(Shocking) News!!!!!

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

I never even got AROUND to combat..... played only 10 or 20 short turns or so before quitting and deinstalling.

[Psyringe]

Wow, this discussion finally got me out of lurking after 2 years. Let me contribute some facts that I think are still missing.

About Stratey First: As has already been said, they are controlled by the bankruptcy courts, however they have been bought by Silverstar Holdings recently and thus have a chance to get back on their feet now. However, if Aaron's decision was based on GalCiv's success (as Tim Brooks has hinted), then he really should have asked GalCiv's developers about their experiences with SF first. Actually, SF had very little to do with GalCivs success, which was mostly fueled by the MoO3 disaster, a GalCiv flyer inside the MoO3 box, Brad Wardell's publicity, and word of mouth spreading fast. Many games stores would not have ordered GalCiv from Strat First if their customers, on returning MoO3, hadn't asked them for it (because they had heard about the game from other sources). So Strat First's contribution to GalCiv's success was basically to provide the game for a market that already wanted it. The chances that this special situation can be repeated for Space Empires V are very slim.

Also, Strategy First did *not* pay the developers of GalCiv any royalties. There are also many other developers around the world who still wait to see a single dollar of their royalties from Strat First. Personally, I would be very careful to get into the business with them - not only because they went bankrupt once (this can happen, sometimes even when you *did* everything right), but because of their attitude to their developers during this period. Some developers still complain that they have not been warned about the problems and that they have plainly been lied to by Strat First officials. I know that people can learn from their mistakes and I honestly don't know whether the same people are still involved in SF's management, but based on their previous record I'd really be careful.

That said, I think that Aaron really *does* have a chance to strike (or have struck) a good deal with Strat First. They must be rather desperately trying to rebuild their reputation among the customers (many of whom are disappointed by Strat First because of games which have not been properly patched or finished due to developers revoking their contracts after receiving no money from SF). Enlisting the developer of a successful, established 4x sci-fi strategy series might be just what SF needs now. This should give (have given) Aaron a lot of leverage in the discussions with them, and I hope he used that.

Let's hope for the best.

Also, as a response to the last posts above: I think there's really no need for bashing GalCiv here, as there's really next to no connection between GalCiv and Strat First despite the fact that Strat First distributed the game into retail (not via digital download, this was done by Stardock themselves) and refused to pay royalties. Also, I think that Space Empires and GalCiv are both very good examples of the 4x genre, and they complement each other nicely because they focus on different aspects. Personally, I'm glad we have both games.

[Desert Fox]

I think Aaron would be better off seeking out Stardock and its TotalGaming.net subscription service to distribute the game. Strategy First is not very stable at all. This company that publishes SEIV and other titles is not very good at all. Never sold in stores or downloadable makes it very costly for anyone to get it in other countries. A South Africa mate of mine has to pay 65.00 to get SEIV.

This bashing Galciv is silly, two entirely different games at least on how they look and play. I LOVE both games and I find any negative comments toward Galciv or the GREAT Company who produced it is damn right stupid. Both games are outstanding. Sharpnel Games is not a very good company at all as many of their games are not, well popular. No offense to this fine site..

[Richard]

Desert Fox said:
I think Aaron would be better off seeking out Stardock and its TotalGaming.net subscription service to distribute the game. Strategy First is not very stable at all. This company that publishes SEIV and other titles is not very good at all. Never sold in stores or downloadable makes it very costly for anyone to get it in other countries. A South Africa mate of mine has to pay 65.00 to get SEIV.

This bashing Galciv is silly, two entirely different games at least on how they look and play. I LOVE both games and I find any negative comments toward Galciv or the GREAT Company who produced it is damn right stupid. Both games are outstanding. Sharpnel Games is not a very good company at all as many of their games are not, well popular. No offense to this fine site..

Well your entitled to your opinion, most of our games our multi award winning games in the industry and sell very well.

As far as the pricing issue, we did have some issues with pricing overseas when SE:IV first came out but those have long since been resolved. You can get it shipped in 3-7 days for 4.80 in shipping costs. We also have retail and mail order alternatives for many countries. In fact we have the largest non traditional retail distribution network of any online publisher.

