ApolyVision ?

[Lhetre]

Just kidding ...

CtP2 has just arrived in France so I sent my personal list of bugs to them. Instead of answering they sent me here. At first I thought you were Activision's Technical Support, now I know you are better than them.

BlueO said :
"All this led to me to realize that, even though the CTP2 team made a pretty good game, they aren't fans of their own game, or civ type games. It seems that none of them played through a complete game, otherwise, they would have realized all the faults that the Aployten fans have found and tweaked them, like we have. This led to the other conclusion, even if Activision had continued to support ctp2, it would still be the lame game it was when it was shipped."

I completely agree.

[CapTVK]

I think we can take this as a compliment.


It's official, Apolyton Rocks!

[skorpion59]

Yes, Apolyton is THE place to be.

So, Markos, when are you going to start getting a portion of Activision's Technical Support budget for supporting CtP2?

[Darkknight]

skorpion

Even firaxis sent me here when I mailed Kelley Gilmore


------------------
" mind over body "

[wittlich]

To know the latest and greatest in the civ community Apolyton IS the place to be!

[CapTVK]

quote: Originally posted by Darkknight on 01-27-2001 10:13 PM skorpion Even firaxis sent me here when I mailed Kelley Gilmore

This might actually work as a business model : independent support site
Apolyton could get a one-year support contract with various software companies for supporting their civ clones and handle the most average problems.

Providing support in a community forum might actually be cheaper than setting up an expensive support site. People can simply ask questions on the forum or browse the threads to find the answer they need. More difficult questions would be redirected to the programmers themselves. Or they could pop in from time to time, (might be helpful if they also met their own public once in awhile )

Could be an interesting source of revenue for the larger specific gaming sites...
[This message has been edited by CapTVK (edited January 28, 2001).]

[MarkG]

and if a company doesn't like the idea what should we do? close down the site?

[CapTVK]

Read the lines MarkG:

independent support site

What would a company not like? True, people will ***** and complain about problems on the forum, but aren't we doing that already?

[MarkG]

you said

quote: Apolyton could get a one-year support contract with various software companies for supporting their civ clones and handle the most average problems.

lets say we suggestr this to firaxis for civ3 and they reject the idea. what do we do? close down the civ3 forums?

you are suggesting that we ask money for something that we already do for free

/scraches his head
"ask for money? why didnt i think of that when we started?"

[MarkG]

ok seriously...

if firaxis is sending people here, they are already creating income for us. when other sites have "affiliate" and "referrer" programs paying in order to get visitors and create a user base, we get them for free.

so we dont any deal that could in the end make us what some magazines are today: multi-page advertisements....

[Lhetre]

Software makers take advantage of our passion. Reading the threads they find a lot of useful ideas. You should be rewarded in a way or the other.
( I thought it was already the case )

[CapTVK]

For the record MarkG,

If Firaxis is already redirecting people with questions about civ3 to the forums here, why not try to make it professional? Once the game is actually released, the support given by fellow users here might actually be more useful and cheaper for most then calling a support hotline.


Magazines get their ad revenues from a group of specific advertisers, why not Apolyton?

[Gwap]

Hmmm, referring people for tech support to an independent forum sounds like a cop-out. I wonder what my boss would say if I sent our customers to this forum too? Ah, he probably would love the idea, as it would save him an absolute fortune. Which is what it probably does for Activision.

On the other hand, it doesn't solve the customers' problems, so they are unlikely to repurchase.