[MUD-Dev] BIZ: Europe & Distrubution

[Daniel James]

On Tue, 26 Oct 2004, Johan wrote:

> After reading about Blizzard's (VU?) decision to only allow
> localized server play and a 2-3 month delay for Europe I couldn't
> help to think why no MMORPG, at least to my knowledge, has ever
> been released over the Internet from the start. If any type of
> games could pull this of it would be just MMORPGS.

Puzzle Pirates is an MMOArrrPG of sorts, and we released exclusively
over the Internet. I can think of a few others, notably a A Tale in
the Desert, Second Life, M59 in its recent incarnation, etc.

Online distribution is great; going direct to your customers via PR,
advertising and word of mouth is a wonderful thing. Online portals
exist, their audiences are huge, and they are slowly working out how
to sell more than shareware puzzle games.

That said, after a year of purely online distribution, we are
currently working on a retail deal to get Puzzle Pirates on shelves
as a high priority. Here are some reasons why I think retail still
runs things;

  - Most MMORPGs are released by established video game publishers,
  who have an interest in using their existing distribution channels
  and marketing games the way they understand them.

  - Retail sales are an opportunity to recoup development costs in
  one big fat chunk. Very handy.

  - Players who have purchased a game are *way* more likely to turn
  into customers than players who download a free trial. Selling an
  online downloadable game without a free trial is challenging. The
  behaviour here is not entirely rational, the only thing that makes
  some sense is that by the time a retail box is purchased, the
  purchase decision has been made.

  - The established press and marketing apparatus know how to talk
  about things in boxes, and like things that have passed 'the test'
  of being deemed worth putting in a box by a well-financed
  company. There are a great many downloadable games out there, and
  they rarely receive coverage because they lack such 'at a glance'
  qualification.

> This could also help ease the pressure on the registration servers
> as sign up would be spread out a little more, assuming people
> could set up their accounts before the servers are go live.

There are lots of good reasons to do download launches and this is
one of them. One could always ship retail units gradually,
though. Or at least try.

> Also, if we go back to Blizzard's decision to lockout European's
> from the American servers (until the game goes live in
> Europe). The real reason for them doing so I presume is because
> they don't want an additional huge amount of people storming their
> servers at release causing problems, although they have stated the
> "official" reason for the lockout is to save us from lag.

I suspect that this has more to do with billing and support issues
surrounding the localized versions. VU probably has numerous
European divisions who are localising and operating versions in
those countries, and who don't want their sales potential ruined by
a global English-language release, but can't get their systems up
and running in time for simultaneous release.

arr,

- Daniel
  www.puzzlepirates.com
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev