Drakensang - Now Steam-y

[wolfing]

That's the typical small publisher problem. If they choose a big partner they lose control over the price, and if they choose a small partner they might be able to control the price but have problems to secure shelf space.

But how important is 'shelf space' nowadays? (specially for PC games since most stores have, if any, a small little shelf with old PC games. I think marrying yourselves with the big houses is actually a detriment for smaller developer houses. They loose too much for what they gain.

I still think dtp should have made all the DL deals themselves, for 40$ / 45 EUR. (difference: taxes). Then only agree to full rice retail deals, and if they can't get them delay mid price retail until the summer.

As it is now they will have 10$ retail units circulating in May.

I disagree. They are a small, mostly unknown house in NA, the game unknown, the rules unknown. It's not necessarily bad for them to have the game sale cheap here. Many people who would have usually passed on it, probably were attracted because of word of mouth, and when looking at the price, gave it a go (and probably liked it). Now these people know about the game. The sequel(s) (or prequels) will have a larger market.

 

[Gorath]

But how important is 'shelf space' nowadays? (specially for PC games since most stores have, if any, a small little shelf with old PC games.

Shelf space is still the most important thing. People can only buy what's on the shelves. Only the hardcore crowd and DL customers can bypass it. The combined number is growing, but it's hardly anywhere close to 50%, single examples aside.

I think marrying yourselves with the big houses is actually a detriment for smaller developer houses. They loose too much for what they gain.

That's hard to say without numbers. But it's not sure there is much of a choice for a small publisher who wants shelf space. Here's an extreme example: Ca. 2 years ago the biggest game retailer in Germany decided they want to optimize their purchasing costs by lowering the number of transaction (every single transaction has a certain cost). Their solution: lower the number of suppliers for games to .... 1! A beauty contest and then one wholesaler gets the exclusive deal. Of course this implies that every other publisher has to sell his stuff to this one supplier first. (I don't know if they really implemented the plan, but the source was a serious one. Financial Times or similar, AFAIR.) Retailers only care about earnings per m². It's really hard to secure shelf space nowadays. Even more so if the big shots pay MDFs for their shelf space.

I disagree. They are a small, mostly unknown house in NA, the game unknown, the rules unknown. It's not necessarily bad for them to have the game sale cheap here. Many people who would have usually passed on it, probably were attracted because of word of mouth, and when looking at the price, gave it a go (and probably liked it). Now these people know about the game. The sequel(s) (or prequels) will have a larger market.

Don't forget to ask who gets the money. If dtp sells online they get between 50 and 70% of the revenue (estimated). If dtp sells retail through a publisher (not distributor!) they get something like 20% of the wholesale price minus COGs. That's hardly more than 3-7$ per unit.
It's quite possible dtp agrees with your assessment and wants to use DraSa to gain market share in NA, to cash in with the prequel. It would be quite an unusual strategy for such a product though. The normal way for a product with limited mass market potential, negligible economies of scale and no direct competition (NWN 2 is old) is a skimming strategy. The 12 months until the prequel would have been more than enough to bring the price down and sell to the budget crowd.