starshatter and matrix games

milo or anyone else with an opinion (and you know that means you),

Was it a mistake to go with matrixgames over self publishing? It seemed to
me that the marketing matrixgames did for starshatter was minimal. Was
starshatter even available on retail shelves? If not, then I dont even see
the point of having a boxed version of the game if all the orders will be
taken online.

I once asked on the starshatter forums at matrixgames that I didnt see any
banner ads for starshatter on sites like shacknews, bluesnews, gamespot,
gamespy, etc. The reply was that they only placed banner ads on sites
within the matrix games network of gaming related websites. So in other
words, if they didnt own the gaming portal, they didnt advertise on it. How
retarded is that? Anyone have more info on the polcies of matrix games when
it comes to marketing their games? Maybe there are different "levels" of
marketing they do and that it depends on what milo signed on for?

I think Starshatter is a good game and still with alot of potential for more
depth of play. But if milo didnt make enough money to warrant development
of a new version with more features, then we all lose.

-mj

"Hypnotron" <me.DeleteThis@here.com> wrote in news:JdcKe.8549$7d.1367@trnddc08:

> Was it a mistake to go with matrixgames over self publishing? It
> seemed to me that the marketing matrixgames did for starshatter was
> minimal. Was starshatter even available on retail shelves? If not,
> then I dont even see the point of having a boxed version of the game
> if all the orders will be taken online.

I dont have a stance on this particular game but Ive seen this subject
come up elsewhere. There is an important difference between publicity and
marketing. Both have pros and cons. Publicity involves time and effort,
marketing involves money. There are a number of game companys which will
provide for packaging, online sales, forums, customer support, and have a
full time publicist. Many of that level of games publisher are
owned/started by game developers who had bad experiences with the next
type of publisher.

On the other hand there are ones which will also get you into stores, get
you ads all over the place, tons of higher level services. Even pre-pay
you to develop the game.

The big difference between the two is that the second type of publisher
involves a large layout of money which must be paid back before the
author gets any. The profit checks are a long time in coming, and are
often disputed since its more difficult to draw definate conclusions from
sales.

Everything has its pros and cons. Which type I would recomend depends on
alot of things like which version of the game, how large an fan base
already exists, whether the author can do without royalties for a year or
more, how important is trust, how important is control, lots of other
factors.

One specific case that I jumped in on recently, FOR THEM I recommended
version 1 self publishing (build up a fan base for testers and team
members)
version 2 type A publisher (build up funds and a development team)
version 3 Type B publisher (live off of version 2 funds while building
up retail-store fanbase)
version 4 if not bought out, return to type A publisher for larger
returns, less stress, and enjoy the larger fanbase that version 3 got
you. Hopefully the checks for version 3 are starting to come in also

But that was just one example. Its not an exact pattern that everyone can
follow.

Gandalf Parker



Gandalf Parker