Interview with John Gibson about Red Orchestra and Tripwire

Strange, I havent seen millions of other games for sale on Steam.

Can't you guys take anything seriously.

You haven't seen millions of other games for sale on Steam yet because it's just starting to catch on as a publication platform. You do see a lot of non-Valve games in the list and that number is only growing

You want to know *how* they got the deal, well either they approached Valve or Valve approached them, and neither case surprises me.

You can preload RO right now from Steam. It's coming next month Only ~25 dollars.

Quote from FrieChamp

Have you read the interview? I think Gibson made a good points about why they release a retail version of RO and not start a new game from scratch now.

They have a pretty solid knowledge about the Unreal 2.5 engine at the moment and got a game which is fun to play, so they decided to polish it and add some things on top of it. With the publishing deal they have got plus the distribution via Steam this is the best choice to make from a business point of view as well, especially considering this is a recently founded studio. Brings cash into the company before they start messing with the UE 3 engine.

My issue with this is we have not seen a big winner with Steam outside valve related games. I think this has to do some with what klein mentioned in how everyone thinks these are valve games.... which I think sadly plays against RO.

Reason being is that we often link valve with 3 games HL, HL2 and CS, outside that most of there stuff has sucked hardcore.... I mean we could say DoD but even then DoD sales have not been as good as I am sure CoD sales or games of likeness. I suspect that RO will recieve a somewhat warm welcome but for the most part not see the sales they are looking for. I think in the end it will be like most mods that have gone retail. And remember Steam is not a game, Its a distrubition path.... it does not sell the game for you that is up to the makers themselves to create content worth playing and sadly compared to the many WW2 games out there I do not see RO being anything big.

I disagree, I think it could become top seller. Steam is an AWESOME way to promote your game, because it is automatically made visible to MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of players who launch Steam to play games like CS. Everyone sees the Update "preload RO now"...Furtheremore it is very easy and convenient and fast to buy games through Steam which is why I think sales for RO might actually be pretty high. We will see how this turns out but I am optimistc that it will live up to the dev's expectations and will hopefully make it possible for them to fund their UE3 project.

Quote from kleinluka

I disagree, I think it could become top seller. Steam is an AWESOME way to promote your game, because it is automatically made visible to MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of players who launch Steam to play games like CS. Everyone sees the Update "preload RO now"...Furtheremore it is very easy and convenient and fast to buy games through Steam which is why I think sales for RO might actually be pretty high. We will see how this turns out but I am optimistc that it will live up to the dev's expectations and will hopefully make it possible for them to fund their UE3 project.

I disagree I think that it will just be dust in the wind after the first intial 2 or 3 months. I do not thing that it will latch on. The ony thing that could propell sales is the method of distro.

It varies based on what scene your modding.

John's theory applies nicely to Unreal because RO was one of the very few quality mods released for it.

Erik's theory applies nicely to Half-Life (2) because there are a lot of quality mods being worked on for it.

Quote from wacko

I disagree I think that it will just be dust in the wind after the first intial 2 or 3 months. I do not thing that it will latch on. The ony thing that could propell sales is the method of distro.

tossing in my hat to agree with wacko here (i know i know)

Red Orchestra has a small following on unreal and as a FREE mod managed to lose many people over time. There are what, 60 people playing right now? That's not exactly a lot of mindshare. Getting distributed on steam doesn't really mean people are all too aware of what's going on. In reality I think it will be released, you'll see a small bump of people buy it, and then it will disappear entirely.

I bet DoD (and DoD was free for LOTS of people who bought hl2 over steam) will outsell it.

Quote from Jeremy

It varies based on what scene your modding.John's theory applies nicely to Unreal because RO was one of the very few quality mods released for it.

Erik's theory applies nicely to Half-Life (2) because there are a lot of quality mods being worked on for it.

WOW!!! Mikey agreeing with me... I am going to write this one down As far as Jermy's comments go. I think your wrong and here is why, I think quality has very little to do with MODs nowdays it more about playability. I mean look at the #1 HL2 mod Garry's mod that is not quality that is some hacked up piece of crap, that allows you do nothing new but race watermelons around the screen or get your picture up on PHL everyweek. I think that the release model that Erik spoke of is one that I think any mod should take part in, whether that be internal releases or external. I think its important to get releases out all the time. I think it builds what people want and that is playability.

I think will wright said it best,"Games are just getting way to good looking, and way to hard to play" I know when I am looking for a game I am looking for something that just plays well all the way through none of this complex quality crap.