I do not believe that mini expansions will work.

1- You have people like me who have short attention spans when it comes to games. I usually don't play a game for more then a few weeks and rare is the game i ever play a second time, and to be honest I don't think i'd check for mini expansions.

2- For sins it would have to be backwards compatible with previous sins games with regards to multiplayer matches. With the already small online community, splitting them up will be the death of online games even with a forum to organize matches. I simply find single player to be lacking.

3- Damn good mod tools to change EVERYTHING in sins will be far more cost effective. If the modding community are able to do what they are planning with sins then they will outdo you with their mods. If you decide to cut the legs out of the modding community so your content is better then you've already shot yourself in the foot as i would boycott any mini expansions.

I think it's best to support the game until you've gotten it just right and call it quits. Spend the money and time and money to make a expansion that will add a lot of new stuff in one go.

The only way I can see this working is to add all of the mini expansions into one and for it to be at least equal to a traditional expansion.

How exactly is the OP to understand? In my previous post I assumed that it is mainly about keeping the game alive for the sake of it and trying to justify the financial means to do so.

As I said, open-source it and your financial investment to keep it alive is exactly zero and you gain a lot of good reputation within the gaming community. I really don't get why old games aren't open-sourced on a regular basis. They don't produce revenue, there is nothing to gain from keeping them closed. So why not take that extra good reputation and give people some freedom? What's to lose here?

If the goal is not only to keep the game alive (in: make players have fun with it a little while longer) but to have it generate revenue beyond its actual lifetime then the open-source model obviously won't work.

What I could imagine for Sins would be a giant campaign for galactic dominance. This could either be the already mentioned MMO universe in which players compete for solar systems and alliances would compete for whole quadrants and which could be based on subscriptions.

An alternative here would be to tell an epic story in a single player campaign, releasing the next part of the campaign every few month. Kind of like the episode games on steam - sold as episodes, not subscriptions.

While I am still not a huge fan of this (or any subscription / episodes based model) it would at least give us customers a solid expectation on the next update and it wouldn't screw with multiplayer balance / community at all.
I would be interested to fight out the Vasari / TEC / Advent struggle in a giant single player campaign over several month and I'd probably buy it (despite not really liking the model behind it ... coming from StarDock it's probably still better then most other games ).

Hmmm... Frogboy, I was thinking maybe you guys could try the "once a year" style digital update (i.e. GalCiv II 2009 enhancement pack).

Once a game is off of its regular updates and expansion packs, this once a year pack would bring the game up to date to work on newer PCs and OSes, and add a few enhancements and tweaks.

Each year, if there is enough interest/pre-orders, it would continue until there is not enough interest in the game.

Two advantages of this is, one, it brings focus to the update - it's a regular yearly thing people can anticipate. Two, you don't have to do a "hard sell," as people will focus on the "year" and not just specific features of the update.

Anyway, just some random thoughts....

What about pre-buying a set of micro expansions?

The monthly subscription wont work unless there is an actual online persistant universe type element to the game. People will expect a lot for $9 every month. Nothing stopping you guys going down that road, I for one would love to login to a real online universe and fight battles in real time to help my chosen empire.

But for Sins I think the best way may be, "give me $20 or $30 and you get this, this and this over x amount of time."

Perhaps bi-weekly a micro expansion could come out. This week it's a new ship and a few new planet types. Two weeks time it's a selection of new techs or whatever. The key element for you guys would be, you wouldn't know exactly what you were going to make from day one. You are just being paid to keep expanding and improving the game in increments over time.

I would never suggest this type of investment (for myself or to a company) unless I wasn't so pleased with the product I purchased. The community comes up with great ideas and you listen. So lets say when people were asking for a Destroyer class of ships you thought, "yeah, we could do that". But you could really do it with this model I believe.

I just like the idea of getting Sins expansions over time instead of waiting for everything in one go. If it came down to paying $9 a month like your idea says I would be less happy than my idea - yet - I would still do it (but would expect a lot for $108 a year).

