New Dreamcast releases - Your opinions

[goatdan]

Please read through this, I would greatly appreciate it... and there is a deal at the end ;)

As many people on here know, the GOAT Store has so far published three games for the Sega Dreamcast since the system has no longer been supported in the United States. As I've mentioned in some posts, most recently the "developers pissed off" thread, these releases have drawn interest from industry insiders as a possible 'new idea' about how to publish small, niche titles and possibly make money.

A few facts about our releases:

- They are playable on any system no matter the region encoding -- PAL or NTSC. In fact, to date over 60% of each release has been sold in Asia and over 75% of each release has been sold outside of the US.
- They are professionally pressed discs in a professional jewel case. They are silk screened. Everything about them is done with the utmost care to details. There is no burning and no self-printing done here. In fact, I have a hunch that we are using the same factory that Sega used for their releases.
- They are developed independantly by developers that are developing as a side job or to do concepts that they couldn't otherwise do.
- They are developed in the KallistiOS environment, which means that we do not have to pay Sega licensing fees and gives the same functionality as the actual development system, if not more because people are still developing for it.

Now, we want everyone to take these releases as serious as a real release. We have taken some steps to do so. For starters, every release from here on out will get its own bar code.

Some industry insiders are trying to convince me to get the games ESRB rated, which I really can't afford at this time, although we are keeping the option open (and have had paperwork sent to us from the ESRB about the possibility of doing so). What I am wondering is what else could we do to make the games releases even better?

I would really like to hear what serious game collectors think that we could do to improve the look and feel of the games. I won't name here what we have come up with, because I want everyone to come up with their own opinions. I will be paying very close attention, and you can expect at least some of the opinions to happen as soon as possible.

Now, for the deal. Please only take advantage of this if you reply in the thread, but to thank you for giving me / us your opinion, we have put a limited number of our Dreamcast releases up for sale exclusively through this thread and one other I'll write later tonight. You can get all three releases for $36.00, which is a savings of $8.70 from their usual price. To take advantage of this deal, the link is - http://goatstore.com/info.php?id=372030

Thanks a ton in advance!

[Kilik Kurosawa]

it may be confusing to some but my first thought was "how about some commercials or print ads advertising these releases?"

[Funk Buddy]

I bought the three games in the last sale you did here. I have not played them yet, but the looks are high quality. The only thing I can think of right now is the covers could be a little thicker stock. Very minor. I will make an effort to play them ASAP and post my thoughts then.

I don't think the cost of "real" advertising would be worth it. I think that "word of mouth" if pushed hard enough, will work wonders.

[max 330 mega]

this may not be the type answer you are looking for, but something i would love to suggest is possibly to have someone create a shmup and you guys release it.
i like the look of your games and the quality very much, and totally understand its not up to you what genre of game gets made for your releases, but i would love to see a more arcade fast paced oriented game get a release from you guys.

i think its great what you are doing for the DC community, i cannot thank you enough for releasing more games for my beloved little system, and more than anything i just want to say "keep up the great work"

*goes off to buy games from link*

[crazyjackcsa]

Hate to say it, but I'd like to see something a little bit more accessable. I see a Sega swirl knock off, a japanese puzzler and a DDR knock off. Not to take away from what all you folks (Programmers and goat store) are doing, but if somebody programmed a KD game, or a platformer (Other than a BOR remix) I'd be all over it, they do look very professional, just not my style of game is all. I'm not looking for flashy 3d or anything, just something really really different.

[drwily008]

I, for one, already consider these actual releases. But, if you are having troubles convincing other gamers/collectors, I think that if you contacted SEGA themselves you could get on the right track to convincing others. Contacting SEGA would be a great step in getting these games officially liscensed. This would also allow for the use of the "SEGA DREAMCAST" official logo on all of your current and future games. Forgive me if this strategy has already been thought of , it was the first thing that came to mind.

I for one think if you came out with one blockbuster hit, everyone in the gaming community would then take notice. I would say that a side-scrolling 2-D shooter, a 2-D platformer, or a really good 3-D game (any genre) would make the general Dreamcast public stop and notice all of your efforts.

Another angle that I'm not sure if you covered is the distribution through Mom & Pops Video game stores country wide. Give them a chance to get a great price on them, so they can make a decent profit selling them for the same price you do on your website. I for one would consider carrying your products in MY store if I knew I could turn them out quickly for a 25-30% profit margin. AND I would definitely not hesitate on selling them if you would consider a consignment type of sale. (My store is slated for a July 4th grand opening PM me for any type of deals you would like to work out.)

