ID:53377
 
I mentioned this on my previous post, but I think it deserves a post of its own: Mayhem Intergalactic, the game formerly known as the BYOND game Yet Another Generic Space-Age Conquest Game, is now on Steam!

Please check it out and help this former BYONDer hit the big time with a splash. :-)

You can view the HD gameplay video or get the demo on Steam. Or, if you're not a Steam person, you can always get it direct from me.

Wage war on your friends and enemies in this simple and engaging strategy game. Easy to learn and quick to play, Mayhem Intergalactic is surprisingly strategic. Play against the computer, or duke it out with friends over the internet. The universe shall be yours!

Key features:
  • This uniquely streamlined take on the classic "4X" (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) genre provides your strategy fix in minutes, not hours.
  • A stirring dynamic soundtrack spurs you on to glorious victory!
  • Randomly-generated and hand-crafted maps offer interesting and varied tactical situations.
  • Create your own galaxies, then conquer them — or share them with friends.
  • Simple rules, emergent strategy. Blitzkrieg or defense-in-depth? Power on through the front lines or sneak around the back? Attack with full strength and leave yourself open to counterattack, or split your fleet and risk total annihilation? Dozens more tactics await discovery.
  • An alien wearing a monocle!
Does this mean you're done beta testing? I was talking with Danial, and he said that you wanted to make sure it was bug free before the big launch. If that's the case and you have squashed them then kudos to you. Hope this starts a snowball and gets you rolling into success.
Great job Crispy. Here's to good sales!
Yes, beta testing is over now (though people can still send me bug reports of course, if they find any). :-)

Thanks, both of you!
Looks great, though, it seems like the $9.99 is a tad too high for me, sorry.
Perhaps when I get some more crash flowing in, I'll consider it.
Does it use a Server List like Valve? Or do you have to know the person's IP to connect?
Yes, it uses both the Steam server browser and its own built-in one.
Why is getting it direct from you way more expensive than Steam?
Because Steam is doing a 50% off sale on it for the opening week. The standard price is the same everywhere ($19.99). But since you mentioned it, I'm now matching their sale. This week only! =)
Turns out the Australian dollar is fairly scummy at the moment so buying will have to wait till Monday. Do you get less money from Steam purchases and what's the DRM like with direct ones?

Edit: Also, does it get more involved in the full game? The demo seems kinda bare.
You probably need to seriously consider lowering your price point. Why would someone pay $20 for a low-budget indie 4X game when they can get something like Sins of a Solar Empire for the same price or less? You'd sell a lot more copies at $5.99... and especially if you're just starting out, building a larger player base is just as valuable as having cash-in-hand.
@Smoko: Yes, I get a bit less money from Steam purchases than from direct ones, since Valve takes a bigger cut than a run-of-the-mill e-commerce provider (and rightfully so). It's totally up to you though. Valve's cut is smaller than most in the industry; they're very developer-friendly like that.

There is no DRM in the non-Steam version; I don't believe in it. You just download and run a full version installer. I fully expect to hit a piracy rate of 90% once I get "noticed", which royally sucks, but I also recognise there's nothing positive I can do about it.

The Steam version has Steam DRM, like all Steam titles.

@Silk: Believe me, I've gone over the pricing issue about a million times. I haven't tried $5.99, but I have tried $9.97 and I can tell you that I didn't sell a single extra copy more than I would have at $19.99. (The conversion rate - that is, sales divided by demo downloads - was exactly the same at either price point during the period of my pricing experiment.)

The bottom line is that it's not particularly price-sensitive. If you're gonna buy it then you're gonna buy it; otherwise you're not. Lowering the price doesn't change that until you go all the way down to "free".

Like all games, Sins of a Solar Empire is a different game and offers a different experience. Games are competitors, especially at retail, but this is less true in the downloadable space than you might think; it's a big internet. Furthermore, there's nothing stopping someone buying both games. At $10-$20 a game, most people can afford two games if they can afford one, especially if they're fans of the genre.
Regarding pricing, I should add: My conversion rate is fairly good compared to the anecdotal "industry average" of 1%. This would seem to indicate that I'm not doing anything particularly wrong regarding the product and its pricing and packaging; I just need more traffic.
Awesome!

People often don't understand limited price sensitivity. They assume increasing demand with lowered price, which often isn't the case. In fact, lowering prices can actually hurt demand if the product is then perceived as having lower quality!

Do you prefer direct purchases or Steam purchases?
Indeed. Pricing is tricky like that. =)

Direct purchases are slightly better for me (I think - it's hard to tell since the overhead tends to vary a bit), but there's not much in it. Whichever is more convenient.

Sorry for not responding to this for so long! I haven't been checking my BYOND email alerts for a while...