On the New Release Date: March 24th (EDIT: Now in April, FYI)

[Misery]

@junker154: What I'm saying is that Valley 1 was selling exceedingly well, and then the day that Diablo 3 came out, we saw like a 10x drop in sales immediately.  And then it never recovered.  So say what you will about our marketing, the game itself, the graphics, or whatever other factors, that's what happened empirically.  Why the game didn't recover after Diablo 3's launch is indeed a matter for speculation of that sort, but the effect of the launch itself was devastating to us and other devs in terms of how much attention it redirected even from games that were otherwise already doing very well.

It's good that you guys think about this one..... too many devs would just try to crash up against the larger releases without changing their dates.   Always baffles me.

As for why the game didn't recover after that, mighta been because Diablo was pretty pricey upon release, at full retail.  Not to mention everyone then obsessing over it.   Only to start an endless litany of complaints over it later, hah.   Or at least that's my logic, anyway, which may or may not actually be logical.

[junker154]

@junker154: What I'm saying is that Valley 1 was selling exceedingly well, and then the day that Diablo 3 came out, we saw like a 10x drop in sales immediately.  And then it never recovered.  So say what you will about our marketing, the game itself, the graphics, or whatever other factors, that's what happened empirically.  Why the game didn't recover after Diablo 3's launch is indeed a matter for speculation of that sort, but the effect of the launch itself was devastating to us and other devs in terms of how much attention it redirected even from games that were otherwise already doing very well.

Oh, that's completely different then. I thought the game didn't sell all that well compared to other arcen titles and I went to several forums and saw a lot of negative feedback. But this is only from my limited personal view without any knowledge behind the scenes and what was going on.

The launch of Diablo 3 was catastrophic and the game overall was heavily critisized so it got a lot of media coverage for a long while by many sites and magazines, I guess that Valley didn't make it through all the media fuzz.

[Mick]

Titanfall being EA makes it no buy for me. I can put up with a little bit of evil, but EA is too evil.

Origin exclusive doesn't help either.

[PokerChen]

 Whatever its lack of merits, D3 was still a product of the giant called Blizzard, and it's still a time-sink game. Chris and I bought the game after auction-house shutdown announcement, and there's a lot of things they are doing in D3X to try to promote casual play at all stages of leveling.
 Still going to make an impact on everyone else around the date, IMO, despite reduced hype. Smaller then D3, but still - most players aren't exclusive to their chosen genres.

 The buying public appears to have a relatively short memory span so I would normally think going after their launch date by ~ 2 weeks would be better. (The time that I estimated it would take for a casual player to explore new content with the Crusader and indulge their addiction for a while, then open Steam to look for something else.)

 However, you're the one with the grips on actual numbers and how TLF is developing. I'm fairly confident that the nature of TLF, unlike Valley 1, decreases the impact of D3X.

As for why the game didn't recover after that, mighta been because Diablo was pretty pricey upon release, at full retail.  Not to mention everyone then obsessing over it.   Only to start an endless litany of complaints over it later, hah.   Or at least that's my logic, anyway, which may or may not actually be logical.

To me, it's the lure of being powerful, set in a time-sink game. The lowest common tactic to increase playtime is to increase the desirability of some goal you think you can reach, but hide the fact that it takes an unknown X-hours to get yourself there. Resolving the RNG hammer was a good argument for the AH's temporary existence, but RMAH kinda trashed it. The people who complain and also the people who really want to play, but get pwn'ed by the harsh justice of RNG. Hence tailored loot in D3X, instead of AH as a solution.
 BTW, partially tailored loot is the norm in D&D-based adventures. Hence lack of complaints in itemisation against Baldurs Gate, etc. You will always get that scroll of Fireball for your wizard some time before or after you need it. You will get a worthwhile item for slaying some great villain, because he's wearing them. A good GM will never taunt you forever.

 Whenever your playing this time-sink, you're not going to play anything else. Also, these games have a same rebound effect after you realise the sheer waste of time that was and stop for a while. After that, there's plenty of new games on offer...

[Tridus]

Grah. Thanks for the heads up on that. We've been more concerned about Titanfall than anything else, but this is also definitely concerning. I doubt that an expansion pack for Diablo 3 could do what Diablo 3 itself did, but I guess with Blizzard one never knows.

I wouldn't count on that. This expansion has a lot of buzz due to all the stuff it's fixing in Diablo 3. It's likely going to be a big deal.

Maybe not Diablo 3 itself big, but big.

