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Erik Rutins -> RE: Release Plan (3/23/2010 1:12:38 PM)
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wozza,
There's a long answer and a short answer to that. Let me give you the short answer, with the caveat that the long answer is a bit more complex and there are situations where some of the below information is different.
Stardock and Paradox are separate publishers with their own terms and conditions as well as different audiences, though they maintain that GG and Impulse are separate entities. They are not entirely DRM-free either, I believe GG is simply agnostic in that regard (they don't add their own, but if the developer/publisher wants it they include it) and Impulse requires you to install their store application to purchase/download your games, similar to Steam.
It's not quite as straightforward as "throw it up there" and they are generally very mainstream retail-oriented resellers both in terms of content and pricing and putting a game up there can actually be a negative to a non-retail release's performance in some cases. Our online store contains many unique releases that do not go to the various resellers and do just fine, in fact I think there are only three or four releases our of the hundred plus that we've done that have also been on Gamers Gate and Impulse. With those releases, our experience with these reseller sites has been that they are not ideally suited for most of the kind of games we prefer to publish and end up effectively cannibalizing sales rather than increasing them significantly.
Finally, since GG and Impulse provide virtually no customer support for games sold through their sites (beyond ordering support or for their own Paradox/Stardock games), we end up supporting releases that go through them anyway, even though we and the developer earn much less for them. The end result is that for the vast majority of releases, we think they'll perform better via our online store with appropriate promotion.
Regards,
- Erik
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