Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Talking With Customers (or potential ones)

cliffski

Years ago, I did this blog post, which is why I now run a dedicated server, because mine just MELTED. I was even on the radio, in several countries, yabbering on about piracy. Its still a huge big deal in terms of people recognising my name.

Anyway. I’m sort of going to try and do the same thing, sort of, but on a different tack. it won’t be vaguely as popular, and I bet I get 10 replies, rather than 10,000, but that’s cool. So instead of ‘Why do you pirate my games’, todays question is

“Why didn’t you buy Gratuitous Space Battles?”

Please read this next bit:

I am NOT complaining. I am NOT moaning about sales. I am NOT unhappy with sales, I am not whining or anything like it. I just like making games that people enjoy, and I don’t know why the people who didn’t buy it, didn’t buy it. I’d like to know. The answers may well make it a better game for everyone, if I fix those reasons (if they make sense). It will make the game attractive to current fence-sitters, better for current owners, and more sales for me and my cats.


This cat demands answers NOW.

You can post here, or email me at cliff@positech.co.uk. Subject could be “Why I didn’t buy GSB”. As with the piracy thing, what I 100% absolutely totally want is honesty. Here are some prompts for what you might be thinking, and please email me if any of them are true:

  • “I Thought it would be an arcade game, but it wasn’t and I don’t like strategy games.”
  • “I Don’t like 2D games, or at least won’t pay money for them.”
  • “The demo was too easy”
  • “The demo crashed”
  • “It ran badly on my PC”
  • “I already have lots of space strategy games”
  • “The demo was badly balanced”
  • “I heard bad things about it”
  • “I don’t trust buying it from your website”
  • “It’s too expensive”
  • “I wanted direct control of the ships, and that was frustrating”
  • I wanted a campaign wrapped around the battles. It was too sandboxy”

etc. Obviously, feel free to add to the list, above all, be honest. I’m not offended if you email me and say “The games shit, my dog could make a better game”. I would disagree, but that’s your opinion :D.

If you have friends or interwebs-buddies who you know saw or heard about the game, and don’t own it, I’d love to know their opinions. Obviously if you *did* buy it, you don’t get a vote today. Sorry, and thankyou for buying one of my games. You are clearly happier, more intelligent, discerning and probably more attractive than other people.

My intention here is to hoover up all those comments that invariably get made, that could, in a perfect world, be fed back to the creator of something to make the product better. We, as a species really need to get our shit together on that. If you are like me, you *always* find something about everything you buy which is annoying*, there just isn’t a direct route to the inbox of the designer to send your feedback. My email address is cliff@positech.co.uk. Tell me what improvement would make you a buyer of Gratuitous Space Battles.

*those new nozzles on ketchup bottles give me less control over ketchup distribution, and are affecting my purchase decisions…

379 thoughts on Talking With Customers (or potential ones)

  2. 1. No Mac support
    2. News about GSB never reached any of the news/blogs/gaming-sites that I read, except today.

  3. The only reason that I didn’t buy GSB is because my primary machine is a Mac and I don’t want to load Bootcamp to play. I play most games on the XBox these days for that same reason. I would have bought GSB in an instant if it had been on XBox Live.

  4. “I Don’t like 2D games, or at least won’t pay money for them.”

    Not completely true, I just played Jagged Alliance 2 again on my old PC.
    I am a great fan of both Homeworld and X3TC, where Space is 3D as it should be.

    I read about Gratuitous SB at RPS and it was a quick decision that it was not for me.

    A great problem for me, that gets bigger with progress in sale methods: I did not yet buy a game online, I will never buy games which require internet connection. I would rather switch to consoles. Ok, I did buy Total War Empire on DVD, and I hate the compulsory Steam thing on installation. With every fiber. Once, never again, adios CA!

    You seem like a great guy, I wish you all the best and high sales, so you and your cats may enjoy luxuries in abundance.

  5. The arcade feel turned me off.

    I like space and I like strategy, but I’m quite full of the arcade touch games usually offer as space combat. I’d like to see at least once an honest try to pull off realistic space combat on tactical level in a game.

