Gal Civ Sales.

Not sure about anybody else, but I made the decision to buy it at retail so I could support both Strategy First and Stardock.

I had the exact opposite idea: I wanted to support Stardock and the model of direct sales. Too many game developers go belly up because of the chokepoint of finding publishers (saddest case for me: Sir-Tech). Anything that can be done to lessen the power the game publishers hold and increase the perceived viability of going direct to the fans means a better chance of more niche games getting made.

I thought the same way as Code Monkey when I ordered the Drengin package a few months ago,

Power to the People. . . . ( Shows my age again. )


Elrikk


~SDC~

I bought the game using Amazon. Free shipping figured into the decision. Frankly downloading the game for more (if you want a printed manual and CD) as receiving the retail version just doesn't make sense. Takes extra time(i.e. downloading), money, and worry. Sadly, this is the only model that makes sense if you want to sell anything through the brick and mortar channel.

Conversely, waiting for Best Buy to have a sale in a few months didn't affect my decision. Especially since Best Buy wouldn't carry it for months. Understand that I tried a friends copy before purchase. Poor S.O.B tried MOO3 first (oh, the humanity!) but that's another story... Yes, this game is his (and my)rebound game

I'm telling all this because I know that the board is read by the powers that be. Hopefully, a good cross section of people explaining their reasons for purchase will help make this game and future games even better.

Although I do feel like a pusher at times. Sure man... Try this... It's called Galactic Crack... Err, Galactic Civilizations. A lot of fun. Here try it. Just a few turns. A few more... No known side effects. Like sleepless nights playing just one more turn. Come on. Once you've figured out a winning strategy the patch just makes it better... Yeah that's it... Just slapped down the Drengin? Feels good... See you on the board. Gotta go do just one more turn...(Cue twilight zone music) 8-)

> Frankly downloading the game for more (if you want a
> printed manual and CD) as receiving the retail version
> just doesn't make sense. Takes extra time(i.e.
> downloading), money, and worry. Sadly, this is the
> only model that makes sense if you want to sell
> anything through the brick and mortar channel.

Currently I have cable modem, the only wait involved was the load on Stardock's servers. Assuming a sales model where this was more common place and the infrastructure was present at the companies, I could have downloaded the entire game easily in less than an hour (with the load it took me about 5 hours - still quicker than I could have ordered it and got it). Backing it up to CD was only about 5 minutes and another $0.20

I did blow the $5 for the shipped CD but in hindsight wouldn't have since it *doesn't* come with a manual (that was a bad move in my opinion).

Regardless of that little downside, I'd rather have seen about $41 in the clear go to Stardock who are the ones who are actually supporting this game, funded and developed this game, and will ultimately be the ones who make any decisions about sequels and future addons. Based upon breakdowns I've seen estimated in the past, they probably have to sell something like 15-20 copies in a retail chain to make that same money.

For the developer, direct download seems to be much prefered option. Look at the numbers,
Gal Civs budget : 600k $
10000 downloads a 40 $ : 400k $
Now compare that with the 5 - 10 $ they get from every retail sale.

And as Code Monkey said, if we help the small guys so that they actually can get develop their product we'll have a much more diverse and original games out on the market.

I just hope that they will go for the, games as applications model and continue to develop this game after then end date next year for thase that wish to extend their subscriptions.

English is my second language, especially when i dont take the time to proof read my message before pressing submit

I switched to cable recently. The problem is I'm gun shy about downloading programs off the net. Especially if I am paying for it. The other two times I've done it were nightmare experiences. Admittedly, that was a couple of years ago but the scars are still there

The main point is paying the retail price for something the company is making more profit by at a greater inconvienence to the customer is flawed. Same price without a CD or manual. O.k., in hindsite the manual wasn't any great shakes but I like having a manual. 90% of all questions in most software newsgroups would not be there if people had read the manual or the included readme. I like having a manual in front of me while the program is on the screen when I'm trying to puzzle things out. Just carried my preference to games is all.