[K3V]

I've heard that Duranik is developing a shmup for the DC. If you can publish that, I think you'll be in good shape.

[ubersaurus]

Put me in the camp of wanting a shmup. I just don't care about DDR, and puzzle games aren't exactly my favorite genre.

[rick weis]

i was interested in getting these long ago, but your store and web tv don't work well together, i sent you a PM (or e-mail) about it, but nothing ever became of it. so i figure if you can do without my business, i can do without your games...

so, i guess i would say, improve your customer service!

PM me if you would like to make a sale.

Rick

[goatdan]

All right... just some general responses because I don't want to derail anyone's thoughts too much:

As for advertising, I've looked into it... but an advertisement in a publication like Game Informer or EGM is rather costly and probably wouldn't be that noticed. For us to spend a lot of money doing that is out of the question.

We have opened an affiliate program, and we are hoping that program (which is basically word of mouth) will really help. If anyone wants more inforamtion on it, I can provide that. We think it's quite good :)


I have not played them yet, but the looks are high quality. The only thing I can think of right now is the covers could be a little thicker stock. Very minor.

I don't know how much that costs or anything like that, but I'll see what I can find. I just looked at Sega GT vs. Feet of Fury however, and they seemed very similar. The difference I saw was that Sega GT had an extra 20 pages or so inside, while our releases don't have any. That could be something else we would look into, although cost would be another major consideration.


this may not be the type answer you are looking for, but something i would love to suggest is possibly to have someone create a shmup and you guys release it.

Actually, we have a few in development right now, two of which I think will see releases at some point.


Hate to say it, but I'd like to see something a little bit more accessable. I see a Sega swirl knock off, a japanese puzzler and a DDR knock off. Not to take away from what all you folks (Programmers and goat store) are doing, but if somebody programmed a KD game, or a platformer (Other than a BOR remix) I'd be all over it, they do look very professional, just not my style of game is all. I'm not looking for flashy 3d or anything, just something really really different.

Well, believe it or not the "DDR knock off" is by far our most accessible game published so far, and has sold like crazy in Asia. As much as I'd like to get the releases taken more seriously in the US, Asia is our target market. Sega is still publishing there, and we try to make our games specifically to cater to that market.

Also, just a note -- Inhabitants isn't a Sega Swirl knock off. It's really hard to explain... There is a demo here to check it out - http://sfsoftware.zophar.net/games.htm

And Maqiupai isn't a usual take on a Shanghai style game.

I'm not trying to convince you (or anyone ;) ) that the games are different than what you think, but we are purposely not trying to do something that has been done before with releases because we need the games to sell a pretty good number for us to even break even. Making a game that you could get much cheaper somewhere else is something we can't risk.


I, for one, already consider these actual releases. But, if you are having troubles convincing other gamers/collectors, I think that if you contacted SEGA themselves you could get on the right track to convincing others. Contacting SEGA would be a great step in getting these games officially liscensed. This would also allow for the use of the "SEGA DREAMCAST" official logo on all of your current and future games. Forgive me if this strategy has already been thought of , it was the first thing that came to mind.

No need for forgiveness... we have already tried this, and the cost of becoming officially licensed would be goofy for both us to do or for Sega to do. The amount of time for them to write up the paperwork and to cash the checks would probably cost them more in labor than they would make in money.

But something tells me that Sega knows what is going on and approves... I don't know what it is exactly, but for some reason I'm positive that is the case ;)


I would say that a side-scrolling 2-D shooter, a 2-D platformer, or a really good 3-D game (any genre) would make the general Dreamcast public stop and notice all of your efforts.

Good news. Two 2D platformers are in the work, (as mentioned) two schmups, and two incredbily good looking 3D games are in the works too. Here is a preview of one :D

http://www.renate-hat.onlinehome.de/tillorg/a128/shots/SHOT22-g.jpg


Another angle that I'm not sure if you covered is the distribution through Mom & Pops Video game stores country wide.

Yes. I want to do this, but have no solid distribution method to contact everyone. Expect a PM soon though ;)


i was interested in getting these long ago, but your store and web tv don't work well together, i sent you a PM (or e-mail) about it, but nothing ever became of it. so i figure if you can do without my business, i can do without your games...

so, i guess i would say, improve your customer service!