I would also pay.

BUT YOU'RE ASKING THE WRONG PEOPLE.

Two mechanisms are required: one to let all players (not just those who are dedicated enough to post on these forums, because that's a small and very biased sample size) know that Sins has an expansion available, and one to let them easily grab it.

Is it possible using today's computers to ping the Sins update server when you start the game (i.e. first automatically checking for a valid connection to the internet), even if you're not playing a multiplayer game, to see if there is an update or expansion available, and give the player a message if so, and in a way that is acceptable to computer security and that doesn't cause a warning to appear if you're running antivirus or monitoring systems?

-- Retro

READ THIS, SO MANY GOOD IDEAS YOU'LL WANT TO HIRE ME.  

Micro expansions for 9 dollars is ideal, I think, as long as you can keep running the multiplayer servers for free. I don't know much about the business model of how many people purchase the game online and how easy it is to do, but I think if you're choosing between a subscription and micro-expansion, that the micro-expansion wins as long as it has enough content to give players incentive to buy it. Like maybe new campaign missions and new ships, and other stuff. It can't be like just a patch with some new content.

I think it's too early to do subscription services with RTS games. I think most people won't like it even if it is something like 1 dollar a month, and it won't be something they are use to doing. Once it becomes mainstream, if ever does, then you should try it, but until someone big (like Blizzard with SC2) or several companies start using it, I think it might be too risky to try on your own.

Don't know if this is possible, but you could try to make a 1 or 2 question poll or survey when people connect to multiplayer. Inform them of the option to take it, and that it has to do with further expansions and content and it is 1 to 2 questions and I think most people will fill it out. Then make sure there are options like: I like the subscription more than micro-expansion, but would pay for either, vise versa.
Another one could be: I would pay for subscription but wouldn't pay for micro-expansions, and another would be: I'm not interested in paying for anything new.
This way you can get a broader understanding of what most of your customers, who own this game, are interested in and it becomes less of a risk, with whatever you do decide to choose.

I think you should add how much this subscription would be a month, because in my mind I'm thinking you would do maybe one micro expansion a year, and if that were the case it wouldn't make sense to charge more than 1 to 2 dollars per month, but I know WoW is like 15 dollars a month, and other online games are pretty costly. So I'm not sure.

Where is the edit button and why didn't thread go to the top when I posted?
Nevermind that's odd no edit button showed up on my post, probably because there was an error.

well i have thought pretty long about this idea so please read

first of all I think the idea of subscription sucks
you are promising your customer good patches and support and if they don't get what they want they'll be all over you and everyone things something else. it is just not do able.

the idea of mini expansions on the other hand is good
however as stated before you can not spit the community all the time it would make finding multi player games a really big hassle.
so here's my suggestion:
what I would want in those expansion packs are:
new planets
new technology/ships
new capital ships
updated graphics

my suggestion is based on the guild wars skill system
you would have the standard tech tree and then you would be able to buy new techs in the expansion packs
I've thought of 2 ways to implement this
the first is whole new tech trees so you buy a expansion pack and then you'll get 1/2
new tech trees for each faction with different capital ships. you would also get new researchable ships and maybe planet types to colonize
you could have them in a certain theme like a rush tree where the tec's lrm is tech 1 and they have a tech 1 research to decrease ship build time but they wouldn't have heavy cruisers. this of course has to be balanced against the standard tech tree

my other idea is a bit harder to balance
it works like the new tech trees in the fact you get new techs but instead of fixed ones you would assign each tech points and you could take out and add techs so you could make your own tech tree. this would give a whole lot of diversity to the game but you would really have to balance the techs well

this way the people with the standard tech tree can still play against the other players who bought the expansion packs

there are a few drawbacks of course
it would be hard to upgrade the graphics
and new planet types would be hard to implement
you may want to give like small updates to the standard game to do this

i hope you liked the idea because i think if you would balance it well enough it could be a real hit

The system of selling a game without DRM and then updating the game for free for those of us who buy games worked well for me.

