AH II Boxed Set Available in Stores

[BoilerDown]

Yeah its a huge mess for a small time operation to try and get their stuff on the shelves.  There was a time when "shareware" and "freeware" CD-ROMs could get on the shelves in a huge bin and sold for a dollar or two each, but those days are long gone.

That's why I think making a deal with joystick manufacturers is the best idea.  You're going to need a joystick to enjoy Aces High anyways.  These guys already have distribution deals.  Get them to put Aces High on their driver / manual CD, or give them a CD of your own to include in the box, and bam... lots more potential customers with very little risk and no costs other than what it takes to bribe the joystick manufacturers to play along.

[Ack-Ack]

Aside from the extra development work required don't slight the business realities of introducing a retail product.

First of all, no major retailer is going to buy directly from HTC, especially if they are a single product company.  The business is too small for them to even bother setting HTC up as a vendor, therefore HTC needs distribution.  No distributor want's to deal with a single product company either.  If they ship the product to retail and pay HTC within a reasonable time (say 60-90 days) they are exposed to all future product returns without additional products coming down the pipe to offset that exposure.  So in the real world, HTC has to fund thier product for 12-18 months without payment from retail or distribution until everyone is satisfied that the product has sold through or been returned.

Now on to selling through.  Putting a product on a shelf doesn't guarantee sales.  To bring in a new product, the retailer wants to see (and so does the wholesaler) commitment from the manufacturer.  They want to see general market advertising as well as funding to support the retail FSI's, endcaps and/or other programs.  With no skin in the game there won't be much support and little chance of success.

There's still other issues/considerations but there are the biggest initial hurdles.

As you might be able to see, the financial investment by HTC to roll a product out to 200+ Best Buy stores or 1300+ Wal-Mart stores in sufficient quantities to be meaningful to those retailers is huge and comes with no guarantees.

If it works it's a marketing coup.  If not it might be the end of HTC.

[EDIT]  I'm not trying to rain on anyones parade.  I've been there, done that.  Just telling it like it is.

And unfortunately, that is the reality for small independent game developers. 


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[Furball]

And besides, do you think that AH could cope with potentially thousands of new subscribers?  From what i can see (sorry if this is wrong Mr HiTech) the capacity just isn't there.  For example, whenever Titanic Tuesday comes on, people constantly complain of warping.

[Ack-Ack]

And besides, do you think that AH could cope with potentially thousands of new subscribers?  From what i can see (sorry if this is wrong Mr HiTech) the capacity just isn't there.  For example, whenever Titanic Tuesday comes on, people constantly complain of warping.

Skuzzy has repeatedly posted that Titanic Tuesday does not tax the servers at all.


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[AKDogg]

Might not tax the servers but how about the connection into just 1 server?

[NHawk]

I'm certain the server has more than enough bandwidth to handle whatever is thrown at it. Skuzzy is smart that way.

The way I see it, marketing the game in a store is a bad idea from a support standpoint. You would have people that have never played an online game purchasing the program and asking all sorts of basic questions. Much more than there is now.

The way it is marketed now gives some assurance that the user knows how to access the internet, knows how to download a file and knows how to install the game and/or updates to their computer. That eliminates the very basics right there.

(And I'm in that Baby Boomer group mentioned in the original post. So watch it!  )

[Anaxogoras]

When they released a boxed version of WB after Wildbill took over it had "marketing committee" written all over it.  The hype made people think they were getting way more than they actually did, with the idea that they would buy an online subscription and try out the arenas.

I agree with some of the others that you'd have to include CT so that it was a stand-alone sim with the option to fly online if you're going to make a boxed version.

As for baby boomers not being comfortable with the internet, my experience is otherwise.  Maybe that's from living most of my life near Silicon Valley?

[Zazen13]

As for baby boomers not being comfortable with the internet, my experience is otherwise.  Maybe that's from living most of my life near Silicon Valley?

Ya think?!?

I live in the deep south. There's a lot of military types here with long, distinguished family military traditions, especially in the US Army and Air Force. But, they tend to be very leery of making purely online purchases from an unknown company without the benefit of some sort of "hands-on" product they can evaluate in a concrete way . Not only that, but they aren't the types that would be surfing the net looking for a game to begin with in order to stumble upon AH accidentally. They would definitely notice it and pick it up in a store though. This game and company are actually pretty obscure and not overly easy to discover or find out about if you don't already know what you are looking for. Most of us aren't objective about this fact, as we've been involved in the genre for many years. But, I have many Air Force friends, pilots, test pilots, navigators and the like that have never heard of HTC/AH, but are intrigued when I tell them about it.

[dedalos]

Might not tax the servers but how about the connection into just 1 server?

Most likely it is taxing the FEs

[BnZ]

To make AHII sell as a boxed game, it must become entirely viable as a stand-alone sim.

To do this would involve adding a ton of stuff to do off-line, improving the graphics, tweaking some elements to be more realistic, adding, um, video and storylines, other "candy", and otherwise massively revamping.

People playing AHII tend to be HARD-core into either the ACM, GVing, or the land-grabbing game, or all three. We don't give a darn about graphics when we get into a dogfight. We don't give a darn about the historical nature of what we are doing except once a week on Fridays. This is the BEST ACM sim out there but not nessecarily the best "immersion" sim. And the latter is what would sell on store shelves.

[Zazen13]

To make AHII sell as a boxed game, it must become entirely viable as a stand-alone sim.

I do not believe that. There's lots of games on the shelf that are purely or almost exlusively for online play.

[BnZ]

I do not believe that. There's lots of games on the shelf that are purely or almost exlusively for online play.

How much competition did Air Warrior have when it was free with the purchase of a CH products yoke?

[dedalos]

K, one problem with these idiers.  There is a cost with doing all this, especially when you add a free subscription or $100 gift certificate.  That is like a year of free subscriptions.  Then, HT may have to add some more people for support etc.  So, how long does the average subscriber stay hooked?  Maybe HT has figured out all this and it may not be worth the trouble

[Zazen13]

K, one problem with these idiers.  There is a cost with doing all this, especially when you add a free subscription or $100 gift certificate.  That is like a year of free subscriptions.  Then, HT may have to add some more people for support etc.  So, how long does the average subscriber stay hooked?  Maybe HT has figured out all this and it may not be worth the trouble

HTC already has the infrastructure in place to handle a lot more people. The gift certificate idea would be considered under the assumption that CH would comp or at least subsidize it as a joint marketing venture to increase sales of its product.

[Ack-Ack]

HTC already has the infrastructure in place to handle a lot more people. The gift certificate idea would be considered under the assumption that CH would comp or at least subsidize it as a joint marketing venture to increase sales of its product.

LOL!  Knowing Chuck Hayes, CH won't subsidize squat.  He never did it when I worked for him and I don't think he'll start doing it now.

While HTC might have the infrastructure in place to handle more customers does he really have one in place for increased employee numbers?  He's going to have to create a dedicated support center to handle all of the tech support calls not to mention account/billing calls.  HTC support in its current state would get easily swamped by the number of calls.

Also, as Dedalos pointed out, what about the costs?  Not just the costs associated with bundling your product with another companies but also the costs associated with having to increase your employee base.  Then there is also the development costs, marketing, manufacturing and distribution. 

The reality in the gaming industry is that it is very difficult for small independent game developers to get their product out to the retail masses.  It's another reason why digital distribution is far more appealing to the small developers and why a lot go that route.

Quite a few of you really seem to think that all HTC needs to do is print up a few thousand boxes and CDs and just drop them off at retailers to be sold and that's it. 


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