    That one I would buy just to support the idea, even if the game sucked.

  6. This looks like a great game. Like “Bash Cars” in space. Bash Cars is a lego game we used to play in real life. Anyway, I would by this if it went on sale on Steam. I am a huge sucker for Steam sales. Just bought Magesty 2 for $7.50 for example.

  7. I would buy the game on Steam but I just find it too expensive (20 EUR for the gam plus 18 EUR for DLC). If there would be a cheaper version with everything included I would buy it… cheers…

  8. Hi Cliff old bean, Mr West here from Lionhead….

    I LOVE Master of Orion 2, so when i saw you were doing this i was rather excited. However when i played the demo i realised it was more ‘set it up and watch’. I’m a hard-core strategy head, so i want direct control and i want turn-based (Or pause based with the space bar and issue orders), and a campaign where different bits unlock and the battles get more tricky. Looked gorgeous though, just wasn’t deep enough for my nerdy brain.

  9. “I wanted direct control of the ships, and that was frustrating”
    – Right in the head. Thought it would be more RTS-y, looks pretty though. Maybe keeping the hugeness of the battles but giving direct control over a specific squad would make the game more satisfying for me. It would also let you script more densely in response to the player’s performance which would increase immersion too.

  10. I played the demo and it was just too slow for me I’m afraid. It looked well made, but I’m not a big fan of real-time strategy fan, particularly slow real-time strategy.

  11. Honestly? A combination of the premise not interesting me particularly, I already owned GalCiv2, so I didn’t really see the need for another Space RTS in my collection.

    Also, the whole issue with me being absolutely, positively stunningly terribad at games involving even a vague sembelance of multitasking, to the point where if I have to control a battle or empire on even 2 fronts, the whole shibang collapse like a house made of mud during a monsoon.

  12. I’m increasingly drifting towards casual gaming, and any game that requires a somewhat deeper immersion scares me off. Spacebattles looked could, but I don’t want to have the time to fiddle around with all the options.

  13. “I Thought it would be an arcade game, but it wasn’t and I don’t like strategy games.”
    “I wanted direct control of the ships, and that was frustrating”

    Those two. :P

  14. At 44 dollars, your game is competing with AAA games, which it simply cannot do.
    Even if it were on sale for say 20 dollars for everything, I still would not buy it. Not because 20 dollars is too much for your game, but because I know the game will be incomplete in a short time once you release the next expansion / DLC.

    To be honest I’m glad I didn’t buy the base game for 10 dollars during the steam sale, because then I would easily spend more money on DLC than the game itself.

    From a game-play point of view, having randomized enemies would be nice, then you would have to build a well rounded fleet instead of simply countering the enemy setup of that particular scenario.

  16. I purchased GSB, but none of the add-ons, for the following reasons:

    1) I had expected GSB to be turn-based or at least real time tactical. The fire-and-forget style of play was an immediate disappointment. I bought it breathlessly with visions of a game that was like Master of Orion 2’s combat distilled, but ended up disappointed.

    2) I got over 1) and eventually enjoyed the hell out of GSB anyway. By the time the DLC’s had rolled around, I’d already long before beaten the hell out of the game every which way, and had by then uninstalled it and called it a day. The idea of a DLC that just added more ships didn’t particularly appeal.

    3) None of the DLCs, to my knowledge, magically turned the game into the game I *wanted*: A GSB where the combat was turn-based and tactical, instead of fire-and-forget.

    4) I just plain don’t like DLCs; either your game is complete or it isn’t. If there’s going to be DLCs, play that up as a feature well in advance: Let folks know that as development unfolds, the game will continue to improve, with future DLCs with ever more races and gameplay.

  17. Also seconding, if you care about such things, that I first learned about GSB from Rock Paper Shotgun. They’re my go-to gaming blog of choice.

