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Expansion Packs

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Expansion Packs

A look inside the retail sausage factory

from JoeUser Forums

At some point we want to do an expansion pack.  And by some point, I mean, we have a pretty good idea of what, when, and what would be in said expansion pack.  But there's a lof of "Stuff" involved in deciding what will be in an expansion pack and when it would be launched and how it would be packaged.

First a little primer:  Unless you're mega publisher, if you want to be in the stores for Christmas, you have to be released by September 30th. That's the magic date.  Secondly, unless you're a large publisher, having both a boxed version and an expansion pack on the shelves is really really hard.

So if we want to do an expansion pack soon, we would have to release it either by the end of September (any earlier would be too close to the original release) OR wait until next year (February 2007).

There are also two basic ways of going about an expansion pack:

The Traditional Way.  You release your expansion pack for $19.95 to $29.95 that requires users to have the original game.  This is what big publishers tend to do because they can have both the mega selling original and the expansion. Civilization IV and Civ IV: Warlords would be a great example of this.

The Alternative Way. You release an expansion pack that plays on its own for $39.95 to $49.95.  That is, you basically update your original game to include the expansion pack as an integral part of it.  Disciples II did this.

I don't have a strong preference.  If you take the traditional path, you risk losing shelf space entirely unless you are selling in significant quantity.   If you take the alternative path, you need to find some way to enable people who bought the original game to get the expansion pack without having to pay full price (rebate in box for existing players, or direct download or something). It also has the problem of requiring the existing game be taken off the shelves first to be replaced by the "new and improved" version which can be a real bummer.

Or you could just bypass retail entirely and offer it direct and not mess with any of the problem and release on your own schedule.

 

63,888 views 54 replies
Reply #26 from JoeUser Forums Top
It also has the problem of requiring the existing game be taken off the shelves first to be replaced by the "new and improved" version which can be a real bummer.


That is funny, because Neverwinter Nights, Neverwinter Nights Gold, and Neverwinter Nights Platinum are all the same price, and sell side by side at Best Buy. I always found this strange, since the gold and platinum versions have everything that the original verison has, and the platinum has everything that the gold version has plus more. No one in their right mind would buy either of the other versions, but they still have them in the store - side by side.
Reply #27 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Traditional with download option would be my choice.

Of course it could be sold with game updates. (As in when folks log in to update to latest version if they don't have the expansion they could be prompted to purchase it if they so desire. Of course limit the times folks would need to answer this! Or you could simply place an ad on their screen while they update.)
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Reply #28 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
my choice is do away with expantions totaly and just make it all one game with a fixed PP of ohhh $60

im fast becoming fed up with buying a game, and then an 'expantion' a few months later. ESPECIALY when the original game is clearly left unfinished just so we can get an 'expantion' that does nothing really but simply finish the 'original'

i think, no i KNOW that game makers need more cash for what they do, the days of cheap budget NES/Sega/PS1 type games with low grafix and not alot of detail are gone. even a 'basic' game like GS 2 that isnt really that deep into grafix is still light years ahead of say Super mario brothers, or the old zeldas. but the price is still expected to be the same? crazyness.

whats going on now is the publishers need to get the funds from someplace so they have decided to milk us of every dime by offering what SEEMS to be an 'improvment' and thus worth more cash, whats really going on is that the industry is just setting up a milking machine and we the consumers are blindly falling for it. (the sims expantion version 2,889 anyone?)

i give you a 3rd option (atleast for GS 3) give us the WHOLE game right from the start at a reasonable price. atleast with me and people like me you will get a bunch more cash, i and most gamers i know dont even bother with expantions unless the game was totaly amazing. in fact the last game i bought an expantion for was the warhammer dawn of war series and the expantion for that was a classic example of what im talking about. all you got was a few more classes of troops per race and a new race that clearly should have been included in the original. due to that ill never buy another warhamer expantion since i refuse to support either stupidity OR greed, and im all but certian i wont buy another 'expantion' for ANY game, that follows their same business modle.

