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GameTap Signs GALCOM - Echo Squad Exclusive


Supreme Cmdr
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I am currently at the D.I.C.E. conference in Las Vegas and wanted to post this PR now that the news is official.

In case you folks were wondering why I did this deal. The answer is simple. I have been working with the Turner folks since they licensed two of my games back in 2005. Space sims do well on their service and when they got to play and evaluate GALCOM-ES, we started talking about doing it as an exclusive. The rest was easy.

The industry is shifting rapidly and indies such as myself have to form long term alliances now or face the inevitable. I expect to do several other such deals with Turner in the months to come.

Yes, unfortunately all this means that the only way you are going to get to play GALCOM-ES and any future games in the PC series which are released through GameTap, is through their service.

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So the only way to play will be to pay ~$10 a month? I imagine you have good reasons for doing this but to tell you the honest truth, I personally don't care to have another 'subscription' to pay.

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I hope that strategy works out for you, because personally speaking, I still buy 99.9% of the games the old-fashionned way, although I do so via the internet and have them shipped to me by mail (for 50% of the retail price with little or no S&H fees), using outlets like amazon.com and play.com.

I'm used to downloading patches, but there is still a part of me that likes to have that little box with a CD's/DVD's inside. I used to throw away the cardboard boxes due to space limitations, but I do keep the DVD cases.

I imagine the future is in GameTap, but I'm not sure about the timing. I suppose you have additional facts that motivate your decision.

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quote:

Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

Yes, unfortunately all this means that the only way you are going to get to play GALCOM-ES and any future games in the PC series which are released through GameTap, is through their service.

Does this include ALL future PC games or just the GALCOM series?

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At this point it is unknown. We are currently in negotiations with Turner for the exclusive rights to Bravo Team as well. So that will probably also only be available on GameTap for the same five year exclusive period.

Unless you see an announcement to the effect, you can safely assume that the exclusivity does not apply to all the titles in the GALCOM series.

Listen, I know that some of you are wondering wtf. It is simple economics. While I can't obviously go into any details due to NDAs and all that, it is safe to say the financial incentives of doing exclusives through Turner is far more lucrative and safe than doing the publisher song and dance and then hoping you get paid. So, at the end of the day, if they see a title I have that they like and want it as an exclusive, as long as the price is right, the decision for me is a no-brainer.

The way I see the PC gaming scene going, within the next five years, there will hardly be any PC games on the retailer shelves. Not to mention that there won't be any indie devs left to do them.

GameTap has gone from 100 to 300 to 400 and then to 820+ games in 2006. They tripled their subscriber base in 2006 alone. You simply cannot ignore that.

Microsoft and other publishers are already seeing the effects of making games immediately available to gamers via digital distribution and without the usual hassles of DRM and all that nonsense.

For e.g. the 50MB file limit for games on XBox360 Live! is basically a thing of the past. With that limit lifted, I suspect that more and more XBox360 games will also be available for download purchase on Live! The recent announcement for the BSG game came as no surprise.

The GameTap model is a fairly unique one. To the extent that Showtime networks is about to roll out their own similar On Broadband service soon. I expect others to follow suit.

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  • 1 month later...
Guest Hellbinder[CE]

I am trying to understand the economics.

I thought you were selling at least a couple hundred thousand copies world wide with each major release. At 39$ EA thats over 7 million gross.

It seems amazing to me that GT can make you that much money. Of course i have no idea how there service really works or how your games since BCM have sold.

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quote:


Originally posted by Hellbinder:

I am trying to understand the economics.

I thought you were selling at least a couple hundred thousand copies world wide with each major release. At 39$ EA thats over 7 million gross.

It seems amazing to me that GT can make you that much money. Of course i have no idea how there service really works or how your games since BCM have sold.


Not only do you have the math completely wrong, I have no idea where you got those figures from.

Plus, you are forgetting one simple rule of economics for smart indie devs. A $1 today is worth more than $2 eventually

If the Turner deal wasn't lucrative, I wouldn't have done it.

Picture this. Would you rather take a $1 now, guaranteed, than hope you make $2 at some point?

Apart from that, the GALCOM games, though they use most our existing technologies and mythos, are a radical departure from the BC/UC games style of play. So, apart from the financials, making GC:ES (we're still negotiating on GC:BT which will be revealed this Summer and with all new engines) an exclusive was a no-brainer.

Turner looked at the game since November last year and we've been working closely with them throughout. They liked it. It was going to be a normal non-exclusive license like my other games currently on the service. Then they came back and liked it enough to want it as an exclusive. The rest is history.

btw, Freespace 2 just recently went up on GameTap.

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