I'm really glad that you posted actually. For those of you that don't know, the GOAT Store is only two of us doing this as side jobs. We do all we can to update the Web site, help create new products, get stuff in stock and so on. The problem is that with only two of us, we can't cover every angle and once in a while, we accidentally let things slip.

Rick, I can't find any record of what your problem was, but if you can send it to me again, I would be happy to put it at the top of the list or figure out some way around it.

And for anyone that finds a problem with the site for them... we do this because both Gary and I know what a great feeling it is to get a new part of a collection, and we really enjoy helping to bring that feeling to others. If you have anything that you find wrong, please email or PM me. I'm not trying to sound silly when I say this, but we _made_ the GOAT Store to try to help collectors as much as possible, and if it isn't working for you for whatever reason, tell us. We have a laundry list of things we want to accomplish right now, but we are always open to new things and we will try to work with you to come up with a better solution.

When I get more time, I'm going to be expanding on that exact topic later tonight in my other post ;)

Thanks everyone so far!

[o2william]

Now, we want everyone to take these releases as serious as a real release.

When you say "everyone," who do you mean? IMO the mainstream gamers (meaning the people who play the current generation exclusively) will never take new Dreamcast releases seriously because DC is a dead system in their eyes. Even if all the games had an ESRB rating and were sold in Wal-Mart I think the best scenario would be Joe PS2 Owner murmuring, "Hmm, Dreamcast! Didn't realize they still made games for that thing," as he pays for his copy of Madden 2006 or whatever. The mainstream will regard it as a "real" release if they see it in a big-name B&M store such as GameStop, but they doesn't mean they will buy it.

If you're talking collectors, it's just my hunch, but I suspect a lot of them will regard the games as "real" releases provided they know about them. ESRB probably wouldn't make a difference. Increasing word-of-mouth and maybe getting the games reviewed by big sites like IGN or GameSpot would help increase visibility, especially if the reviewer doesn't treat the game like a simple homebrew.

I think the big problem is that there's a kind of collectible mystique to games that came out during the system's commercial lifespan that aftermarket games -- no matter how fun or professionally produced they are -- will always lack. Call it historical value for lack of a better term. I know I have a hard time getting as excited about a new homebrew as I do about games that were released "in the day." It's really illogical in many ways, but it's true.

I think DrWily008's suggestion about having some kind of official licensing arrangement with Sega is a great idea, but I don't know how plausible it is. It would be harder to consider your games not "real" releases if they had Sega's blessing.

I don't know if anything I said here will help or not... just kind of thinking out loud. Hopefully you'll be able to continue doing good work. I think it's great that people are keeping the DC alive.

[CreamSoda]

I think it's pretty cool, and I say best of look to you!

I would love to do stuff like this(or help out) but I have no programming skills whatsoever. :(

I will buy some of your software in the future, but I gotta wait until I get paid cause I just reserved a PSP with Twisted Metal. :-P

[Muscelli]

Hey dan, I have a few suggestions

Ask metafox if demos of ur games can be put on dreamon volume 1 (if it ever happens) this can lure in a bunch of potential buyers, i bet...

You should also contact a bunch of devvers too and see if they want their stuff published... Brandanjam (the guy responsible for beats of rage) is working on another title, and the quality of BOR was amazing for a homebrew.. Ian michael is always a good canidate, though he seems to be MIA. :eek 2:

You also should have another coding grand prix, please dont tell me that the winners of the last coding grand prix will get thier educational games published by goatstore... please..

also, i remember a post about sega contacting u reguarding these at dcemulation... whatever happened about that?

OK, I really want those games, so plz check my list and respond asap! thanks.

also, Sequels are ur friend.. :D

[ClubNinja]

Unfortunately, my two contributions to this thread have already been touched upon, but I'll reinforce them.

- I share the afforementioned, entirely unreasonable feeling towards games produced after the "official" lifespan of a system. Every time I want to get excited about a homebrew game, or something more professional like these games, I end up putting my money towards something released during normally - something "official". Of course, this means nothing when considering the quality of a game, but it's a stigma that's tough (maybe impossible) to break.