the whole idea of 'expantions' sets my teeth on edge, for two reasons, either they are full of stuff that basicaly makes a totaly new game out of the original, in wich case its not an 'expantion' at all but a sequil. or its full of pre meditated greed, where things are left out or unfinished in the original for the express purpose of milking more cash out of the buyers to in essence finish/compleat the game for us with the expantion.

if we keep on following the industry down this expantion road it will come a day in the not too distant future where we are buying basicaly a demo of a game for $40, and then have to make payments in the form of 'expantions' for the next year or two. to get a compleat game. indeed, we are doing that NOW with alot of games. and i for one am tired of it.

im not suggesting that you dont make money, im just suggesting that you offer the best you can do, and set a fair price. not start out with PLANED extortion in mind, having your 'expantions' allready planed out if not outright MADE when the 'original' ships , and follow the sims business modle. there WILL be a lashback from this, mark my words.

as for this 'expantion' i say it doesnt really matter what you do, the BEST choice is to have made it all one game to begin with at a $60 pp imo. but you allready missed the boat on that one
Reply #29 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Why not do it this way

Release the "gold" version retail (full game+expansion) for $30 (You'd not lose money selling it at the expansion price, since you wouldn't get that many more GC2 sales by September or Feburary)

Release the expansion itself through SDC, or through mail-order? I don't think anyone who has bought GC2 does not access this site at all, for $20.

That being said, if you go full stand-alone expansion, I'd expect a TON. There are a ton of things that can be improved from GC2- moreso then I imagined when I bought it- so there is a lot of expansion material- since the core game is great.

The five big things I want:

- UP entirely reworked (it's the one area of the game I consider garbage)
- Events not just alignment, but done in a more "Paradox"-like style (play Europa Universalis 2 to see what I mean)
- The other races to get ship designs (that's more of a patch thing really, but I want the Korx to have their own design)
- Fleet Admirals (with traits similar to Victoria- I hate to keep listing Paradox games, since I haven't liked any of them since EU2, but they have some great ideas)
- Expanded Espionage/Destabilization system.

And of course, the continuing AI improvements. Despite its flaws, this is one of the strongest AI's I've ever played, especially for a game as difficult as this to design the AI for.
Reply #30 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I say bundle the expansion with the original game for $10 more than the original game price. Allow current customers to download the expansion from SDC for $10. This solves the retail space problem of not having to stock both the original and expansion without leaving existing customers out to dry. Also it will prevent potential customers from waiting until the expansion comes out before buying by making it easy fro them to upgrade.
Reply #31 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
My biggest issue with the alternative method is that if it's done as a rebate, when I look at something with a rebate, I'm not thinking of the rebated price as what I'm playing, I'm thinking that it's the full price with a chance to get some of my money back. Maybe I don't mail in the rebate in time, maybe it gets lost in the mail, etc. I've had too many rebates go missing even after I properly mailed it in to have any faith in rebates. I'm not saying that I'd expect that same level in the case of Stardock, but I've conditioned myself not to think of rebates as affecting the "real" price.

Now, in my case, as long as a direct download for the lower price is available, I'm happy, but I dont' know how many people think about rebates the same way I do.
Reply #32 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Personally I wouldn't even try to ship an expansion before Xmas. With 1.1 and 1.2 going full steam you guys must be close to collapse. I would vote for Feb 2007 with an open beta before. What's the hurry? We will still be here ...


Besides ... with the popularity of GalCiv 2 I think you will find Beta Pre-orders for the Expansion to be about a BILLION percent greater than GalCiv 2.

Just my two BC.

