Re: Why most shareware games don't make it.
crpgnut said:
You guys are touching on the main reason shareware games don't make it. Word of mouth only lasts for a VERY short amount of time unless the developers constantly try to keep it going. When Jeff first released Exile, he was on the usenet and the various Mac forums constantly. He promoted his product to every single person he could reach. He answered all emails and took the time to personally troubleshoot any issues that arose. This takes an extreme amount of time and effort.
In matters related to gameplay, fun factor, etc, I would rank Prelude right up there with Exile. The devs are to be commended on their work so far.
However, in talking about the initial quality and bugginess upon initial release, there is no contest...Exile was light years ahead of where Prelude is right now. I would classify the current Prelude version as a solid beta release, but no more. When I can play for a mere 12 hours over the course of a weekend and find over 10 obvious bugs related to quest scripting, crashes, and technical issues, this is simply not code that is worthy of charging money for.
THIS, more than anything, is why this game likely won't go anywhere (besides the fact that the devs seem to putting their energy into other endeavors). Shareware or not, the window of opportunity for a new release to make an impact is very small, and you'd better hope you make the best of it. By starting to charge money on beta code, you essentially stifle any word-of-mouth that you might otherwise generate. Instead of a big splash, Prelude's release is reduced to a trickle as people wait for the list of bugs to get fixed.
In case it sounds like I'm slamming the devs, I want to make it clear that I'm not harping on their coding skills at ALL...every complex endeavor will have bugs in it, but where I will find fault here is what steps are taken to ferret out and fix as many bugs as possible before you go "live". I know they are dealing with extremely limited resources, but there are still ways you can expand your testing base. IMO, the crucial mistake they made is thinking that once they had finished all the in-house testing they could do or thought was necessary, they thought the game was done and could be released to the general public. What should have happened at that point is that the game gets released to the Q&A department to finish the polishing and ensure that there are no gameplay bugs that can be quite common in non-linear games with new engines like this.
Who is their Q&A department? We are, of course!
Jeff Vogel has the luxury of developing for the Mac first, which is a stroke of genius, because Mac fanatics are starved for any kind of computer game, and will pay money for anything. =) So he can release games to the Mac crowd first, get feedback, polish it up, and fix bugs, all while getting paid, and then release a high-quality game to the PC crowd.
Unfortunately, the PC crowd is going to be quite a bit more demanding, because you have such stiff competition vying for the average gamer's playing time. So without the luxury of a group of fanatics who will pay for anything, you need to resort to the alternative and give the game away to a select group of people to do the beta testing for you.
So this is how I would have handled Prelude back when the devs thought it was ready for release: I would post a public announcement to Usenet, and various RPG message boards, announcing that a new shareware, turn-based RPG that has been in development for several years by some dedicated RPG enthusiasts is almost ready for release, but they need to expand the testing base before they can release it. To this end, they are inviting everybody to download and try the demo, and if they feel they would be interested in playing the game, to fill out a beta application. They could then select 50 people or so to give free registrations to, at no cost except for the request that people take a break from Morrowind or NWN to play the game, and file any bugs they run across through their normal gameplay. Based on the amount of bugs I found within hours of playing the latest released version, this should have generated a ton of feedback in a very short period of time. Btw, with the lull in new RPGs over the last few months, I would have jumped at this chance.
This accomplishes several things: It generates a buzz, it creates anticipation because people will play an enjoyable demo for a game that isn't available yet, and it will ensure that when you do go live, most of the bugs will have been squashed.
As somebody who is NOT a hardcore gamer (but who used to be in my youth and would like to be once again if I had the time
, I am a little regretful that I paid money for this game in its current state. I didn't buy it to support shareware, I bought it because I felt like playing a new game and the demo was fun...unfortunately the bugs started appearing after the demo area. Again, I offer these suggestions as a sort of post-mortem in how a shareware release could better be handled in the future.
I'm still looking forward to the next patch release...