DRM ?

[David]

Steam is a great platform but the business model of Steam may not suit all types of games.

If you are interested, you may find previous discussions about this in the Marketing Suggestion forum.

if you put this game on steam, in just 1 day, you will sell more then this game's whole lifetime. I mean really, THERE ARE NO SİMİLAR GAMES with this quality, not even close.

FYI, Enlight's Restaurant Empire 2 and Hotel Giant 2 are available at Steam. We realized, based on our own sale data at Steam, that the above assumption could be true for some games, especially those with mass appeal, high profile games, but not for all types of games.

Steam now has thousands of games and getting constant visibility there for the lesser known titles is much hard than most people think. Most people tend to think that just getting the game on Steam and it will automatically sell well constantly, but the truth is far from that.

[mrbcap]

Steam is a great platform but the business model of Steam may not suit all types of games.

If you are interested, you may find previous discussions about this in the Marketing Suggestion forum.

if you put this game on steam, in just 1 day, you will sell more then this game's whole lifetime. I mean really, THERE ARE NO SİMİLAR GAMES with this quality, not even close.

FYI, Enlight's Restaurant Empire 2 and Hotel Giant 2 are available at Steam. We realized, based on our own sale data at Steam, that the above assumption could be true for some games, especially those with mass appeal, high profile games, but not for all types of games.

Steam now has thousands of games and getting constant visibility there for the lesser known titles is much hard than most people think. Most people tend to think that just getting the game on Steam and it will automatically sell well constantly, but the truth is far from that.

Enlight could at least give it a try on Steam. But it's up to you guys.

[David]

Personally, I have bought more than a dozen games at Steam in the past couple weeks of holidays. The vast majority of them were high profile releases featured on Steam's home page with deep discounts. Although Steam has a huge library of games, my attention was drawn to the big ones and I ended up not buying any other games not featured on the Steam home page nor the top 100 best-selling game list.

I think the criteria of making a success at Steam is to produce the type of games that are qualified for featuring on the Steam home page, and that is a very specific set of criteria that only a very small number of games can meet. So there are titles enjoying really big commercial successes at Steam, but there are also games only getting lackluster sales.

For us, i think it is important to understand the business model of each method of distribution and sale, and tailor a distribution and sale method that we believe will work best for the type of game we are producing.

[StijnDP]

One of the requirements before Steam would have to be removing the DRM. Even the biggest games feel it on sale revenue when they put bad DRM in their game and the Steam community would be relentless against DRM in a game as Cap.

You'll get more than 1000people in 3years there but it'd be wise to start on a good foot if you ever do. Very basic things like no tut and too limited screen resolutions need to be fixed before introducing it to the grand public. Basically CapLab will need to evolve into C3 before it will be taken seriously. But there are very few sims out there and gamers still have to play games more than a decade old to got their fun so the market is there. Even with SC2013 because that will focus kids and facebook addicts.

[David]

To succeed in Steam, a game also needs to exhibit a business model where sequel productions are run on a predictable schedule. Games are extremely heavily discounted near the end of their product life cycle to maximize the user base size, which will give the sequel a much larger potential customer base.

Capitalism Lab has a different business model, where our priorities are to keep improving the game (provided that we have sufficient resources), instead of producing a full-blown sequel with a new graphics engine and better graphics, which we do not think are in the best interest of CapLab's users. (When dev resources go into graphics, there will be less resources allocated to gameplay improvement.)

Again, there are lots of success stories at Steam but each of them has their own causes for the success. Trying to replicate other people's success by following their business models will only end up hurting one's original plan and come up short on both sides. We would rather focus on our own approach, and continue to serve our user base in the current way.

[haplo]

I have a stationary AND a laptop which I use both. How do I use the software then? I heard I can only activate the game once. The stationary is shaped for the best performance and convenience. However, my work often makes me travel to locations (=laptop) with no cell phone connection (=no Internet). I want to have the game licensed (my respect to the devs), but the idea of buying the game twice for both of my devices is, umm, weird, as I am the only person to use it anyway If buying the game twice for offline play is the only solution not to be "a big ugly stinky pirate", that is plain paranoia, with all due respect.
Devs...? Anyone...?

I've bought it once and played it on multiple machines. I'm not sure what makes you think you'd need to buy it multiple times?

There seems to be 2 people upset about the DRM, but I can't exactly figure out why. As far as DRM goes, this is one of the most benign forms I've seen. No rootkits, etc. Being online is a standard to a vast majority of users. Two users it seems have problems with it, whose purchases are roughly equal to the cost of one months internet here.

It seems people expect a lot for their money these days.

Sorry for my late opinion id dindn't recognize this thread befor.

There are more than two persons who are disagree to drm.

In fact i buyed the game without recognizing the drm think.
In general i have no problem with this think

BUT: I use a laptop and don't have inetrent in for example my living room.
To play capitalism lab i have to sit in my office and this is worst for me.
Alos not able to play the game outside on my laptop or in holidays away from home (no internet) is not acceptable.

To be honest: If i had the chance again i would not buy it because of this inconvenience.

I payed it and i cant use it for my needs as i like to...

By the way: The game is great! And i love it! Beside the DRM...

[David]

FYI, actually you could still play the game for one hour without Internet coverage by loading a save game. The game will quit one hour afterward if no Internet is present, but it will auto save before quitting and you could restart the game immediately and reload the game to continue.

http://www.capitalismlab.com/forum/view ... 5401#p5394

[haplo]

FYI, actually you could still play the game for one hour without Internet coverage by loading a save game. The game will quit one hour afterward if no Internet is present, but it will auto save before quitting and you could restart the game immediately and reload the game to continue.

http://www.capitalismlab.com/forum/view ... 5401#p5394

Thanks for this information i will test it.
I also like to add to my comment some points.

The work you do with capitalism lab is great! And its the best simulation on the market!
I fully understand the need to protect your rights against copying and so using DRM.
The only thinks why i hate this thinks is a fact which can't be changed by you or me.
Some people (like we here) are prepared to pay for a game and we do this.
Some people don't pay and they will use it by copying(which is not legal)
The result: The people who are paying for this game have to accept inconvenience because other people are acting against laws...
Thats why i'm upset at this topic...

[Esoteric Rogue]

The result: The people who are paying for this game have to accept inconvenience because other people are acting against laws...
Thats why i'm upset at this topic...

Needing to be online isn't an inconvenience to me. It is a restriction: as far as, if I wanted to play it on a non-internet device, I can't. So, I didn't purchase it for a situation that would be included in that restriction. I purchased it for play on my primary home PC, which is connected to the Internet well over 99% of the time (my cable and electricity provider is affected by inclement weather on average 3 times a year for some seconds, and once a year for some hours, else it would be 100%)

What I wanted to argue with is the concept of "inconvenience". What was inconvenient was all those old game that asked you to look up word 12 on page 36 of the manual and type it in. You always lose the manual sooner or later, or if you lent it to a friend you'd always forget to give him the manual. At best you had to dig it out of a drawer or box every time you start up the program.

So, by using this program under conditions that are not include in the restrictions, there is essentially no perceivable inconvenience. A few extra lines of code is all, which I am not going to notice the extra bytes of file size or milliseconds of authentication.

Have fun!

[WilliamMGary]

FYI, actually you could still play the game for one hour without Internet coverage by loading a save game. The game will quit one hour afterward if no Internet is present, but it will auto save before quitting and you could restart the game immediately and reload the game to continue.

http://www.capitalismlab.com/forum/view ... 5401#p5394

I lost internet last week and was very happy that I could still play.