The biggest irony of the game apparently being rough around the edges but otherwise a potentially decent blobber is that he could have actually knuckled down and finished it 20 years ago to what would likely have been a far large audience and he could have then proceeded to make a living as a game developer. Instead of choose to spend massive amount of time not finishing the game but making a laughing stock of himself. He could have been a success 20 years ago, instead he chose to waste 20 years being one of the internet’s longest running jokes. He could have spent the last 20 years doing what he loves and crafting a whole series of Grimoire games.
In some ways it would be far less pathetic if the game where an unplayable piece of crap and there was never a chance of any success. The dude wasted 20 years of his life to be an dick on the internet when he could have been releasing games. All he apparently had to do was actually work on the game for a few weeks and he could have made one of his initial release dates so long ago.
Apparently he hasn’t sent the crowdfunding keys yet. Out of 113 reviews, only 2 are done by people who got a key.
Concurrent players peak at launch for most tiles. Grimoire is currently at 170, which is on track for first years sales of 10-20k units as long as he does moderate discounts during sales. It’s still too early to tell (it might pick up) but I would be surprised if it does significantly worse than that.
I do find the game interesting, but too old school for my taste (I will need a deep discount). I’ll stick with getting Etrian Odyssey V when it comes out.
All I’m saying is that they are reviews by paying customers. I don’t care why people are reviewing or buying the game, or how much they have played, I’m just stating that they are doing so. Many games have sold a lot of copies just by being known by many people, even if for the wrong reasons (or at least reasons I wouldn’t buy a game for). Many of those games aren’t even liked by the customers (judging by their reviews).
But those numbers are decent, although not infallible, predictors, whatever the causes for the numbers.
This is a single man development team, with no PR or marketing budget whatsoever, who is going to do way better than most of its peers (specially at 2-3X the price of similar projects). I don’t mind it and the game seems it might have something going for it, but right now we can say the developers attitude certainly helped the product be noticed.
I’m shocked by the number of fantastic brilliant games I see on Steam that have like 500 sales total. If you don’t have a celebrity angle, or get really lucky, you just don’t get noticed at all.
Well consider how many people might have bought the game to leave a scathing review and then refunded it. That wouldn’t be something he would mention. OTOH I can understand why indies would feel that way. It’s a strange blip on the radar that may soon disappear. The long run will no doubt show something different.
BTW what game have you recently done. Please excuse my ignorance. If you can’t post it here send me a link in a PM.
If the release of Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar is what made them finally realize that indie game development is hopeless, then I’m not sure what to say.
The game may have a ton of stuff in it, but does it include stuff that was already becoming the norm in 1997 like tooltips? Did that 20 years of work go into making a good UI for the player to use, or did it go into a lot of complicated gameplay mechanics that happen behind the scenes?
Grimoire sounds to me like a classic example of why Sid Meier asks, “Who is having the fun? Is it the player, the computer, or the developer?”
Again, I would have never have heard of the game if it wasn’t for this incredibly popular thread. It’s not uncommon for me to check Qt3 and see 100 new posts in this thread, while even popular main stream games get maybe a dozen new posts in the same time. And frankly the overall tone here made me more interested to see what it is all about. You guys hate Cleve and his game so much, yet you are giving it free publicity.
Was wondering when we’d get another abdication of personal responsibility post here. “I wasn’t going to be interested in this game, but land sakes! You all post about it so!”
Look no one here’s giving Cleve any more “publicity” than the guy’s already carved out for himself across Usenet, across your posting time on Octopus Overlords going back to Gone Gold across 23 years.
And if a thread full of folks saying “This guy is a mentally unbalanced nutjob and virulent racist and it bleeds into the game he made” made you think “Yes, I’d like to sample his wares; that sounds very appealing to me!” then that’s all on you. Don’t go looking to toss off your guilt on us.
(And to be clear, if you’re someone who’s curious about this thing because you’ve followed this saga for decades and you’re interested to see what the end result is…go for it. And if reading about it in this thread is making you want to buy it…hey, go for it also. Just don’t hit this thread with “Man, you guys sure made this racist dude seem very appealing.” Because even the folks who seem to be getting enjoyment from the game aren’t saying that here.)
I am gonna be honest with you.
The fact that the game is made by decent people don’t make it great , fantastic or people is obligate to support stuff that they don’t want because consumers are not charity.
If they are struggling is because they have no public in mind or don’t know how market well their game.
You can say the UI is ugly , its a lot complex and its archaic but is basically what he promised.
Read the people that play the game , is for old fans that love games like wizardy , like no crawlers in general but a game just as deep as Wizardy.
Cleve public are these guys that want more of these type of games so of course he is gonna have sales. These guys don’t want crawlers , they laught when people say play Grimrock instead of Grimoire because they don’t want that , they want that old crpg “clunkiness” older tittles have.
So don’t blame him because he pleased his target audiences , the ones that just wanted another Wizardy like game and not a EO , or SMT or a Grimrock.
The price is just another story, he legit don’t want a big profit and thats ok i guess , his money not mine.