I also then buy expansions.

However I would not subscribe to an RTS or 4X. I have subscribed to an MMO but they do have larger running costs with servers etc...

I also think mini payments are disappointing yes you pay a small amount but I would rather pay a lot more for a bigger change. Perhaps I am just too Old School!

Personally, i'm fine with the current lifecycle games go through. While there are many games I wish got a lot more support than they did, in general, with games like this(IMO anyway) there comes a point where adding more 'features' and 'content' is just going to make the game worse. So what i would like more than paid content is for developers to find this optimum(game stable enough, satisfies players, costs are reasonable) and leave the game off there, to engrave their names in infamy . I would rather have my favorite games die a peaceful, dignified death, so i can be nostalgic about them 20 years from now, than remember 5 years from now how i hated the devs for beating my favorite game to death.

Generally speaking, I hate subscriptions. I've subscribed to a couple mmo's because I was going to play with someone else I knew, but I wouldn't have done them for just myself. If I want something and can afford it, I'll buy it, but I wont be signing up for a subscription based content update to sins. As long as they don't suck, you can probably get me to purchase sins expansions for a few years. If you're constantly evolving the game into something bigger and better, I'll have quit playing video games if I stopped getting them. I flat refuse to get a subscription for anything short of a substantial server requirement on your end to run the game I'm subscribing to, and I'd prefer you payed for it with advertisements. 10 bucks a month to play something five hours is a waste, it's an asinine system that's a great deal for people with no life that only play one game. If you can't pay for the server upkeep with advertisements... What can I say, I hate the MMO market.

I have to agree with LinksAuge (Leinad) on this one i'm afraid. I don't think it would be a good idea overall.

MMOs are successful not because they're very good games, but because there's probably more money spent on the psychology driving them as there was on development costs.

The carrot-chasing bigger-harder-faster-stronger 'arms race' is what drives MMOs. World of Warcraft is more successful than any other MMO because whereas in Everquest you could've spent a month trying to get a new piece of equipment, WoW breaks that 'uber gear' down into smaller parts and makes them more achievable to the everyday schmuck.

People want to "keep up with the Joneses" and that's what drives them to keep playing WoW. Me? That doesn't work on me as much as it does on others, thankfully. I played WoW for a few months with my roomate, but once I realized that I was basically just as much a slave to the game as I am to any other job, I quit.

I mean, I wake up on SATURDAY MORNING to an alarm clock (that alone is all kinds of wrong), so I can go to a raid. I line up with the rest of the sheep, listen to a boring guy bark out orders to me, wait for the inevitable ass chewing, slog my way through the same stupid boring shit we did last week, get in an argument with some associate, get my reward (or not), and then do it all again later. Am I playing a game, or working? I could tell, because a job GIVES me money, not vice versa.

Problem #2: Now we're crossing into EA territory, where they want to sell their little lame 'bonus packs' so they refuse to release adequate mod tools for Battlefield. PC games should be mod-friendly, but I don't want to see moddability get in the way of 'official' goodness, or vice versa.

Anyway, RE: Mr. Wardell - Someone mentioned an annual update (I'd rather see 6-8 months - a year is a LONG time in the gaming industry). I think that'd be the best solution. Instead of a few little bonuses here and there, just pack all that crap up into one big bundle, an 'expansion pack lite', and sell it for $15 or so. The price, of course, depends on exactly what content it contains...

One other thing I'd love to have seen more developers do is re-release their games. While this is a very long-term scope, I'll use for example Tribes 2.

Tribes 2 was a wonderful game, I cannot speak higher of any other MPFPS game I've ever played. It was utterly sublime in every way. I loved it with all my heart. However, the game dwindled and is now slowly dissolving away, it's only a matter of time before the Master Server gets killed.

However, there's been no game to have taken the place of it. I don't see it being financially unfeasible for Sierra to hire a team to update the graphics, pound out the bugs that Dynamix left with Sierra fired them all out of the blue, smooth out compatibility, and re-release that sucker as a $30 game. I'd buy that in a heartbeat (and make all my moron friends do the same).