Dano
Reply #33 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I dont realy care how it's done, as long as it has multiplayer. Please....
Reply #34 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Start with digital Downloads for the expansion. Let us pay online and d/l it to enhance our already purchased game. Release retail a boxed version at a later date add in bonus material to encourage me to buy the box even if I purchased the Download. 19.95 for d/l and then 4months later i decide to get the box version for the same amount because it has 2 new hull design series and X other cool thing the D/L didnt.

My opinion.
Reply #35 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Short and Sweet

I would pay full price $39.95 to $49.95. for just an expansion that included.
+Hotseat
+Multiplayer
+Tactical Space Combat
(1st mode Controlable real time camera (Ala Moo3, Conquest Frontier Wars Realtime)
(2nd mode turn based tiles (Ala Moo1 & Moo2)
+Tactical Ground Combat
(Moo1, Moo2, Imperium Galactica2?)
+More Races
At Least 4-8 More
+More Governments
At Least 4 more (8 more with all the normal governments of the world with Star in front would be nice Star Fascism, Star Communism, anyone?)
+Some Pre-made Spiral Galaxys for the square gamemap.
(I can't believe this isn't done already)
Reply #36 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
One thing that I would bite at is mini-expansions (ala Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights) that would add professionally done hight quality ships. I love playing with them, but am uncreative to the extreme. I'd drop $10 for a download with ships just so the game looked better.
Reply #37 from JoeUser Forums Top
[quote/]I preach, regularly, that you shouldn't rewrite code. Instead, you should try to learn how it works and fix it or extend it.

I have the exact opposite philosophy. I had that philosophy when I first started coding when I was little, but I have learned over time, that it is often better to rewrite code to be more efficient or more robust. You will need to keep track of the stack, but if you comment the stack contents on each line of code, this is not difficult. I have gone back and taken code I wrote years ago with 9000 lines, and re-wrote it with less than 2000. This is all because I was better at coding, and had a better idea of what the final outcome had become. That second point is why rewriting code after it is complete can be a very rewarding experience, because you already know how the code works, and can upgrade it to work better to accomplish the same task.
Reply #38 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
We wouldn't charge $30 for an expasnion pack.  The most likely amount is going to be around $24.95. But don't hold me to that.
Reply #39 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think right now a lot of the thinking is to go digital only for the expansion pack to keep the price down and to not create confusion at retail.
Reply #40 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I like the digital download idea. It gives SD the freedom to do things how and when they want. The way SD Central works, it would work for anyone. Even if you didn't have internet access at home, you can burn it to a CD, and take it there with very, very little difficulty.
Reply #41 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Agreed. If you are going to go with any sort of 'non-traditional' release digital is the way to go. Again, I say release it when you guys are satisfied with it being done and not before.
Reply #42 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
EB et al. want nothing to do with PC games. They didn't have GC2 and their personnel becomes nauseous at anything on that shiatty excuse for a PC section. They are in the middle of an exit strategy for the PC platform and no amount of reason is going to change their path.

Death to brick & mortar. I have no love for Microsoft but the xbox360 will be a hard lesson for game retailers. Microsoft is in position to kill retailer console sections as well when broadband becomes ubiquitous. Why they treat PC badly when downloading is an unstoppable market trend is beyond me.

Make it available for download at a low price, ~$20.

Death to rebates as well. Nothing implicates a company as criminal quite like rebates. Companies that use rebates should get hit with racketeering charges. Of course, that's a minority opinion .
Reply #43 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sorry but it would have to be retail for me to buy it I don't purchase anything I can't buy with Cash im anti-credit (and that kiddies is why my credit IS so good.)

We want a box! We want a box!

Speaking of Xbox 360 or Xbox for that matter why don't you make a release for either when the game expansion is all done?
Reply #44 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would buy it, especially if the expansion has the Kat Lords as at least a minor race.