  18. Here goes, and it’s pretty simple.

    I saw the screenshots, and i thought “Wow! That looks awesome!”. So i downloaded the demo, made a ship etc. Then went into battle.
    I clicked around all over the place trying to do something, then i realised i had no control over my units whatsoever. I immediately quit the game.

    That’s why i didn’t buy the game, because i had no control over anything other than the design of the ships.

  19. While I was all fired up to talk about a campaign and storyline (and an intriguing narrative, well-integrated into the game, does make a night and day difference for me), I think another reason for my lack of interest has been that I’ve always preferred the grand strategic business to the combat. As such, while I keep glancing at it as a ‘space strategy’ is most certainly my thing, it’s just the wrong bit of it, so to speak, rather limiting the immediate appeal.

    Also probably not working in your favour, I don’t tend to play demos. My apologies, but my gaming time is a bit limited, and I also tend to find a demo rather tarnishes the experience for me of playing a new game. Not quite so deliciously fresh. Therefore, I need to be sold on the concept, which leads back to the preference for grand strategy.

    With that in mind, I may simply not be the target audience – I’m not entirely certain. Still, craft a decent yarn and throw it in there, mate, it (probably) couldn’t hurt!

    I should note, that while I feel like a bugger for saying it, I would have probably impulse-purchased were it in the 15 dollars range, so the 25+15ish for DLC that is the price on UK steam, is well out of my casual buy range. I’m in no way requesting that you price it at that level, or suggesting that would be wise, just mentioning so you know the value I’d personally put to the game as it is now. For what it’s worth, with a plot and campaign, I’d probably hit 20-25.

  21. Hello Cliffski, I come from RPS to say that I have thought about buying it many times but the price tag doesn’t do it for me. I don’t buy a game for anything over 20euro unless it is a game I REALLY want. Case in point, the latest STALKER game was that last game I bought at full price.
    Diablo 3, Deus Ex 3 are also instant purchases.

    I haven’t bought Dragon age yet because of the price yet REALLY Want to play that also, even though I feel it deserves a full price.

    GSB, now if that was around the indie price I would expect, I would have bought it months ago and if I liked it no doubt a couple of expansions would be in the bag aswell.

    Good luck and I hope you find your answers :)
    TooNu

  23. 3 reasons
    1) Reviews described it as “Tower-defense-like” and when it was released I was burnt out on that game type, even though I understood that the core mechanic was different I couldn’t forsee getting engrossed

    2) No narrative in a single-player focused strategy game, especially one set in space, is a problem for me.

    3) Expensive game released in the midst of a deluge of games and a large backlog

  24. Played the demo but found it, how to put it, very “passive” – it reminded me of those flash tower defense games, but even less control, like watching the computer playing instead of me; so it’s just a taste thing.

  25. I liked the idea but…

    1) No campaign.

    2) No multiplayer mode. (I would have accepted either item 1 or item 2 alone but having neither just breaks it)

    3) Price point was out of line with the amount of content. (it had a better price on Impulse then on Steam but still)

    4) DLC! If you bundled all the DLC together into an expansion maybe, but really it is so disposable it should have just been included. DLC really cheapens a game. Ooooh look there is a new character to play the exact same game over again with. It might as well be $5 so your online avatar can look like a cow.

    5) Not enough feedback on what is working (or not) in a battle or the after action report.

  27. Well I loved the idea when I heard about it as I’m attracted to any strategy game that doesn’t require a) twitch skills or b) a large time investment.

    Anyway this is what put me off:

    – No campaign mode. Not necessarily for the story, but for the learning curve.

    – MP never made sense to me. Apparently you upload fleets for others to beat, knowing that they will be able to see your fleet beforehand (am I wrong about this?). That seems more like level design than a battle of wits.

    – Reports on RPS that the strategies were quite oblique, for instance I seem to remember that fighters don’t counter bombers, in the face of all convention, which suggests a lot of trial and error is required to learn what does what.

    – “Gratuitous”. Ironic self-deprecation, suggests that the game does not think highly of itself. Would you buy something with “pointless” in the title?