Another thought:

Why do people insist on making the same mistakes over and over again? Why do failed business models get adapted?

We saw this with DRM which completely failed in the music and movie market and which also obviously (as GC Sins have "proven") failed in the gaming market. Intrusive DRM is making people not buy stuff for years now but the industry repeats their mistake over and over again and only now, after years, there seems to be change in just some parts of it (thanks to StarDock).

Steam introduced the episode style games. And how did that turn out? Was there ever a successful one? Yes, Half Life episodes ... but that was Half Life. They could sell a turd with a Half Life label on it and it would be successful
Oblivion addons? Same story.
Hellgate London? ...

MMOs are not successful because they are subscription based - they are successful because people like MMOs. People like deep worlds and good gameplay. Guild Wars, one of the most successful MMOs, is not subscription based. And I think that is exactly why it is successful. I'd never buy WoW but I am considering Guild Wars because of exactly that right now.
And what's Guild Wars approach? No subscription. And no pointless stupid mini-addons either! Each Guild Wars addon is a "full" addon. It delivers really good gameplay content and costs a little more. That's what players prefer I think (well, at least I prefer it that way ).

It was said that people feel abandoned after buying the game and then nothing happens. But what about the people that would not subscribe?
My little brother bought Hellgate London but is not willing to pay a montly fee. He bought it because of the hype and now he regrets the decision since there is no balance between subscribers and non subscribers. Having subscriber-only items that rock the game just sucks. He feels abandoned. On the other hand: If the subscribers don't get a "real" advantage then they won't subscribe. There simply is no way out of it (except for providing only single player content like a giant campaign that keeps developing over month or something like that). People will never accept the "he does double damage because he has more money then I do" thingy that is quite hard to avoid. Same goes for mini-expansions there.

Bottom line: Why repeat all the mistakes that have been made with Hellgate, Horse Armor or episode games? Why not simply release "normal" addons and keep the game alive with that (soo GC2 or Guild Wars)? Doesn't it work just fine?



And yet another thing:
I really enjoy being "globalized" with StarDock. I buy the online release and I play the same game that people have in the USA or in Japan (I'm from Germany).
Steam is treating us non-americans quite bad I heard. "The rest of the world" wants to be treated fair. As paying custumer I will never ever again buy a single game from a company that sells me censored titles or doesn't allow me access to titels based on my location / IP adress. That's why I'll never get steam and I very much hope StarDock doesn't make the same mistake. I know that for selling more stuff it might be nice to divide the market into segments and deliver things differntly to Europe and America for example. But as customer I absolute hate it. The region coded DVDs just sucked and luckily they were very, very easy to go around. An IP based system to restrict users from buying software in parts of the world is also easy to fool (proxy anyone?) and does nothing but piss off your honest customers.
We are living in a globalized world and I expect to be able to purchase what I want when I want it without location-based restrictions when using an internet-based system.

See the steam group "The rest of the world". There obviously are a lot of people thinking like me

I know that a big chunk of that problem is because of our retarded politicians. We have totally insane laws restricting games over here. I have no idea what StarDock would have to do to comply with these redarded laws if they were to be an official German publisher (does something like that exist?). But as a customer I am very happy with the way it is right now: Just let us Europeans buy in the online store, case closed. I can buy everything I want and you guys don't need to care about stupid German laws.
I also enjoy playing the game in english since translation usually are really, really bad. There are only very few exceptions were a translated game comes even close to the original.

Bottom line: Treat us as one world please Don't give into people demanding a separation, it will not be liked at the consumer end.

For me, the question is less the mode of delivery (mini-expansion vs subscription) and more the nature and price of any future offerings. Given SC/IC's work, I certainly would be pre-disposed to support the work, but it would depend on what I was being asked to buy. Since I don't play multiplayer for the most part, I would not be inclined to pay for offerings in that area. But if the offerings added new factions/units/challenges, I would be interested. The idea overall is intriguing, as it would both refresh games I enjoy, and perhaps bring me back to games I had set aside for awhile.

