The person who said this obviously knows that while other people are totally wrong and only think they have the right answer, he himself knows the correct answer. And that is the only correct answer, end of discussion.
Or is it?
So don’t be such a CENSORED toward other people answering your legitimate questions* while you assume that they must be wrong and you must be right, while also assuming that that answer is the best and only way.
[size=85]*which have been answered multiple times already, and every time you seem to have ignored it and kept on asking “Why doesn’t he make an offline mode?” Did I mention that like 5 people already answered that?[/size]
If you made a game as great as GSB, and made an expansion as great as GC, would you risk your sales dropping by a huge amount to satisfy a minority of people who did not bother to check the game’ main website? Minorities are great XD, but if I were the developer, I wouldn’t take that risk. You have to understand that this is a man’s livelihood. think it said on the website this was his best-selling game. Like 123stw said, why should I buy a game if I can get all of the features for free? If no one buys his game, he loses his job. If you don’t get everything you wanted in GC and lose like $10, you weep and cry and then move on with life.
As for “take my business elsewhere”, GSB is unique. Indie games usually are in some way. The only place that would also sell GSB is the main website, and since you seem to blame Cliff for Steam’s goof, you don’t seem to want to buy from there.
So that leaves you pirating the game. Is it really a good idea to threaten to do that on the developer’s website? No.
Starcraft 1 is still a major seller today. Or was up until Starcraft 2’s release.
Don’t understand this one.
My point is, Starcraft is about the worst example you can use. Nothing past that.
Well that and software piracy is a much more interesting debate then those on both sides are willing to admit if you sit down and look at the various legitimate studies done.
Well… that and it’d be nice if we also had a folder in which it would use modded squad configurations of a choice along with the online ones. If not entirely from there… even if it did require still being online.
Afterall, it wouldn’t make hacking the online need of the campaign mode any harder.
Regardless, it is still clear that Starcraft 2 is deliberately forcing people to play on Bnet, even their campaign requires you to log in to play.
Starcraft 1 existed before pirating became convenient. If it still sales now it’s for the Bnet feature at $9.99.
Starcraft 2 however is released in a different era, so they needed everything to be online to ensure purchase at $49.99. The point is not rather or not they will get “good” sales due to all the hype, but rather or not they will get “more” sales with the security features.
Hey, that’s the only cause why I’ve not bought the campaign yet (I own all other expansions). An offline campaign would be a cause to buy this expansion. Otherwise it doesn’t work on my home PC.
And since it’s no competitive online multiplayer, I don’t see why there’s no offline mode apart from some fleet generation or pre-generated fleets that would be needed.
I’m willing to be more direct: we did answer this, from a variety of perspectives and in detail. It’s just that the allegedly interested parties aren’t willing to listen.
Indeed, a more interesting question would be if they are right minded reasons.
Anti-piracy for example… the effects of piracy are much more interesting then people let on. Though unsettling that people are copying your content for free to say the least, independent and government run piracy studies do tend to show that at the very least one group of developers/artists/whatever benefit. Your indie/small sales types.
I’d guess GSB is more Punch 'Em then Starcraft based on the comment that Sins of a Solar Empires has sold way more. (And SOSE has a less restrictive DRM.)
A SOSE style DRM likely would be more profitable, though the feasibility of it at this point I’m unsure of due to their being at least 2 different distribution points. You theoretically could tie an offline campaign through steam (where I’d guess most people bought GSB anyway.) However if it’s at other DDS you couldn’t.
And really, depending on how hard it would be and negotiations needed it might not be worth vs any increase in sales it might generate.
So it’s really more of a case for his future games, and only then if his reasoning for DRM is profit based and not moral based… but it’s interesting to say the least.
Honestly, even without anti-piracy measures being an issue, I can’t see it changing for the following reasons:
Time: He’s now working on the next game and can’t afford the time to make large patches to GSB.
Money: The couple of extra sales it might generate are hardly worth it.
Intention: That’s how Cliff designed it (in the end, Cliff’s product is Cliff’s product, and he calls the shots).
As a side note, I wouldn’t refer to an online campaign as being DRM. It’s unfortunate that people seem to apply that term to almost anything that stops them blindly pirating software.
Right, which like I said, it’s more interesting mostly from an academic matter and for consideration in his future games, as the available data on the matter suggests it may actually be costing sales rather then increasing them. As for the amount sales increased, it’s an unknown. Heck, in Punch Em’s case sales doubled, though likely due to price.
If it’s likely to increase sales by 10% or so though, worth considering for future games.
As for the aside, considering that the reason most people claimed it’s an online campaign was piracy concerns, that would make it a DRM would it not? If the reason for not including an option was piracy concerns.
Though I wonder if that’s really the reason outside of “Just didn’t think it was worth it.”
i mean, after all, an offline campaign is going to be far inferior to the online one due to much less diversity in the fleets you face.
I 100% get why there isn’t an offline campaign just for that reason alone, though I do wish there was a way to allow modded ships and fleets in your online campaign.
I’m just a “Being right but making a bad argument as for why you are right is just as bad as being wrong.”
Don’t get me wrong, I think you have some valid points. My third reason includes the possibility of “I didn’t think it would be worth it, and now it’s too late”. I think that’s actually the reason for a lot of decisions in a lot of games. We are, in the end, all human.
I do think that with GSB as it is, the vast majority of players and potential players have no issue with needing an internet connection when hitting a new planet in campaign mode. It’s a negligible price to pay for the diversity of fleets it introduces. Of course it’s an issue for some people, and it could be argued that the “fix” isn’t a massive change to the game itself, but the campaign mode was never intended to be played offline. Doing so would remove the “essence” of it.
