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Galactic Civilizations Coming Soon

Posted by Hemos on from the good-game-bonanza dept.

dragonsister writes "Like Master of Orion 3, Galactic Civilizations is a turn-based strategy game involving colonizing and dominating the galaxy - militarily, diplomatically, or economically. Unlike MOO3, GalCiv will (release date March 26th) come without copy-protection; Stardock are addressing the piracy issue by providing a bonus pack and further downloads to users providing a CD key. This 'rewarding the honest' approach is precisely what Slashdotters have asked for ." I've been playing a lot of MOO3, which I love, but this is looking great as well. Ah, the bounty of games.

GalCiv may also be purchased via a subscription to Drengin.net, which also supplies a variety of 'smaller' games which would not sell so well in the normal market.

I have no connection to anyone producing Galactic Civilizations. I'm planning to buy the game because I've been impressed by:

  • The developer's interaction with fans, at least on the newsgroup comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
  • The level of beta-testing employed
  • The comments from the public beta-testers
  • The developer's budget of a year of additional development, including AI improvements (Stardock has a reputation for good game AI anyway!)
Others may not be so pleased to hear that the game is developed for single-player only - no multi-player - but to each their own."

2 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. At last! by SkoZombie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A game company that understands the key is not to cause inconvience to users but to commit to ensuring theres a better reason for buying the game "because otherwise you're a bad boy". I'll be buying it!!

  2. Re:business model.... by kfg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For many companies, including Microsoft item 3 on your list has been filled in with "Sell a shitload of games."

    You are perhaps mistaking missing some sales with being unprofitable. Many people make this mistake, and thus fail to profit. Half a fresh pie you can eat is better than a whole pie rotting in a safe.

    Apogee actually managed to make a profit *giving* fully functional games away and only selling additional content.

    Go figure.

    I'm not at all sure that wouldn't make a viable commercial model today. Sell what amounts to a "super demo" for a nominal fee to cover costs, say ten bucks, and get as many copies out there as you could, and then sell extended content for twenty five bucks to those who found the game worth it.

    Of course this would only work if you were putting forward a really *good* game.

    If you're putting forward a crappy game, yeah, you're right, the only way to profit is copy protect the hell out of it, and make sure you've got the buyer's money well tucked away up front.

    Hey, maybe that's why so many games are a pain to play these days. If you can't even get authorized to play a game you've actually paid for you'll never get to find out what a piece of crap it is while you can still return the bugger.

    Good games, at a fair price that can simply be copied to a HD and played from there without a key have never failed to be appreciated, and to sell quite well.

    KFG