[Misery]

Whatever its lack of merits, D3 was still a product of the giant called Blizzard, and it's still a time-sink game. Chris and I bought the game after auction-house shutdown announcement, and there's a lot of things they are doing in D3X to try to promote casual play at all stages of leveling.
 Still going to make an impact on everyone else around the date, IMO, despite reduced hype. Smaller then D3, but still - most players aren't exclusive to their chosen genres.

 The buying public appears to have a relatively short memory span so I would normally think going after their launch date by ~ 2 weeks would be better. (The time that I estimated it would take for a casual player to explore new content with the Crusader and indulge their addiction for a while, then open Steam to look for something else.)

 However, you're the one with the grips on actual numbers and how TLF is developing. I'm fairly confident that the nature of TLF, unlike Valley 1, decreases the impact of D3X.

As for why the game didn't recover after that, mighta been because Diablo was pretty pricey upon release, at full retail.  Not to mention everyone then obsessing over it.   Only to start an endless litany of complaints over it later, hah.   Or at least that's my logic, anyway, which may or may not actually be logical.

To me, it's the lure of being powerful, set in a time-sink game. The lowest common tactic to increase playtime is to increase the desirability of some goal you think you can reach, but hide the fact that it takes an unknown X-hours to get yourself there. Resolving the RNG hammer was a good argument for the AH's temporary existence, but RMAH kinda trashed it. The people who complain and also the people who really want to play, but get pwn'ed by the harsh justice of RNG. Hence tailored loot in D3X, instead of AH as a solution.
 BTW, partially tailored loot is the norm in D&D-based adventures. Hence lack of complaints in itemisation against Baldurs Gate, etc. You will always get that scroll of Fireball for your wizard some time before or after you need it. You will get a worthwhile item for slaying some great villain, because he's wearing them. A good GM will never taunt you forever.

 Whenever your playing this time-sink, you're not going to play anything else. Also, these games have a same rebound effect after you realise the sheer waste of time that was and stop for a while. After that, there's plenty of new games on offer...

I always wonder why people manage to get so absurdly addicted to one of those that it really DOES become a time-sink, causing them to inevitably burn out of it totally.  MMOs do this too.  Doesnt really happen with me, since I cant focus on just one thing at a time very well; if I played JUST that over and over for even just a few days it'd drive me crazy.

It seems a good game to me, from what little I got to play of it.... when it came out originally I still couldnt use the damn mouse well because of my arm, which lowered how much I could mess with it.... I'd actually put together an extremely complicated setup of side-programs to make it playable with a controller instead, which worked well.... but then my account got eaten.   Blizzard, ahhh... they make good games, but their security on their servers is AWFUL.   I havent gotten another copy of that game yet, though I plan to.

Still, from what I've seen of the expansion, it's looking to become pretty good, and for all of the whining and such, which was at least somewhat exaggerated, there's still a bloody huge community for the game.   Spacing the release of TLF out from it is definitely a good idea.

[Mick]

As much as I want to see TFL released because it sounds unique and fun, I'm forced to agree that Diablo is not something you want to toy with. Even thought it should have *less* of an impact being an expansion, it still is at a whole other level than everything else.

It's too bad it couldn't hit the old date, because I think the time before such releases is actually a prime time to grab impulse buyer I know when I'm waiting for huge releases, I tend to buy more other stuff leading up to it because I'm looking for *anything* to help the time pass faster - whereas afterwards.. not so much.

[Billick]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Titanfall looks terrible.  Of course it will sell a bajillion copies because graffix + marketing = sales.

I'm not sure you can really worry too much about other things coming out, because there's always going to be something big coming around the corner.

Somewhat related, Drox Operative just got released on Steam.

[x4000]

We are also toying with the idea of the 17th or the 19th of March.

In all honesty, it would be great to push back the release of TLF until April, purely from a "look at the other games that are going to bother us" standpoint, but to do that we'd have to come up with another $45k in gross sales between now and the end of March.  That's something that... might be possible... but we just cashed in a ton of our cards doing a lot of steam sales and so forth recently, and our total take from that was in the ballpark of what we'd need to repeat, even with the smaller staff.

I do still have some personal funds that I could dip into if a March release just looked absolutely catastrophic, but doing so would essentially be removing yet another safety net that I and Arcen personally have.  In some respects that is what safety nets are for, but it then puts even more burden on TLF to earn well, and greatly reduces our security if it only does moderately.  It's a very scary prospect.

So right now I'm not really sure what to do.

[echo2361]

March 17th or 19th sounds like a good idea to me. That puts you between the releases of Titanfall and the D3 expansion with no real competition on PC's that I can see.

