This is not going to be pretty, and maybe not that profitable in the short-term. I am going to sound harsh, but I do want this to succeed, as I see the potential. This is not intended as a slam on you guys- I hopee you know what I post here well enough, that you know this isn't just me begging or slagging.
Right now: the perception of this game is that it's unplayable, and that buying a Stardock game isn't worth it until at least a year out. That's not good for business.
Solution:
a) Next week, throw some mods on the site. There have been some decent mods made already that help the game out. The mod section needs to be more then just maps.
Get custom MP servers up ASAP after getting MP online. MP will help with the balance, since people will make MP mods to fix balance issues. That might be able to save you some manhours on balancing. If possible, allow for mods to be used on SD servers (work with the mod community on this)
c) Keep up the good work on support overall. I trust you guys fully on that, otherwwise I would be raging at you guys right now.
d) This is the part you might not like. You're going to have to eat short-term profitability on this, in order to help in the long-term.
You'll need to be aggressive on discounting once you can. (I understand you can't right now)
That said, the expansion. It needs to be a stand-alone game, with a bug-free, very generous demo out a month before release. Maybe even full game esque. The burden of proof is right now, (fairly or not), on you guys to prove you can have a solid launch. Showing the world what a year of your support can do for a game will restore your reputation (which is tarnished outside of here right now)
The downside is the fans who stuck it out will feel screwed over a bit, (I'm one of those fans) , but I think most of us would be ok with that , given the circumstances. Maybe give us the expansion at a discount based on when we pre-ordered elemental, or a loyalty bonus on Impulse when we get it? (not DLC, but a credit to use on other things)
e) Learn from your mistakes and don't rush future titles, even if it seems to make business sense at the time. It bites you back tenfold.
I never thought I'd be trying to tell a millionare how to run his business, but I'm trying to look at things from a cold, business side, not my gamer side. As a gamer, I'd be willing to hand over my money- I know I won't regret this ride. However, I know I got a minority opinion, and the Joe Average gamer right now- he's writing you guys off. I'm worried about the long-term damage that could happen, and how it would mean lower budgets for SD titles in the future, and less ambitious future projects- such as GC3. (I am motivated by self-interest here)
Also no need to be telling people to "get over it". That is also a pretty invalid response to legit criticism.
I agree. If a major studio released game in this condition they would have been raked over the coals. Even here on the SD forums it is a far more constructive discussion than what would be in evidence on many other forums should their games release like this.
I would disagree thought about the MP. Right now the game is in such a state - who would want to play MP with such a buggy unbalanced, crash-prone mess. Let's get the game fixed up for what most players bought it for (SP) before we add to the complexity of the problems inherent in that.
For a game in the $50- $60 I expected a LOT more polish rather than this. Right now SD is still being treated like the cute puppy no-one can get mad at but they basically blew all their street cred on this. Heck I bought Torchlight for $9.99 and found it to be far better in terms of polish and stability than EOWM.
FR
I agree with the overall sentiment presented in the responses here. The game was obviously rushed out the door, and while it is playable it is certainly not "finished." I'm a huge lover of all things Stardock...I recommend their products whenever I can, I recommend the company whenever I can, but seeing so many people argue that the game is largely fine and just needs minor tweaking astounds me. Reality check to those few: The game is certainly still fun and mostly playable for the majority of people, but it has some major issues, and major holes in gameplay that should have been addressed before letting avid fans spend $50 on it. Yes, most PC games now require a release-day patch, and bugs etc. continue to need working out, but it is VERY rarely to the extent that Elemental needs. The two similar cases I can think of are World War 2 Online, which still goes down in my book as the worst release of all time(partly because the game was ahead of its time in terms of online play), and Hellgate: London...and we all know what the end result was there. All it does is make dissatisfied customers (even if we're all willing to stick around because of the potential we see in the product) who will think twice about pre-ordering next time and supporting the product at launch.
I very rarely go and buy a game on release day anymore for a multitude of reasons, this being one of them. I was really looking forward to this launch, pre-ordered it because I had faith that Stardock would give me another stellar product, and later that evening I found myself playing what was/is essentially a beta version of the game(I've beta tested 10+ titles...this plays like a beta, not a releasable product). I would hope that Stardock would do something similar to what the OP suggested to try and make things somewhat right with current Elemental owners...download vouchers for some DLC, or SOMETHING. But I really feel like I spent $50 to help them public-beta the game at this point. I'd be fine doing that for $20-30, but paying $50 for a product in this state/stage of development is disappointing.
I prefer Elemental: War on Gamers
Allow me to pose this question...would you rather they had not released the game, and waited 3 months while they work on it? Or, pay and have the game now and at least be able to play it while they work on it and release patches...?
My answer is definitely the latter. I'll take the game now, and enjoy it (I'm not having the myriad issues some are) while SD improves it and releases updates.
I don't think anyone who values their money wants to spend it on a game that isn't finished. Some of us just don't have $50 to throw away.
I would like to think that, as gamers, we have a responsibility to communicate to game developers what constitutes a release-ready game. By adopting your attitude we are encouraging game companies to release paid betas.
Everybody who wanted to be able to play beta was able to. It stands to reason that some of the people who waited until release were doing so becaus they wanted to wait for the game to be in a polished, release state. For those people, delaying is indeed preferable.
Given what circumstances? That they didn't listen when we said the game wasn't ready? Day one supporters shouldn't have to endure the most, sorry.
I'm not going to stop buying stardock games, and I will cut Stardock a slack to finish this one. But I will make no other concession, I have many reasons not to.