W/R
Suralle Straykat
Kat Lord @ Large

"The above is mearly a shameless plug at making sure everyone pays atttention to their cats today." I would still buy the expansion.
Reply #45 from JoeUser Forums Top
Stand-alone vs Traditional:
Personally, I'd go for the traditional route, where the original game is required in addition to the expansion pack. This avoids customer confusion, and doesn't cut into continued sales of GC2 Core. That is unless you were building an MP-only expansion, where that was the entire focus. In that case I'd sell it as a stand-alone product since it's so fundamentally different. Then offer the SP content (campaigns etc..) as content packs to add into the MP expansion if someone wants it.

Digital Only vs Retail Mix:
Even with the large SDC install base you now have, the average gamer probably isn't going to notice the expansion sitting in the list so much. The ones who will see it and purchase it are the ones who keep themselves informed, and probably represent a small percentage of overall customers. Awareness is important, and I don't think you'll get enough of it with a digital-only distrib method. Boxes on a shelf, even if you don't go as big as you did with the original release, will help sales a lot.

Christmas vs February:
Unless you guys are going full-tilt on a good solid expansion already, unless it was just a campaign pack, you have at this point roughly 7 months to plan, build, test and release it. I know you did Political Machine in something like 8mo total, it may be pushing too hard and too fast. Giving it an extra few months can't hurt really. Do you think releasing GC2 in Feb of this year vs Christmas really hurt sales? I'd personally rather you guys take your time and turn out something really high-quality and polished for the expansion.
Reply #46 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Traditional or Alt, I don't care. As long its available via download and only costs 19.95 (having bought the original).

Since Christmas sales always seem to be such a big thing, I'm surprised a Feb 2007 date was even mentioned. I'd think a new box for GalCiv 2.5 sitting on the shelves for Christmas would be the most attractive option.

I'd put some warnings on the 2.5 box though...
"WARNING -> Critical thought required!"
"WARNING -> There is no gratuitous violence, blood splatter or gore provided by this product!"
Reply #47 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Release both digitally and in retail Feb 2007. It's the logical thing to do.
Reply #48 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you can't have two different boxes on the shelves then the expansion has to be stand alone. I don't see how you can do anything else. People who haven't bought the original MUST be able to play the expansion. I suppose you could offer people who buy the expansion the chance to get the original through mail order or download, but that will be a big put off since if you buy it in the store you expect to be able to take it home and play it immediately.

So I think the best solution would be to make it standalone.

I see this in book series all the time -- the store has the third volume of the set but not 1 and 2, as if I'd buy 3 if I can't get 1 and 2. I pass on many books which I would have bought because of that. It would be far worse with a game. At least with a book I can still read volume 3 if I don't have 1 and 2.

If the publisher would go for it, maybe you can let people who already have the original download the expansion for a reduced price.

I see nothing wrong with offering the entire game in a box. Presumably the net effect for those who already have the game is the same although I suppose they may end up paying more. For me anyway, an extra $10 or $20 for something I'd spend hours playing is no big deal at all. I"m still getting entertainment for something like 2 cents per hour. After buying a $2000 computer an extra $10 is nothing. However, I'm sure there are many out there for whom it would be a very big deal.

If you do go with selling it in standalone version, you might even hold off until 2007. That way you won't be so close to the original release and can offer more content to make it seem more like a GC3 or at least GC2.5.

Needless to say, however you do it I'll be planning on buying it.

If for any reason this won't be able to get into Best Buy PLEASE let us know so I can make alternate arrangements.


P.S. If it turns out you CAN have two boxes on the shelves. Make it so one is just expansion and one is original+expansion. That way nobody has to buy more then one box.
Reply #49 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm not sure we have rebates in the UK, I only found out what they are a little while ago and I had to look it up

I would definately go for the expansion pack download then a little while later the gold edition with original + expansion bundled in the shops. These forums are pretty active etc but I don't think offering a download will attract many (if any) new customers whereas a new version on the shelves might
Reply #50 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You should have digital download at least, that way we're not forced into the store to pick up the box and bing it to the counter, where the cute check-out sales girl has permantly marked you as a loser because you play video games.