    – DLC, not because I hate it or anything, but because any added complexity means that little bit more confusion while I decide how to buy it. This is also why I don’t like buying games unless there’s a “complete” set. It’s a Catch-22 for the consumer, because I’m reluctant to pay til I know which parts I’m going to need, but how do I know which parts I need until I’ve played a bit of the game?

  28. Hi,
    GSB looks like a nice game and I will probably love it, but I dont buy your game yet because I am working hard and I have very limited spare time to play games, and I already have several games that will last me sometime. GSB is on my list but it will probably take some months before I buy it.

  29. Because I’ve always seen the word “Gratuitous Space Battles”, looked at the spaceships, and moved on. I’m also currently passing time between Dwarf Fortress, IWBTG, WoW and L4D2 so don’t really have much time for new games.

  31. I did buy your game, then played it a little and stopped. I loved the idea of it and thought that it was too hard to approach. Maybe this is a balance issue, but I felt like the game had a high initial hurdle and was not explicit enough about how to get over it. Personally I like games that are just hard enough to be rewarding, or let you gain some skill over another player who has not invested as much in it. There is a fine line though, and your game seemed to be on the other side of the line for me.

    This discussion has made me want to give it another go though.

  32. If you could do a $25 GSB + DLC combo pack, I’d probably buy it. $20 is a bit much for the vanilla, $15 is more appropriate. The DLC bundled on steam is $18, and that is way too much for me. I did enjoy the demo of GSB, and if I ever catch it on sale I’ll be buying it and doing a review of it on PA.

  33. Well I’ll give you my impression of it. It might not be accurate in places. But that’s also important here as it shows it wasn’t sold very effectively.

    I’m under the impression that the game is comprised of two main parts, the ship building and then having them battle other ships. These two aspects could have been a lot more appealing if they were more involved than I’ve been lead to believe they are.

    For the ship building, do you get to assemble them like an X-Com base? Do you get to hire crew for them based on their stats? Stats which increase as their valiant endeavours result in victory after victory? Can you research and develop upgrades? Would it matter a damn if you lost the ship at all? I’m not under the impression that any of these things is true.

    For the battles themselves, the flaw seems obvious – no control. It’s like creating a monster then unleashing it; hoping none of the vengeful mob with pitchforks and burning torches are left standing when it falls.

    I like the Total War games for a reason. I want as much control over the battles as possible and nothing else comes close to that. In fact, one of the worst things about those games is their reliance on random chance for some aspects.

    To my mind, either something should offer the player a chance to succeed against the odds, be automatically resolved with a pre-determined outcome or it has no place in the game and should be removed. It is after all a game. Player involvement cannot be overrated.

    There is also the lack of single player campaign. I think you’ll find that most people either play exclusively single player, or at least don’t feel that the game is complete without it. This is another thing which leaves the game seeming lacking. Which is significant given its price point.

  34. I’ve heard its name dropped a few times but never knew what kind of game it was. Looked into it, looked like strategy.

    I’m rubbish at strategy.

  35. I’m not mad keen on strategy games but when I saw this announced was convinced I’d buy it anyway. Partly because your internet presence is a really impressively open and groovy one and partly because I adored the name and the screenshots.

    However the demo was quite hard to get into (perhaps not for a strategy veteran but for me) and I wanted the interaction to be real-time. I quit after a surprisingly short time thinking “maybe if I had longer to get into this..” or “if only the tutorial had been somehow more immediate”.

    If I ever did decide I was really into strategy games (not impossible) then I’m sure I probably would buy it.

  36. Yes, 2D. I wanted more Homeworld II and did not even consider playing the demo. Price was irrelevant.

    Sorry M8!

  37. Count me among those who weren’t interested because of the genre. Games that involve controlling armies (even if they’re armies of spaceships) just don’t do it for me.

  38. I didn’t buy Gratuitous Space Battles because it didn’t have a dynamic campaign, and the ships weren’t controllable in battle.

    Other than those two large issues, the game seemed interesting, but not worth paying for.

    Good luck with your next game!