Support this company, sure, I've been trumpeting this game to friends, family, and strangers. Heck, I'm normally a lurker who does not participate in message boards. I don't even like uploading my high scores. Everybody likes it when the little guy beats Goliath. It's a great game. It's a little too addictive but...

Point being people buy for different reasons. Stardock should be aware of what affects the buying behavior. You were willing to use your connection time for five hours then burn it onto a CD. Kudos for Stardock for allowing us to do that. You have a fast connection and a CDRW drive, so do I, my friend doesn't. I like a CD burned at the factory that I hope will last at least 5 years (don't scoff I have my Moo2 CD) with a professionally applied label that when I see it three years from now I'll say oh yeah that's the CD for xyz. That's when I look in my "big box o'manuals" and play the game again.

Unfortunately for Stardock, every download of the game is one that doesn't count in the retail channel. The retail channel reaches many times more people and generates many times more publicity. 100x the people will see and buy the game.

You spent five hours of your time downloading the game. Realize that the general public just isn't willing to do that. After working for five hours you installed the game, all the while hoping the download wasn't mucked up, and burned your cd. So for 5 1/2 hours of your time you recieved the same game and paid more money. Don't you see the model is flawed?

I'm not blaming Stardock, customer support here is many times what the other game companies give. Patches and improvements are a hundred times better in a few months than other companies have done in a year. Yes, let's support a company that this but don't reward a flawed system.

Say other companies look at the pay and download system. Say they are impressed by how it worked for Stardock. Suppose a company like Corel decided to release their products via download only. The same company that at the users group and seminar I attended had their company experts advise that I not remove the old version of the software until the 2nd patch for the new version comes out when used for mission critical assignments. Now imagine they charged the same price for the download as for retail. Now see them go to a no retail option but leave the price the same. Of couse that is farfetched, that would be like a company going to a smaller manual for an OEM package, then no manual, just a large help file, and then charge extra for manuals and guides (cough, cough, Microsoft).

Can we agree we love the game, the company, and the staff? Can we also agree to disagree on paying the same (or more) for download? Holy $%^& it's 4:10 a.m. in the morning. Can we agree we're both nuts? LOL

I think Stardock could have maximized their direct sales by keeping the price under/at the lowest advertised price. I assume there were contractual or other issues at play given how smart they all are. When GoGamer advertises it for $29.99 and Stardock has it for DL at $45, that is enough difference. Also, I'll bet the people who want it immediately are most likely early purchasers, so later ones might be less interested in saving the day or two of shipping time.

Brad/Stardock, were most of the 10,000 sold sold in the first few weeks? Does the online sales curve match the retail sales curve? I would bet early adopters are more likely to buy online, but that later adopters would need to actively save money to do it, if they are willing to go that route in the first place.

There is in fact a considerable contractual obligation on the developer's part to not undercut the publisher (in this case it would have been Stardock undercutting Strategy First).

Retail channells become agitated and upset when they find out that their precious shelf-space is being taken up with an expensive game that can be had for far cheaper direct from the source. Hence the mark-up.

But seeing as how it contributes to Stardock's bottom line that was acceptable to me. What wasn't acceptable was the tremendous pain and human-intensive labor required on release night to download and install the game through Stardock Central... fortunately SD's customer support patched things up to my satisfaction.

But for many other users who are not as computer savvy I can see how it would have been tremendously discouraging.

Is it availble all over Europe yet and is there an Asian market? Judging by the forum and the Metaverse it has worldwide appeal. I hope it does well oversees.

I played the OS2 version and was in early on Drengin, which entitled me to participate in the beta and download the final. Because of, unknown at the time, issues with Naviscope interfering with the login process, I also bought a copy at $40 retail as well. We resolved the issue prior to actually installing the retail copy and it is sitting on top of my computer. It will probably be a present to one of my nephews for Xmas. I just have to figure out which of my siblings is best suited to cope with an additicted offspring. I am eagerly anticipating forthcoming revisions and expansions.

