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Rewarding Early Adopters in the age of the STEAM SALE

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Rewarding Early Adopters in the age of the STEAM SALE

from AshesoftheSingularity Forums

Ashes-5K-BoomOur new real-time strategy game, Ashes of the Singularity is out.  Stardock hasn’t released an RTS since 2008 Sins of a Solar Empire.  Like Sins, Ashes is a massive scale RTS.  It’s not about actions per minute, it’s about your global strategy as you battle for a planet (heh, except on the tiny maps of course).

The good news: Ashes is a hit. Sales are excellent and the reviews are, so far, universally positive from reviewers.

The bad news: Since the release of Sins of a Solar Empire, the market has changed dramatically.

When you buy a game brand-new nowadays, you know, at some level, that it’s going to go on sale for a steep discount.  To give you some understanding: While Ashes quickly passed the 50,000 unit sales within the first week, the WISH LIST mark on Steam crossed 200,000 units.  What does that tell you?

How do we reward early adopters

We have some ideas on how to address this.  The first, and I hope, the easiest to do (depending on the Steam rules) is to make certain DLC free to everyone who currently has the game.  So people who bought your game at release for $50 or $30 or whatever your price point is will start getting DLC that is simply added to their account but made say $4.99 after to those who come later (who got the game on sale).  These wouldn’t be anything critical to the game.  More maps. More scenarios. More skins. That sort of thing.  The kinds of things people usually expect in DLC.

What say you?

Post in the comments what you think of such a system.  How do you feel about the evolution of the PC gaming market place?

How to get Ashes: [Get it via Steam/GOG/Direct/GMG]

 

 

More screenshots:

 Ashes-5K-UI ashes-5k 

Ashes-5K-Ice Greatbattle

151,858 views 28 replies
Reply #26 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Fahmine, reply 25

I paid the asking price because of GalCiv and Sins.  I pine away for a new Sins, but so far Ashes looks great.  I'd pay the $50 again and still buy DLC if I must.  I'll take whatever you guys are throwing as freebies of course, but I don't mind paying for good entertainment at all.  I only have maybe 12 hours in, but that makes Ashes cost less than a movie per hour.  

movie - 15 / 2 hrs / 7.50/hr viewed   (not counting the junk food counter)

ashes - 50 / 12 hrs / 4.16/hr played - and only decreases with time.

 

You didn't factor in the cost to your health for sitting in front of the computer for so long... ;) :)

Siege of Centauri
Reply #28 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

In my opinion:

highest prioroty should be to not alienate non-DLC buyers and thus split the community even more (I'm looking at you, gog-steam-incompatibility). Second to that there should be rewards and lots of it. However, they should be cosmetic, like tons of extra colors for units, etc OR the DLC should be non-mandatory so that DLC buyers+early buyers can play with people who didn't buy either. The Relic games are prime examples for that, where you can play as Dark Eldar or Tau even if your enemy hasn't bought them. This seems to be the fairest DLC model: new factions for early buyers and DLC customers and if somebody doesn't want to buy DLC, they can still play with the DLC buyer.

-pac