  39. I played the demo, it reminded me of the old programming games I used to play. Only with better graphics and more limited gameplay. Mainly I haven’t bought it because I’m poor.

    Additionally I was disappointed by the weapons. I wanted mirv missiles that created walls of destruction and sight difficulties to add a sense of terrain to the battlefield.
    The explosions were nice, but there is definitely room to up the insanity. Basically ways to constrain my enemies movements short of killing/wounding them combined with a more anime space battle feel.

    The demo was too easy for me. It lacked an almost impossible battle.

    Of course I may need to play the demo again to remember any more of my grievances.

  40. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t by it, because I heard that it was fun. I guess I just forgot about it? I’ll try the demo now and see what I think. I probably won’t end up getting it though unless it’s really good, because I don’t have a credit card to buy things online with, so would have to borrow a friends, but you never know.

  41. MAKE A OSX VERSION, otherwise loved the demo but I currently don’t have a windows machine lying around.

  42. I liked the demo, but I just can’t afford it. Last game I bought was Torchlight when it was on sale for $5.

  43. Well, it’d help if you’d had it for a platform I use. I kind of like this sort of game- but I don’t do Windows or MacOS. Unless you’re talking Linux, Android, Wii, or PS3, it just won’t get bought by myself right now.

    While I’m sure there’ll be some people poping in about “those Linux people” on these sorts of remarks- but remember, Cliffski ASKED why I didn’t buy… ;-D

  45. No Mac or Linux version. And also, perhaps I’ve been living under a rock, but I didn’t even realise it had been released!

  46. I have bought your game actually.

    Funnily, because I liked the Starship Tycoon Demo…
    And beeing a developer myself, to support your small business.

    But bottom line, I did not come to the point to enjoy the game.

    Not because of its complexity, or different gameplay type.
    But because I think you could have made more out of the basic idea behind it.

    The game looks good, so no complaints about missing 3D and such from me.

    But the formula of – setting up a fleet, and then let it fight automatically-
    is missing depht in the vertical direction.

    With horizontal direction, I would call the complexity of
    appying, and setting up weapons.

    But Vertical I would call the depht in strategy.

    If you take away the gameplay of installment of ship-upgrades,
    there is not much more to the gameplay than placing the ships on a narrow left square of
    a battlefield wich is a bigger square.

    You could have created much more interesting interactions, by
    focusing more on the ship AI, and battleplans, than on
    (bookkeeping) shipupgrades.

    Such that you can “preprogram” waypoints, reactionpatterns, timed actions and
    points of interest on the battlefield.
    And also by makeing the battlefield use a topography (e.g. gasclouds, asteroids, minefields)
    To actually have an interaction with the battlefield itself.

    This is what I would call a vertical dimension to the gameplay.

  47. I heard about the game (GSB) on different gaming websites and such, but it never looked interesting enough to spend any time on even trying this game. There are just too many other games that I intended to play and never did.

    I wish it was otherwise and I applaud your sincerity about wanting to make good games that people would want to play. Maybe a little more advertising and marketing will give this game better visibility in this highly competitive industry.

  48. I only tried the demo as the game was released so maybe some of this is not true anymore. The way ship building screens made ship building too hard – as in too much work. It also wasn’t clear to me what I was doing. Since most (all?) of the gameplay is there, it needed more polish.

  49. I was waiting until you’d wrap the whole thing up into a bundle — which you did — but at that point I was flat broke so it made it rather difficult to commit to a purchase decision. ;P

  50. I love strategy games, but GSB’s game play just wasn’t interesting or fun enough to justify $20. I wasn’t interested in just configuring and placing the ships, and it was frustrating to watch a battle play out that you couldn’t actively engage in– I know, I know, that’s the whole point of the game, but still.

    And you went way over-the-top with the DLC. I dislike for-pay DLC and tend to avoid games that have it.

    However, I almost certainly would pay $5 (or possibly as much as $10) if there was a Linux version I could play on my netbook– I buy almost every good game that can run on a Linux netbook.

    Best of luck on your next effort.

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