Direct Download is waaaay to expensive. I just bought mine at the store...

"You spent five hours of your time downloading the game. Realize that the general public just isn't willing to do that. After working for five hours you installed the game, all the while hoping the download wasn't mucked up, and burned your cd. So for 5 1/2 hours of your time you recieved the same game and paid more money. Don't you see the model is flawed?"

Actually, do you see how your analysis is flawed?

If I order the game I spend the same money and I wait at a minimum two days to get it. I decided I wanted the game on a Saturday morning and was playing it Saturday night versus seeing it that Tuesday at the earliest. The alternative was spending upwards of three hours and half a tank of gas hunting it down physically with still no guarantee of getting a copy.

More, you cannot count the 5.12 hours because other than initiating the download and checking on its progress periodically, there was no time at all involved in getting the game. You try to make it sound like there's some sort of effort involved with clicking on a link and hitting the 'save' button in Opera - that's less time than it would have taken me to go to my door to get the package from the fedex guy had I ordered it normally. Since I've got upwards of 600+Kb of bandwidth to play with, it wasn't even affecting any other aspect of my computing or surfing - purely background activity.

Is this model what Joe Sixpack is going to go for? Well, no, but then again Joe Sixpack is the idiot LCD that drives our society but doesn't necessarily drive games like this. From my p.o.v., games would be better for me if Joe Sixpack never entered any equation about my games - we've got completely different agendas.

I spent $10 more than it would have cost me at the cheapest place to buy it physically; that's a meal at Taco Bell for the convenience of *saving* time and effort as well as directly supporting game developers instead of publishers.

So fine, for those of you who see something special about having a cardboard box you throw out and a manual that isn't any good as well as potentially saving $5-$10 for a game that will give you a few hundred hours of entertainment at the minimum, go ahead and choose retail sales over direct. It's a win-win either way for Stardock.

I bought it from Amazon because it was cheaper. I'm definitely for direct downloading, and in retrospect would have done it, just to give more money to Stardock. But at that time I was not thinking of supporting Stardock. Now it's different, I'm looking at this Object Desktop thing (even though I'm running enlightenment under linux) and maybe a Drengin submission ...

Thinking about it, there must be some subliminal messages in the game

For me choice to buy direct was easy :
* I want to give my money to Brad and not Mr Marketing Suit from InfoGreed
* Either it was some d/l hours vs one WEEK or two to get the game over the Pond !

So no question ! Still i would have preffered that the price be the same that the retail price... economic logic is sometimes weird !

I don't see what the problem is???

Stardock is a small company. they knew they didn't have the "influence" to get the game staurated on store shelves everywhere (but they are upgrading with culture modules - forum, stardock central, drengin.net, expanded universe... when they get to party palace then GalCiv 2 will be everywhere! Stroll into a retail chain like Walmart or a software store like E.B. and GalCiv 2 will be staring you in the face).

Let's face it they did EVERYTHING they feasibly could to promote and provide GalCiv to the public - they found a publisher to distribute to stores, they targetted online distribution (Amazon, etc.) and they provided direct sales in both physical (boxed / shipped) and electronic (download) formats.

I say choose whatever benefits you the most. For me it was to purchase the game direct download from them and most recently to upgrade to Drengin.net.

For me supporting the company directly gave me satisfaction. I didn't mind paying as much or more for the game. For others a lower price or having a physical copy of the game may be a bigger deciding factor... whatever floats your boat!

I bought mine at the website and downloaded it (I'm glad all my money whent to the creators), didn't have time to wait for it to be delivered I would have went crazy waiting for it and the demo is only fun for so long.
I've been waiting for a game like this since Moo2, tried Moo3 but that sucked big time IMO.


~SDC~