- Several times, I've tried to get myself to buy these three DC games (I'm sure I'll be doing that again once I finish typing), yet I stop myself everytime. Unfortunately, the game styles don't really excite me yet (though I feel very drawn to one of the three). I've always viewed the Dreamcast as an arcade console. Just about every DC game I have is some sort of arcade port. I want 2D shooting, fighting, and beating-up action. I can go for the same things in 3D, too. Apparently, I'm not the only one, and apparently, you're working on this. Well sweet! I'm not necessarily interested in something that "pushes the limits" of the system, I just want a variety of addictive, arcade-style games.

You're doing good things for a good machine. It is very appreciated.

[goatdan]

Hey dan, I have a few suggestions

Ask metafox if demos of ur games can be put on dreamon volume 1 (if it ever happens) this can lure in a bunch of potential buyers, i bet...

Done... I even have a beta(?) copy of DreamOn. It all depends on how big it gets, but that would be a definite.


You should also contact a bunch of devvers too and see if they want their stuff published... Brandanjam (the guy responsible for beats of rage) is working on another title, and the quality of BOR was amazing for a homebrew.. Ian michael is always a good canidate, though he seems to be MIA. :eek 2:

We have. Anything that seems to be a candidate gets some sort of message to gauge their interest. I'll be honest -- I am interested in everything, but it has to truly be a good game to make me decide to risk a ton of money on publishing it. We take 100% of the risk, and our deal with developers is better than anything else around. So good that even some professional development houses have been in contact with me about possibly trying stuff with them. Although the legal red tape that they want me to do will probably make most of it unacceptable.

I can say this though -- there is a game in the DP database right now that was released for a different console as a full release. A port of it is in serious development for the Dreamcast right now, and I'm hoping to have it released by the end of this year.


You also should have another coding grand prix, please dont tell me that the winners of the last coding grand prix will get thier educational games published by goatstore... please..

Actually, the coding gran prix had nothing to do with us, and as far as I know, the educational games will not be released through us ;) There is another DreamON contest going on that we would publish from if worthy candidates come out of it, and GOAT Games will give chances for littler games to get a special publication...

Which reminds me. We just had a contest close... I need to put up information on that soon. Drat. Too much life going on at once!


also, i remember a post about sega contacting u reguarding these at dcemulation... whatever happened about that?

"I don't know of anyone ever talking with me from Sega." There was talks about someone else contacting them on our behalf, but nothing ever came of that.


OK, I really want those games, so plz check my list and respond asap! thanks.

Will do tonight!


also, Sequels are ur friend.. :D

Sequels to which games do you think?

Thanks!

[Muscelli]

sequels would be great for feet of fury defiantly, and goatgames vol.2 would be swell

[NoahsMyBro]

I for one have thought what you're doing is very, very cool, but I haven't ever gotten around to actually purchasing anything from you.

AND, if I'm not mistaken, didn't you used to be active over at Jaguar Interactive a few years ago? I seem to recall you being around over there prior to the Goat Store, and possibly around the time you started it up. Of course I haven't been on that forum in a few years myself. If I'm remembering correctly and you were there, I need to apologize, but at the time I very much did not take you seriously. It's not your fault, but there were so many jokers routinely making grand announcements about their stores/game projects/etc.... that it was pretty easy to just assume all of it was BS, no matter the source.

But back to the topic at hand --
As I said, I haven't bought anything from the Goat Store yet. So I don't know how you're games are packaged, printed, play, or anything else. Keep that in mind if I write something ignorant.

The 'professional' releases all had attractive, polished-looking jewel case covers and inserts. I think you mentioned that you have those too - good. If not, you shoudl have them. Also, I'd expect to see the same icon/symbol/logo/whatever on the back that represented the various features and peripherals associated with a game - you know, the number of players symbol, VMU blocks used, which controller, etc... I never managed to get a decent printout of it, but a while back I found (I think here, maybe posted by Achika?) jewelcase artwork for DC Half-Life. It looks great, and includes the symbols I'm talking about on the back insert.

Also, a nice, professional instruction manual. I'm not talking about something cheap-looking like what came with Atari 7800 games. And I realize I'll probably never again see full-color manuals like those I got with new 2600 games (though it seems Gamecube games have full-color instruction books! Yay!). But provide a decent-sized, real instruction manual. I'm not expecting the works of Shakespeare, but a few pages of instructions, rather than a photocopied 1-page sheet folded over, would definitely make me take the release more seriously.

