So big pharma is now being played, in beta, by the general public. And apparently, by most of you, looking at the sale figures. Yikes. We had a few ‘eek the payment provider is overloaded’ and ‘errr…do we have enough keys’ moments over the last few days. And naturally you won’t hear too much from the designer/programmer Tim, because he is crushed under a weight of feedback and working around the clock to churn out a patch that fixes any major issues. Still, its a beta, and it seems to be extremely stable, and very, very popular, which is good.
Nobody who has not shipped a game can really understand just how stressful the first 2-3 hours are after you press the ‘for sale’ button. For Tim, its a case of finding out if his game idea was any good and if his programming is stable, with potentially hugely embarrassing consequences if it crashes for everyone and nobody likes it / buys it. For me (publisher) its finding out where the ball lands on a six-figure roulette wheel bet that was placed a year ago. Stressful either way.
But it turns out that everything is going to go pretty well, because people seem to love it. And obviously me and Tim both think the game is awesome, but you never know. You get too close to it. When I play Gratuitous Space Battles 2, all I see is stuff I want to fix. I have to force myself to step away from my own work and try to evaluate it, and that is HARD.
Anyway, in case you missed the news, Big Pharma is currently in beta, and its doing very well. We have a lot of lets play coverage already, and hopefully some websites will be doing previews. Get in touch with me if you are a site that needs a copy. And if you are a gamer that enjoys Tycoon games, Business sims, Strategy and maybe a side-order of puzzle, you will really like the game, so hit the big phat link below and grab a copy right away :D. (Windows only for now…)