I preordered, so it shouldn't matter, aside from the fact that I'm disappointed with what they call "release-ready"; I just hope that won't stop them from treating the game as a beta with lots of mechanics that need complete redesign.
But the problem isn't there. Those who have paid for the game should get a proper product, not this broken set of unfinished engines piled up upon each other. Those people could have done something else with that money, could have saved valuable time doing something else, and shouldn't be asked to have blind faith in Stardock just because we "guarantee that they'll fix the game".
In the end, this sort of behavior isn't much better than putting those DRMs that have been highly criticized right here on these forums and this website.
If I hadn't played Gal Civ 2 from day 1, I would probably feel pretty ambivalent about this purchase. However, if the track record set by Gal Civ is maintained on this game, and I believe it will be, this game and any expansions will be glorious pieces of work by the end. I can't see any game ever displacing Gal Civ 2 as the top space TBS game, it may happen, but it won't be for a long time. I expect Elemental will go the same route.
I paid twice as much for Vista, and found it far less stable and lacking in polish.
He has earned a lot of good will in the gaming industry due to his stance on DRM and the gamer bill of rights. Plus he even paid attention to the OS/2 crowd, which means nothing unless you thought OS/2 was the better option for a long time
As proof of this, how many times have you seen so many review sites say that they will wait to review a released game due to it not being ready? They are actually being quite kind here. Usually they just rip the game a new one.
Indeed, as the old cliché goes: you only get one chance to make a first impression. Stardock's presumed grand entrance became firm trip, stumble and face-first landing in the cow pucky. Any work stardock does now it to retain what fans it has and to rebuild its street cred, investor confidence (so it can market the game) and to restore any prestige it had for its future products. I agree with Storm - they have lost the casual crowd to Civ5 by this point. Consumers are not just fickle, they may not rant and roar on the web but many will quietly feel jaded and write off Stardock. Remeber IoN storm, everyone has shouting their praises and then came Daikatana.
I don't for a minute think EOWM is anything like the Ion storm travesty, but without a doubt it has greatly shaken gamers' confidence in SD. Coupled with the whole poor distribution fiasco, SD need to take a good deep look at its business plan and work culture. We they any other studio they would be a write-off for gamers for this launch.
Yet folks will says "But Rat, Civ4 had a horrible launch and they were fine." Correct, but Sid Meier and Firaxis have a LOT more street appeal, a longer solid, track record and the ability to sustain a longer sales period on the Civ Franchise. Simply put Civ5 could be a stinkfest but with patches and backed up by name and franchise recognition and the marketing power of 2K - along with a massive fan base they can still turn things around. SD with a purported <5M development cost, little or no marketing, poor distribution and a widely panned launch and (the current state of its) game.
Look at Craptic studios, they have turned out two big shovelware MMOs and they also just got the NWM license via ATARI. Name, franchise and big distributor backing can provide teh support to make it through a bad launch. I don't know if SD has the resouces. It is more than likely the press right now is NOT helping initial sales at all.
With the huge fall slew of AAA releases; I really dont see any sort of "come back to EOWM" movement as folks as folks will all ready have found new games that satisfy them and have bitterly binned EWOM as bad memory and SD as a presumed shovelware studio.
RAT
EWOM needs fixing; Vista on the other hand, needs an exhorcism, firebrands and crosses included. G I woudl recommend you get windoze 7, it is MUCH better.
Wait 3 months. No question. Games are meant to be ready to play when they are released, Stardock's "Gamers Bill of Rights" says as much:
2. Gamers shall have the right that games they purchase shall function as designed without technical defects that would materially affect the player experience. This determination shall be made by the player.
I was in the beta so if I wanted to play an unbalanced mess I could play that. Why would anyone want to pay to beta test the release version?
Ahh, but it is ready to play...I've been playing constantly and loving it as much as Civ or GalCiv. No, it's not perfect yet (what is?), but it is most definitely "ready to play"...
Oddly enough I agree with that statement. I avoided the beta for that reason. I sometimes will look into betas with MMOs, because they are a huge time sink with monthly payment plans normally. No reason to spend $49.99 on a MMO game and then $15 a month for 3 to 6 months and be disapointed. With that being said, I learned that lesson after AOC, Vanguard, and Star Trek Online.
For me the game just need to start using more than 5% of my gpu and get some decent performance.
There was a mention on IRC and I think in the last dev journal that they found a tweak in the engine that adds something like 10FPS.
Performance is definitely something that's being worked on.
We have a difference of opinion then. Which is fine, people often have differences of opinion. What is more relevant is what large numbers of people think and it seems to me that a sufficient number of people are disappointed and feel the game was released too early, including most (all?) review sites, for that point of view to matter.
Yeah and look how long it took Microsoft took to "recover" from Vista. Win7's numbers look amazing compared to Vista... not to detract from it's inherent awesomeness, but Vista REALLY lowered the bar.
"What I think you guys need to do over the next few months to win people back."
Fire Brad, Hire Bill Roper
And this is where Elemental is feeling the pain.
A handful of devoted fans gushing about it on the Stardock forums isn't enough to outpace a dearth of reviews... and those few out there find it meh to atrocious. Once that kind of inertia is lost, it's going to be nigh impossible to regain. Granted this is a niche game, but any hoping of wide adoption has been hurt badly. Add AAA releases like Civ5 just around the corner and it's looking pretty grim.
He is available.
Please don't listen to this OP his ideas are bad.
Look, I am not gushing. All I've been saying is that--for me--it is fun, addictive, playable. Looking at the vitriol being spewed on these forums, you would think the game fried everyone's PC on executing. Like all of Stardock's offerings, they are not for everyone. Not many people are big fans of 4X games.
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