And as for a specific idea - I know most folks around here won't care for it and maybe it's a bad idea for you sales-wise, but the Dreamcast has no decent baseball game. I don't care about the players, rosters, stats, etc... I guess most people that would be interested in a baseball game would want those, and I assume that's too expensive and "legally" to manage, but I enjoyed Intellivision and 5200 baseball a thousand years ago, and when I tried out the Dreamcast baseball games, and saw there was no fielding at all, I was pretty much disgusted with the game. Maybe a cartoony, unrealistic baseball game could be done - silly, space-alien type players - yoou could have fun making up the names, maybe they could have different physical abilities, I'm just thinking out loud here. But if you pulled it off you wouldn't need to worry about licensing of leagues, players, etc... Hell, if it could be arranged with Ubisoft, use the Stupid Invaders characters.

OK, I know that's getting completely ridiculous, so I'll stop here. Hopefully some of what I said may be helpful. In the meantime, I'm going to take you up on the deal you mentioned above. Related to that, I haven't looked yet, but if it isn't already available somewhere, you should publish on your site, and allow folks to re-post it themselves in case something happens to the store, a faq on building a dancepad that can be used with FOF or BOR.

-- Steve

-- added -- one more thing - I'm sitting here typing this with my Stelladaptor sitting right next to my keyboard. For all I know Joe Grand has given Atari Age some sort of exclusive on this product, but if not, it's really good and perhaps your store could offer it. You may also want to ask Ron Lloyd about offering 5200 QFTGC once it's complete and released.

[Arcturius]

dreamon volume 1

have to be careful about that really 'DreamOn Vol.1' was the disk that came with the PAL Dreamcasts at launch so the name/product is already in use.

[ddockery]

I keep meaning to buyb these even though the games themselves don't really appeal to me. Why? Because I want a copmplete collection, so your objective of being seen as a "real" release is completed on my end. Please, if ESRB ratings would cost you anything, don't waste the money. I don't think ANYONE would care about that either way.

[Gemini-Phoenix]

Advertising seems a good idea. To many, they are reading this thread scratching their heads wondering what the products actually even look like!

Post up some pics of the front / back covers, disc, & manual Etc.


Also, a whole heap of screenshots would also be nice to show off the games.


As for cost - If you post the pics on various forums, it will cost you virtually nothing except time & effort.


I'm reading this now and all I have is three titles to go by. I can't even tell what genre of game they are, let alone what the game consists of...

I'm taking a guess here:

Feet Of Fury - A DDR style game?
Inhabitants - A Populous type of god sim perhaps?
Maqiupai - Who knows???


Word of mouth is ok, but it would have a bigger impact if you posed some visual aids...

[Xexyz]

Well, official or not, I can't resist a good quality shmup. Hopefully one will at least be a vertical manic bullet shmup and the other one a horizontal shmup (or both verts, I really don't care just as long as one of them is manic). They will most definately be purchased by myself in the future if they look really good. Also, a question: Any of the developers you are publishing for have 2D style beat em ups in the vein of Streets of Rage and Final Fight in the works?

[rpepper9]

I think it would have the biggest impact if you could get other online retailers to sell your games too. Or if you could get them out into the small game stores. Even if people were browsing the used racks a the local game crazy or eb games and found your titles that woud at least let people know that they are available.

[WiseSalesman]

Others have already said it, but the reason I haven't purchased any of the goat store dreamcast releases is that, despite being a big DDR fan, I didn't enjoy Feet of Fury much, and the other two games (a cookie cutter puzzle game and a mah jjong knock-off) aren't exactly something I'm clamoring over. When the new games you're talking about above are released, I'll give goat store another look.

[Wookie]

Lacking other advertising outlets, the occasional reminder post here helps. I'd planned to order these a while ago but forgot. You made at least one sale just by mentioning the games here!

[kainemaxwell]

They look good, but like mentioned before gimme a quality shooter or platformer and I'll buy.

[StealthLurker]

They look good, but like mentioned before gimme a quality shooter or platformer and I'll buy.

Gimme a good gunstar heroes clone. =]

[FurinkanianFrood]

I am seriously considering buying everything released in this manner, just to support this kind of thing. The more reminders I see here the more I want to find the money.

The games are nice enough I think, and from the sound of it things will only get better.

I would like to find time to do some development for DC myself.

As far as advertising, maybe some non mainstream video game sites might be willing to help out.