Wintersong

Join Date 07/2006

+235

Elemental distribution

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Hi there.

Here Wintersong with another useless thread to make sure that you can never said that you haven't done anything that wasted your time.

Today's topic is: Well, what about the distribution of the game worldwide and beyond?

Some will say that "Buy it from Impulse and forget about it" ormaybe that "It's too soon" or that "They are too busy, why bother them with this?" or... add to infinity.

Lets see:

Galactic Civilizations II: a really great game. I didn't know about the Galactic Civilizations but I read about some company named Stardock creating the second part and after reading about it, and liking games like Civilization II or Master of Magic, the idea of a "Civ in space" seemed really cool to me*. I saw that Friendware was to distribute the game in Spain and decided to save some moeny and buy my copy from them. The game was released in USA and later, through Paradox, in Europe... except in Spain. Once I read about the first expansion pack and how it would be only digital download I was so upset that I bought it from Stardock, with the game still unpublished in Spain. This game doesn't appear in the game.es online catalog...

Sins of a Solar Empire: recently (some weeks ago, not sure of how many) I finally saw this sweet game for sale. It's distributed by Nobilis Ibérica. Better late than never? Fortunately for me, in this case I didn't bother waiting and bought it some months after release and after solving some problems with my credit card. According to game.es it was released in 20/03/2009 in the category of... RPG?

Demigod: This time Atari seems involved. Relase date according to game.es is 20/05/2009. I suppose that Demigod's theme and Atari's involvement made sure it was released quick? I already had it from Impulse so...

And now we have Elemental: War of Magic. I know Spain is a hell because of piracy but games that are released quite late suffer more. Delay in patches because of localization hurts more. no localization for the game hurts too (people are supposed to learn english at school... supposed, and even then some prefer the local language as long as the localization is well done). Prices are one of the usual excuses for piracy (and these times of crysis...) but somehow I can understand it considering how many shitty games are released with abusive prices for what they offer. At least I can understand it for those who are not full metal pirates (like my friends... d'oh! ) and use to buy their games.

I know that this sweet game will be distributed by Stardock in the USA but it would be nice to get some enlightment about Europe's and most notably about Spain. I really want this game to be succesfull. I hope that a delayed distribution can be avoided somehow in order in increase sales of it (people really interested would buy it from the UK or from Impulse if needed but the more casuals or those who fall prey of pirated copies...).

Price is also a concern but anyone who wants the game for free will complain about the price no matter how cheap it is. But low prices are always welcome and surely some companies seem to do well selling cheap games. Those would be FX Interactive and Codegame (from UBisoft). This two companies seel their games at 20 euros (10 euros the Gold editions of the more succesful games, some at 5 euros). It was really sweet to buy Sacred for that price (even my friends bought it ) or Heroes of Might and Magic V for that same price. Drakensang? Relased this week for the same price. Jack Keane? Same price**. Settlers II 10th Anniversary? 10 euros. Etc. Not sure how the margin benefits work there but it would be sweet to have a similar price here. Damn, I would buy some copies just because.

Localization: I think that France and Germany forces games to be released in their languages while Spain doesn't. Still, will this game be in spanish? I like english but just asking because of patches and all that. At least nothing prevents me of taking a look to the language files and translate them if I feel like it.

And if someone wonders why I truly started this topic, it's because I discovered a spaniard fansite about this game, not updated in like 2 months and with just one user (the Admin of it).

* Well, I never got to meet Master of Orion or any other similar game so sue me.

Edit:

** Actually, I think it's 10 euros now.

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sorry to hear its so tough to get a box copy of your game. At least its online, right?

arn't spanish copies of games pretty common? I mean, as common as french or german? I know around here we occationally have spanish portions of game manuals and game boxes, even when the game isn't in spanish. I always thought it was odd (games for the wii console are the most extreme. they were required to include english, french, and spanish on all boxes and manuals for a while, even for 100% english games. I don't thing the games even said "english only" or anything like that, so I'd imagine it to be misleading)

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Wintersong

Join Date 07/2006

+235

I wouldn't say it's difficult to get a copy of a game, in general at least. You won't have problems with games like Empire: Total War, Call of Duty X, The Sims, WoW,... And I'm talking PC market as I barely touch the console one (and it would only be the ocasional PSP or DS rpg title) so I prefer to remain quiet about what I don't know.

But if we refer to get a copy of a strategy game (tbs type)... yeah, unless you are Civilization, Heroes of Might and Magic or maybe Europa Universalis, you are not likely to get the same attention. I know the market may be not so big for these kind of games (specially when high strategy players here don't want anything that isn't as complex as their usual Europa UNiversalis, for example), but it won't surely increase the player base if awareness of new games with great potential isn't appropiate.

About translations, it's quite common to get the game in english with the manual (and maybe subtitles) in spanish, like it's the case of Sins of a Solar Empire. Sometimes that's better than a bad translation to spanish in the voiceovers department and I know it's cheaper for a country where piracy is just too big. But it feels great that games like Dawn of War 2 is fully translated and the voiceovers being awesomely done.

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Yeah, well, I suppose in some games if the manual is legible you don't necessarily have to read the in-game text, but STILL: My copy of Metroid Prime: Corruption came with AN ENTIRE DUPLICATE MANUAL in Spanish, despite the fact that there are no subtitles, voice-overs, or any other options in the game itself.

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