Meaningful expansions, be them big or small, that add value and playability to a game are something I would purchase. I think EA was onto something with their booster pack ideas that contained new maps, vehicles, weapons, and sometimes new factions. I would be willing to pay for that sort of stuff even if it were released quarterly each year. In Sins' case, I would be willing to pay $10 to $20 for small expansions/packs that would add new races, game mechanics (such as what the Rise of Legends expansion did adding government powers), ships, ships, scenarios, campaigns, planets/moons/others, and maps. All of those are not equal in value since it's obvious creating a new race takes a lot more effort than putting together a map (something we can already do). I would also welcome regular expansion packs similar to what Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War has been doing. That game never appealed to me in terms of gameplay, but I do like what they've been doing in their expansion packs. Adding new races/factions in particular adds a lot of value in my eyes. Things that are complex and modders aren't able to do often or at all are normally what gets me into a purchase if I'm still enjoying the game and playing it.

If you use a monthly subscription I will not sign up for it. Also, if you plan to charge people for game fixes I will stop buying all products with your company's name on it. Regardless of price I paid, I expect the product to be in working order so that I can play against/with friends with said product. If you want to charge me for the fix for a crashing issue, a game problem, balances, or some other oversight/bug/mistake/error/bad thing then I'm just not going to buy your products anymore. I buy meaningful content that extends the playability of a game.

Also, I don't agree that the current business model is not ideal. I like it and I don't see any problems with it. It keeps companies in check so that if they release crappy products it comes back to bite them via low sales. I know you guys see the current model as a gamble though. I'm one of those people who will run away from your products if I think you're going to nickel and dime me. Unlike your average gamer, I can construct things to replace your product so believe me, I WILL run away if you nickel and dime me. Having a constant revenue stream is the holy grail of almost every business these days. I have enough other things to spend my money on so I am quick to leave companies that try to add to that list of monthly bills.

Btw, I'm not fond of persistent game worlds. I wanted to play Sins because it's like the usual RTS game. If I wanted something persistent, I'd go play EVE. The audience for a game like Sins is not always the same audience as a game like EVE has. I normally avoid and will not pay for persistent games because I choose how to spend my time--not other people and not companies.

Frogboy, Sins of a Solar Empire can also have a profitable future through expansions (stand-alones or add-ons) with campaigns/story-lines. The game engine you've created is so excellent that it can be used as a platform for many decently priced expansion packs. I'd certainly buy them.

Cheers.

Hell no to Subscriptions.
Hell yes to miniexpansions...and of course eventually...a sequelll!

@ dragon

I was specifically thinking about EA's booster packs. They used EA downloader, much like SDC, and they were great.

Euro Pack = 10 bucks = a couple new maps a couple new vehicles
BUY
etc.

They are doing that with 2142 now too, but i mostly only played BF2.

While it may be an interesting thought-exercise to re-invent the wheel (Google "Rouleax Triangle"), I frankly don't see the need to actually re-invent it. I'm used to the way game companies are doing business. Generally, I approve of how game companies work. I'm not looking for innovation in their Customer Support Department, but rather innovation in the games themselves.

Ideally, a game shouldn't need patches at all, right? If that were the case, if you wanted more game content, you'd go out and buy the sequel.

These days, for RTS games, it seems normal to create a rather long string of patches. They're still patching Company Of Heroes and Supreme Commander. Mostly that's because either hard-core gamers keep poking holes in the game balance, or else there were promised features that couldn't be added until much later when gaming technology caught up to the potential of the game i.e. DX10 drivers and stuff.

While I appreciate the patches, I do get to the point of thinking enough is enough. And in the case of Company Of Heroes, stirring the pot too much broke the sauce. Too many little edits and tweaks have thrown that game out of balance, at least for the casual gamer.