Just wanted to set the record straight on that.

[tesco samoa]

you just need to start selling the game in canadian dollars

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Apart from SEIV/Shrapnel sites, I have seen NO marketing AT ALL for the game. No ads, banners, whatever.

OK, so I may be wrong, but at least SE has received less makretingn than MOO, and MOO is more of a mainstream game.

[Richard]

StrategiaInUltima said:
Apart from SEIV/Shrapnel sites, I have seen NO marketing AT ALL for the game. No ads, banners, whatever.

OK, so I may be wrong, but at least SE has received less makretingn than MOO, and MOO is more of a mainstream game.

We have done a ton of marketing for SE:IV but over time you spend less marketing effort on a 4+ year old game. Just because folks spend a lot of money on advertising doesn't mean it's smart. We have run ads in the major gaming magazines before but have found them to have little impac on sales. We ran banners for SE:IV for years on most of the major gaming sites, that is until the ROI on banner ads went through the floor.

We have also used a lot of non traditional methods to market SE:IV and all of our games. I won't go into all of them because they are trade secrets

[Tim Brooks]

Joint_Chief_StrategiaInUltima said:
Apart from SEIV/Shrapnel sites, I have seen NO marketing AT ALL for the game. No ads, banners, whatever.

Wow! That's amazing, and proves the point doesn't it. If we spent tens of thousands on those things and you didn't see them, then how effective are they?

Mainstream games that do well at retail have to be advertised differently than niche products -- even niche products at retail must be advertised differently. A publisher who pays $18,000 for a full page ad in CGW, to reach (based on CGW's stats) less than 15,000 people who are actally interested in the game, well they are just setting themselves up for bankruptcy, er disappoinment.

The reality is, I would bet that those that read CGW and are interested in a niche game with art budgets in the $ thousands (not $ millions!), difficult interface, and micromanagement features are way less than 15,000 people.

As for banner ads, well, they just don't work anymore. They haven't for over 4 years now. When we first started in 1999, we could advertise by banners, pay $200 - $500 for 300,000 impressions and get a click thru rate of 7.5% (that brought us about 22,000 clicks which turns into about 330 sales). Now the sites worth advertising on want $8,000 for those 300,000 impressions and the click thru rates are under .5% (that brings us less than 1500 clicks which turns into about 23 sales). So yea, lets do that!

We do alot of marketing, in non-tradtional ways, that get us the returns for our investments. How did you hear about SEIV? I know we have run polls before asking this question, and the top answer is word of mouth (a friend told me, I saw it in a forum or user group discussion, my friend at work was playing it, etc.). One of the hardest things we have to contend with regarding developers is to explain that word of mouth just doesn't happen. Someone just didn't wake up one morning and go, "I have a giant urge to go discuss Space Empires IV - I've never heard of it before, don't even know what it is, but hey, I'll just go talk about it." They talk about it because they FOUND out about it. And that just doesn't happen. That is marketing that gets games to that point.

We don't discuss the many ways we market, because our competition isn't there - you won't find SF there - and we don't want then there. Hell, we want our competition paying $18,000 for ads that don't reach their market.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

And that skill is rare. They could market it, hire themselves out to make companies go bankrupt for tax purposes!

[Derek]

Psyringe said:

Actually, SF had very little to do with GalCivs success, which was mostly fueled by the MoO3 disaster, a GalCiv flyer inside the MoO3 box, Brad Wardell's publicity, and word of mouth spreading fast. Many games stores would not have ordered GalCiv from Strat First if their customers, on returning MoO3, hadn't asked them for it (because they had heard about the game from other sources). So Strat First's contribution to GalCiv's success was basically to provide the game for a market that already wanted it. The chances that this special situation can be repeated for Space Empires V are very slim.

Well, we could always pay someone to develop a MoO4 which is even worse than MoO3 (not sure if that is really possible, making something worse than MoO3, that is...)

I'm still just hoping, as the Marine going to Iraq in June, that SE5 is released before then!

Dave