Wardell on Making "GalCiv" Sequel

[DanQ]

In the final of a three-part Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords feature exclusively for Apolyton Civilization Site, computer software developer and publisher Stardock Systems Founder and Chief Executive Officer Brad Wardell talks about making Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords.

Here`s an excerpt:

In our view, being an effective publisher is about two things: Money and clout. If you have enough money to do the advertising, support retail market development funding, pay for manufacturing, and other such things, you're half way there. The other half of publishing is marketing and distribution clout. That's something we were weaker on. [..] The lack of retail clout would ensure that we'd never break any top 10 sales lists. We may do great on a per store basis, but we'd simply not be in enough channels to sell huge numbers. [..]

And getting paid by smaller publishers had proven difficult in the past so we didn't see much benefit of not just doing it ourselves.

See the related news for the first and the second parts of this feature.

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Dan; Apolyton CS

[mike2h]

just glad you do things the way you do. wished some other companies would get a clue.

[bonscott]

The lack of retail clout would ensure that we'd never break any top 10 sales lists. We may do great on a per store basis, but we'd simply not be in enough channels to sell huge numbers.

That must be a couple weeks old probably. Because they came in at #7 overall in the first top 10 sales list they were able to be listed. And that's with the problems of getting enough boxes in the channel. Probably could have been a lot higher had they been able to manufacture enough boxes for the demand.