Originally Posted by
Dubanka
Shadowbane released as a top 10 pc game in 2003...was trying to google the number, but havent quite tracked it down, but i want to say box saless were in the neighborhood of 300K copies within the first week of release. THis was good, but also horribly horribly bad since the servers/code couldnt handle the level of people that descended upon the game. From a box sale perspective the game was a hit. Free to play occurred in 2006, after the TOO expansion (puke). And the game went on to live 3 more years closing in July of 2009.
Defining the 'who' this game caters to is actually an interesting discussion unto itself...simultaneously a fundamental strength and weakness of the game.
Crafter: IT CATERS TO ME!! Look at all the crafting stuff!!
Builder: NO TO ME!! Terraforming! Walls! I can build a kingdom!!
Carebear: *sigh* cant we all just get along? I want to explore and smell the flowers, tame bambi and live a life of peaceful introspection...mmmmmmmm...The combat system is barely developed, so this game can't be about pvp.
PVPr: Uh, i'm here to kill you. FFA World, promised tribal warfare, look at all these weapon and armor options...hmm, we can build walls, that must mean we will be able to rip them down. Sweet. it's obvious this game was built for me.
We're all seeing what we want to see in the sandbox...which is fantastic.
Hopefull the devs have the skill and energy to find a balance to cater to all the audience that is projecting themselves into the game...We'll see.
as a side note, from a market standpoint...the sbemu project at 1,623 'active' members registered on their forums (over 12k total, but bots and all that so that isn't a real number). For every one of those active members, there are probably 5-7 that they have access to (guilds, etc.)/ influence with. Thats a captive audience that currently has nothing worthwhile/satisfactory to play who is WAITING for the 'game' to be made. No, those are not WoW numbers, this is not wow.
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