| Gal Civ is realtivly new in terms of being on the market. with warcraft this has been out for many years and it has become a extremly not only popular but is able to be on the market when sales are out for most stores.. Stardock needs to be geared towards making the game more efficent and the hulls are not a bad idea but the game still need work and if the idea comes back after a few years on the market with a lot of sales then you can compare with WoW and the big companies of games.. |
This really has nothing to do with whether $8 is a lot of money or not.
The popularity of WoW determines HOW MANY units they sell, not what they sell a thing for.
How much expansion packs cost and how much MMOs cost per month is determined by market forces.
If there isn't sufficient demand for a ship yard mini-expansion that is fine. We're putting out the option here that we would be willing to make such a thing if there's demand. If there isn't, then those artists would be put onto something in which there is demand.
Players shouldn't feel obligated to buy anything we put out. IF it's something they want, then that's great. IF most people don't want it, that's great too, we can make other things based on player demand. But our artists have to be paid just like Blizzard's artists or Bethesda's artists. We can't just release hundreds of hours of laborous content for free or else there wouldn't be a Stardock for very long.
So just as game developers have to live and die by market forces, so do gamers. Expansion packs tend to be $30. Civilization IV: Warlord is $30 and its content revolves around adding new leaders, civilizations, scenarios, and a new unit. They have determined that is what the market will bear for an expansion with that content.
Our expansion pack will have a similar level of content (different types of content) and a similar price. Something that costs 1/3rd as much can be expected to have about 1/3rd as much content.
If enough people say they won't pay X for Y, that is fine. For instance, if enough people said they wouldn't pay say $30 for a GalCiv II expansion pack then I say good for them. But the option isn't between a $30 expansion and a $20 expansion with the same content. It would be either a $20 expansion with less content or the team put onto a different game or onto one of our other projects.
Whenever you're dealing with al imited resource (like developer/art talent) there is a group that is benefitting from that talent and groups that miss out on it. Our job is to figure out where the highest demand for that talent currently is and make sure we satisfy our customers.
