least. For every person who Posts to a message board, there are about ten "lurkers" who read the Boards but rarely if ever post.

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[Atrocities]

I was a lurker for 3 months before I finally posted. Richard, is SE IV a good selling game? For that matter, what is your top selling game right now?

What are your future plans for more games?

[geoschmo]

Shrapnel won't release actual sales figures, (at least they wouldn't in the past when we asked them) but Richard has said that Space Empires IV is far and away the largest seller Shrapnel has had.

But even at that it doesn't comepare to the sales a "Major" game publisher would have.

Geoschmo

[Richard]

Well we're actually a two man team with many volunteers and contract (ie do some side sound and art work for us) employees .

Have you heard of the other underground hit Combat Mission? Well SE:IV is starting to get not too far from their projected sales (from the sources I have) if that gives you a clue.

SE:IV has done VERY well for Aaron and us, and it is by far our largest seller (around 5 times our other previous highest seller to date).

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Sarge is coming...

Richard Arnesen
Director of Covert Ops
Shrapnel Games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com

[JLXC]

Good, Hope SE5 is coming along well then?

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I'm an Idiot? Well if that's not the kettle smelling the pot's back!