Regarding backing up our arguments with the wrong reasons - we’re not the developers and most of the time we’re just guessing. Again, though, you have a valid point. I can see how Cliff might see it as a risk though - spending development time to allow one or two additional people to play by simultaneously removing the core idea of the campaign mode and making the game much easier to pirate. It has to come down to a cost-benefit analysis, and I don’t see it tipping in favour of making the change.
As I said, it’s all speculation. It’s fun to speculate though, and as we all know it’s not going to happen I think it’s largely harmless to do so. Maybe the next game will have a wildly different style of campaign that’ll please everyone
Oh, i agree completely, I just find the stuff interesting to talk about, though hard it’s hard to talk about as well as people have a hard time divesting the data from the morality aspect assuming that everyone who studies the effects of piracy is some sort of crazy pirate who is out to do nothing but justify their own piracy.
When in reality, I don’t even pirate music. I’m just a fan of sales and consumer psychology. You’d be surprised how much unrelated things effect purchasing choices. Like for example, a different ice cream container could cause you to be able to charge 10 dollars more for the same ice cream, just because one container gives off a feeling of “higher class.”
The piracy effects on Indy games and stuff is always an interesting thing because usually the issue Indy people have is presence. If I had to guess, that would probably explain why such things tend to be the case.
I mean, I’d of never found out about this game if it wasn’t for a Steam spotlight, and this is quite literally the definition of my kind of game. A game where you set up different situations then watch the AI play it out?
I mean, when I played Age of Empires 2, by far I spent way more time downloading custom AI’s and running AI tournaments then I did playing the actual game.
You see, the target audience of the $10 ice cream consumers are not the same as indie game players.
Like you said, this is not a big title. The people who would heard of this game are not going to be those who purchase their copy of Norton Anti Virus (or using Norton at all). Many of them will have spend enough time with computers that pirating is not a technical issue, but a moral one.
Also, the two main source of exposures to GSB are
Steam
Pirating Sites
For those in group 2, their first exposure to this game is indifference. They saw something with “Space” in it and download it because it’s free. While they might end up enjoying this game, if all features are offline, then that group of people have no incentive to go through the process of paying. Having online features therefore encourages those who pirated and enjoyed the game to pay. For GSB it works out because the mission is such a small part compare to campaign and online challenges. By making campaign offline though, and you will remove group 2 from buying the game.
More on $10 ice creams. I also studied advertising for some time. You can’t simply “put a cover on it” and make it go at $10. Each brand requires huge sums of money to advertise such that consumer believe there is a quality difference in the product. This only works if buyers or their peers genuinely believe the good is of higher quality. While game developer might include giant boxes, colorful strategy guides, posters, etc, into their one package of collector’s edition, underneath it all we “knew” it’s the same game. So the “nice cover” trick doesn’t work nearly as well as ice cream.
It does however work wonders in online games. Many games now features “cash items” that is cosmetic only. People buy these products to set themselves apart from other players.
Actually, you can. I said Consumer Psychology. Not advertising… it’s a bit different, and a bit more scientific.
There is quite literally a process in consumer psychology where before the product is out or even known, you test what people would be willing to pay for each product, and can literally break down exactly how much each feature is worth, including the box… and how much more you could charge based on changing the feature.
Quite literally, by looking at two completely unknown boxes of ice cream, someone will assume that one with a different kind of box is worth based solely on the product. It’s why wine companies often pay money to consumer psychology firms to find exactly which bottle is best for them. Heck, not only is the ice cream worth more to them, according to them it tastes better! (even though it’s the same ice cream.)
As for the piracy comment above it. This goes against all actual data. I mean, I know it makes sense in your head, and when you say it, but the actual repeated and peer reviewed data shows this to not be the case. In general, piracy does seem to increase sales of Indy stuff in basically every field that things are pirated in. My argument would simply be, look at the data.
Hey man, maybe you can, but I don’t process the magic of making people pay for nothing.
Yes the box is worth something, and people would buy the box for the box. But looking at the pricing difference between “collector’s edition” and the original, the difference is usually no greater then $20, which is usually the buying the game guide separately, except here you might get a poster or other junks to go with it. This is “bundling”, or selling multiple products at the same time. People keep the box, the game guide, the poster, and any other junk, showing that they do have utility values.
In the ice cream, you are not selling extra product. You are selling the illusion of “higher class” purely through packaging. The difference is that people do not keep their ice cream box after they are done, and is only bought under the perception that the ice cream itself is better. This is much harder to do in games, because they are not impulse purchase. People actually check reviews for them before buying.
For pirating, again until I look at “your” data, more precisely how they are collected, I will not be convinced that they adjusted for the increase in computer usage, increase in demand for games, and the separation between games with online features and games without. A lot of things happened over the last 10 years and we can’t just look at both an increase in pirating and sale and assume there’s a causal effect. Nor can we use “pirated vs non pirated” from the same time period because better and more popular game tend to stay seeded far longer. So the quality and popularity of the product rather than pirating can easily account for the difference. Surveys to gamers are even more biased because selfish people tend not to take surveys unless they get paid.
You can’t just interpret data based on their face value. All the “data” I have looked at so far supporting pirating have problems.
Would pirating increase a game’s popularity? Sure. Would people who already have all the features of a game in there hard drive still go out of their way to buy a copy? I don’t know of a single person who would do that. But I do know many people who pirated a game, and end up buying it because there’s an online feature they want to try.
