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

Month: November 2013

Steam workshop support is now live for Democracy 3

steam-_workshop

Right, it’s early days… but steam workshop support is active and live and anyone can use the content there, and upload it. I have one modder with an upload problem I’m investigating, but generally I think it works.

I urge all modders who have already listed their content on the modding forums at the democracy 3 website to re-upload their mods to steam workshop if they have a steam copy (or a steam key from a direct copy!), as I suspect workshop might get quite popular.

I’ve put together a guide on steam (under guides/modding or configuration) and also put together this here short explanatory video:

If anyone has any problems uploading or downloading just give me a shout. I think modding democracy 3 has a lot of potential, and I’d love to support the modding community as much as possible. BRING ON THE MODS!

Democracy 3 patched to 1.09

So here we go, it’s PATCH DAY. Everybody put on your patch day trousers and mix up those patch day cocktails. oh yeah woohoo!

Ahem…

I updated Democracy 3 on PC today. mac & Linux builds to follow soon. We took a tactical decision to skip 1.08 for mac & linux so as not to work my poor linux dude into an early grave, but they are getting version 1.09 as soon as we can get it done. here are the changes…

Version 1.09
============
Bug Fixes-
    Fixed bug where escape key allowed you to quit from policy screen without confirming changes.
    New system to detect if the game can’t run fullscreen the first time, and force a windowed run on second attempt.
    german characters now render correctly.
New Content:        
    Support for steam workshop.
    Better mod browsing interface and link to modding website.
    Ability to delete and thus uninstall a mod from the GUI.

Now I know what you are thinking. Possibly ‘meh’.  But have faith. That steam workshop support suddenly became my priority, so i fixed that so it’s in the game and working and all wonderful. It isn’t actually enabled for everyone yet, I need to do some tests first, and I’ll be adding some ‘test’ users to the group that has workshop access tonight, and I’ll put together a sample new country ‘posistan!’ and upload that, then open the floodgates.

To be honest, I underestimated how popular steam workshop would be. It solves many problems. You don’t NEED it at all, you can still sue my super steam-free modding support, it’s just that steam workshop simplifies and centralizes it all a bit.

What I’m saying here, if you can’t tell… is that I know I could be doing more balance-adjusting and stuff like that, and I *do* plan on doing some stuff like that, but I wanted steam workshop support in place first so modders can do their thing. I’ll return to balance stuff soon. And also German language versions in about 2 weeks. Oh yeah.

Expect another blog post soonish about exactly how I’ve integrated steam workshop support into the game…

Another view of marketing: The confidence game

Lets imagine a game with two participants. They have both produced products that will sell on the high street, but they need to bid for shop-rental.

Company A thinks it will sell $200,000 a day of it’s product (which it manufacturers on demand so there are no fixed costs), if it has the shop. (consider this profit, after costs of sales).

Company B thinks it will sell $120,000 a day of it’s product (similar in every way, but it is being cautious, maybe its not as good a product, or they lack confidence in it?) in the same shop.

How much does the shop-keeper earn?

Methinks he earns $120,000. How much does the product selling company earn? I think he/she earns $80k. why?

lets assume perfect information and a free auction. The 2 companies bid against each other for the shop. Company B cannot rationally go above $120k, because then they lose money. They rationally bid $119,999.99. They lose to company A, which bids the $120k, and then has a take-home profit of $80k per day.

In a different scenario, give the 2 companies estimates of 800k a day vs 120k a day. What happens now? Company A still gets the store for the same price, but makes 680k a day. The shopkeeper still earns the same.

What can we learn? Many things. Firstly, it is in the shopkeepers interests to have a large number of high earners wanting to rent their space, rather than a single winner. Secondly, if you are the person renting, you want to crush the competition, not just beat them. Selling 20% better than the next guy is NOTHING compared to the leverage of selling 100% better. The difference earned then is not the 80% you expect, but 400%. (assume paying 20% out for the rent, keeping 80% of revenue vs 20%)

Interesting conclusions, and maybe this explains why big companies make Call of Duty for $100 million, and not 100 1 million dollar games?

Replace ‘shop’ with web store or search engine ad, and it all becomes very very relevant and very very interesting. If you are an economics / biz geek anyway :D Why the title? I’m thinking that if you have that 120k to put down as a vote of confidence in your product, you win. You get the shop, and you earn the money. Note that Company B goes bankrupt with zero sales :D Outbid into extinction. Also known as starbucks approach to independent coffee shops. bah.

Is my reasoning/maths wrong? I have been drinking…