I would say NO to subscriptions.
I would say a smaller No to mini-expansions.
I would say probably Yes to traditional buy-it-in-a-box-on-the-game-store-shelf sequels.

If the devs need more money, I would suggest that they charge more for the base game. Sins is not my favourite game, but it is kind of fun and it has its moments that grow on you. But I still feel like I ripped off the EB for the price I paid, as I was expecting to pay quite a bit more for a game of this level of quality.

/edit

Deleted all i wrote. You don't want to read all that long crap.


Simpple version.:

$50 a year "Premium Impulse Membership".
* This lets you particapate in tournaments where you can win money, and a decent number of people can actually win, and they are actually REGULAR. Not one every 6 months and 3 guys get $2000bux.
- Free mini-expansions for cheap prizes in these tournaments, actual money for the big ones like gpgnet tournaments do, so you have something to both make the membership worthwhile for your decent and above average game, and you have competitive creditability for your high level players winning actually money (At least $2000 a every 2-3weeks top prize for your bigger games like sins and demigod for the top winner. AT LEAST. If you're getting 12MILLION a year from this premium membership no reason to be cheap. That's chump change then.
- Imo 5-10% of the premium membership money should go to tournaments.. You'd get a ton of credability then. And really, even 10%, if 95% of that is giving away free mini-expansions and discounts to winners, those don't cost you anything.. "1million worth of prizes" realistically costs you 100k...
* This also gives you access to another special stuffs, ya know, you can think of things.
* AND importantly, 33% off the mini-expansions as a Premium Impulse member.

Then you can price those expansions every 2-3 months or whatever at $15. (Not just a stupid map and a glowing sword. AND it needs to be backwards compatable so i can play online with people without it. AND no imbalancing the game). People with the premium membership get them for $10 since the 33% off.

It'd be stupid then for people to not pay the $50 a year. All the benefits for every game on Impulse that supports it and the whole tournaments thing.
Like Xbox Live.. It's stupid not to buy it, and it's a pretty nice deal if you play 3 or 4 games at least.
Just buy 10 mini-expansions and someone makes the cost of their premium membership, so dumb not to get it. But, as I said, it needs to cover all games. And not limited online experience to non-premium people like games for windows live has been trying and ruining games.

I'll do that. But I'm not paying $5 or even $10 a month for a game. But break a $40 expansion up into 4 parts, 2 times a month instead of after 9 months? Yes please I would like that a lot.

I wouldn't pay $50 a year for a membership, sorry, and I'm NOT stupid. I always like to KNOW what I'm getting, even if it's from a trusted source, before I shell out my money.

The recent subscription debacle with Hellgate:London is an example of why I'd much rather have standalone expansion packs.

-- Retro

A monthly subscription will work if:

1. The game is absolutely amazing.
2. The game has a free trial period.
3. The game allows players to reach different levels and unlock special abilities.
4. The game has a sophisticated and in-depth leaderboard system.
5. The game has a sophisticated and in-depth member profile system.
6. The game has a sophisticated and in-depth chat & messageboard system.

It would be quite an investment, but would pay off handsomely.

You will hear many people fuss and complain at the thought of a subscription, but it is the way of the future for quality PC games. They will pay for it if they want a good game. Their complaints are a bs attempt to save themselves some money. They will pay for a subscription. They will pay.

$10 per month is not too high.

This is 33¢ per hour of entertainment if the gamer plays 1 hour each day. (Semi-Casual Gamer)
This is 17¢ per hour of entertainment if the gamer plays 2 hours each day. (Casual Gamer)
This is 8¢ per hour of entertainment if the gamer plays 4 hours each day. (Semi-Hardcore Gamer)
This is 4¢ per hour of entertainment if the gamer plays 8 hours each day. (Hardcore Gamer)

There was once a day and age where it was common for gamers to spend several dollars per hour at the local arcade. Take inflation into consideration and people were paying over $20 per hour for arcade entertainment.

Well 10 million do with xbox live..