Personally I've been playing the Titanfall beta on my xbox and I've enjoyed it quite a bit, but I'm the kind of gamer who looks for different things in my purchases. When it comes to my PC games I like strategy games of the 4x or RTS variety. However, when I only have ten minutes to play something instead of an hour or two I like to have a fast-paced shooter/adventure game to play on my xbox so Titanfall fits me perfectly. Don't get me wrong, I am an old school BattleTech fan and when I think of mechs I will also look back lovingly at my monstrously slow Atlas in the Mechwarrior games, but there is something to be said about having fast, agile mechs like in Titanfall that can add a lot to a game's pace and style.

Getting back on track with the topic of this thread I imagine for most people picking up Titanfall and TLF wouldn't be mutually exclusive, especially since some people like myself will be picking up the former on the xbox instead of the PC. Also, with Titanfall being more about fast matches and quick action, as opposed to the time sink that D3's expansion will be, it makes more sense to launch after Titanfall because people won't be as invested in grinding away for hours into it like they will be in D3's expansion. I'm still on the fence about picking up the D3 expansion myself, but I know if I do it will be dominating my PC time for days/weeks after I do so it would be best to see TLF launch before then.

[Tridus]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Titanfall looks terrible.  Of course it will sell a bajillion copies because graffix + marketing = sales.

I know a few people playing the beta, and they're having a lot of fun. So clearly some people think it's more than graphics and marketing.

[Tridus]

We are also toying with the idea of the 17th or the 19th of March.

In all honesty, it would be great to push back the release of TLF until April, purely from a "look at the other games that are going to bother us" standpoint, but to do that we'd have to come up with another $45k in gross sales between now and the end of March.  That's something that... might be possible... but we just cashed in a ton of our cards doing a lot of steam sales and so forth recently, and our total take from that was in the ballpark of what we'd need to repeat, even with the smaller staff.

I do still have some personal funds that I could dip into if a March release just looked absolutely catastrophic, but doing so would essentially be removing yet another safety net that I and Arcen personally have.  In some respects that is what safety nets are for, but it then puts even more burden on TLF to earn well, and greatly reduces our security if it only does moderately.  It's a very scary prospect.

So right now I'm not really sure what to do.

Anecdotally, it might be worth trying to find a time with a clear window of a couple of weeks. I mean, I'm in the target market for TLF and want to play it, but if it comes out at the same time as Reaper of Souls? I've got two friends ready to play that with me, so there's no chance. Then also stack up Titanfall, inFamous: Second Son, and some less big games like a Blazblue sequel and it's just not a great time at all.

Now, I'll just pick TLF up later, but I'm a fan. Someone less interested who gets their first look and then immediately goes to play Diablo or Titanfall likely won't come back. Those are some real heavyweights that cast a long shadow.

[PokerChen]

 On the 17/19th date... yes, it would be grand if you can reach a launchable product before D3X. No pressure or anything.

 Don't try to hit it by skimping over major QA though, don't forget that. In my opinion, the impact of fun-crushing bugs on release is a bigger influence long term than any other concurrent games. Affects reviews - which stay on the internet forever, poor Stardrive, - gamer impressions, etc. For instance, my first experience with Airland Battle involved restarting a campaign multiple times after winning a mission or two. Never went back, even though I like the game and played its predecessor semi-regularly in MP. The issue is in the player's head: you might have their money, but you hurt your existing reputation for future games.

 So, just keep working your magic and see how things work out.

 EDIT: I seem to remember saying the same not skimping QA thing before..

[Misery]

I'm not sure you can really worry too much about other things coming out, because there's always going to be something big coming around the corner.

While that's true to a point, games like Diablo and Titanfall are pretty rare.   Few games recieve THAT level of attention, and having them coming out kinda close to one another isnt going to help the situation with TLF one bit.

It's a nasty problem, really.  I think it seriously could cause another situation like what happened with Valley 1.  Sure the game here is very different from what that one was and the art is better according to most, but when it's considered in the presence of those behemoths, this fact is likely to not matter much.   Bloody obnoxious as that is.

Feh.  Damn stupid situation, really. 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Titanfall looks terrible.  Of course it will sell a bajillion copies because graffix + marketing = sales.

Sadly, yes, that's likely to be true.  And then it'll spawn endless dull sequels, with the same "these really are mechs, honest, we totally didn't just enlarge the soldiers and make them look like robots" gameplay.  Ugh.  I'm just going to pretend it doesnt exist from this point on. 

[Aklyon]

Enlarged robotic soldiers are called exoskeletons, I'm pretty sure. Either way, Titanfall looks interesting to watch someone else play. Not quite interesting enough to buy for me however.