Collaborative marketing

[dak]

Well we made it, and Book 2 ended up costing about twice as much as Book 1 did to develop.

I found this a bit strange, after all you are using same engine, how come it ended up costing twice as much?

[Lhoric]

I took a trip in my car and traveled twice as far, and hit some traffic along the way. Why did my fuel costs increase when petrol costs as much as the last time?? OK, that's my sarcastic way of saying that Book II has so many more features than Book I with significantly longer game play, the development period was longer than Book I. $25 for 50 hours of gameplay, not including replay value, is about $0.50 per hour of gameplay. I think I could get an hour out of a 50 cents back in the Asteroids day, but that was a LONG time ago.

[Kreador Freeaxe]

Well we made it, and Book 2 ended up costing about twice as much as Book 1 did to develop.

I found this a bit strange, after all you are using same engine, how come it ended up costing twice as much?

A bunch of the elements of the Book I engine were completely rewritten for Book II, as I recall, plus higher resolution required remaking all of the sprites, plus new ones. And this little thing called inflation (I know, the government tells us that inflation has been negligible, but my groceries have nearly doubled in cost, while the value of my home has been cut in half--averages are a wonderful illusion).

[silverkitty]

Graphics are more expensive than code, by far.

[BasiliskWrangler]

Yep, we had more contractors this time- more help with graphics, music and writing.

Please consider that for each copy sold, 10% to 50% of the sale goes to the distributor that processed the sale. Out of what we get back, 20% of that belongs to the government (taxes). Then we still have to cover all our operating expenses- there's electricty, hosting and bandwidth, office supplies, and computer upkeep.

At some point during all of this, I need a paycheck too. My family seems to enjoy having food in the refrigerator and a dry roof over their heads.

...but everything after that is pure, sweet profit!

[dak]

Have you considered selling the game through paypal?

Last I used it they only took 2% ( not sure if that changed though ) , I don't know how much Plimus takes but I guess it is at least 10% ? and I bet a lot of fans would be willing to use paypal to buy the game if that meant more money ending up in your pocket....

[Elwro]

I, for one, would have loved to be able simply to use PayPal. I have no idea why I'm expected to give some company my real-life address and phone number in order to buy a downloadable game.

... and you add %22 tax at the last minute, without any mention of this fact earlier on! Why aren't you clear on this? Such things should be mentioned from the start! I'm not paying additional tax when I buy Spiderweb Software titles. I don't understand why I had to pay it for your game, and why do you say on the purchase page that the game costs $24.95 but then charge $30.44. Yeah, for some people $5.49 is not a big difference, but in my opinion there should be no such "secret" costs. Saying "the game costs $24.95 PLUS ANY APPLIABLE TAXES" would be the honest way to go.

Also, how long does one have to wait for his registration number?

[BasiliskWrangler]

I, for one, would have loved to be able simply to use PayPal. I have no idea why I'm expected to give some company my real-life address and phone number in order to buy a downloadable game.

... and you add %22 tax at the last minute, without any mention of this fact earlier on! Why aren't you clear on this? Such things should be mentioned from the start! I'm not paying additional tax when I buy Spiderweb Software titles. I don't understand why I had to pay it for your game, and why do you say on the purchase page that the game costs $24.95 but then charge $30.44. Yeah, for some people $5.49 is not a big difference, but in my opinion there should be no such "secret" costs. Saying "the game costs $24.95 PLUS ANY APPLIABLE TAXES" would be the honest way to go.

Also, how long does one have to wait for his registration number?

I don't know anything about a 22% tax. I know if you live in California, Plimus will add state sales tax on automatically (this is state law). If you live outside the US, there may be VAT or some other country tax applied that we have no control over. These taxes may or may not be applicable based on whether you bought the download version only or the physical DVD.

I apologize if there are any "hidden fees"...it is not our intention to sneak in any kind of additional charge. It's just that we can't tell what kind of extra fees may be involved depending on where you live.

As for using Plimus- all I can say is we have looked at at least a dozen different options, and Plimus seems to always come out on top because of their flexibility, number of options for sellers, security, and dependability. We are likely to put Book II on BMT Micro as well to give people additional ordering options.

[Apoteos]

There was indeed an additional 20~30% when I bought the game, but this was what I expected, since Basilisk Games couldn´t possibly take the swedish tax system in account when displaying the price for my book II activation code. Ok, I guess that would be quite possible, but highly inpractical when designing the webpage.

[Elwro]

I'm just surprised I didn't have to pay anything like this when buying the Avernum Trilogy from Spiderweb. Could it possibly be due to the fact that I also had CDs shipped?

[Apoteos]

I'm just surprised I didn't have to pay anything like this when buying the Avernum Trilogy from Spiderweb. Could it possibly be due to the fact that I also had CDs shipped?

I cannot be sure, since I don´t know which country you live in, but I would be VERY surprised if that was the case, since taxes apply to most things sold (well, in my country at least ). In fact, you might have to pay extra for shipping / postal services for the cd depending on where you live. This is fairly unkommon, but it is always good to have a word or two with who-/whatever manages your postal services in your country, if buying something from abroad.

[Elwro]

I'm just surprised I didn't have to pay anything like this when buying the Avernum Trilogy from Spiderweb. Could it possibly be due to the fact that I also had CDs shipped?

I cannot be sure, since I don´t know which country you live in, but I would be VERY surprised if that was the case, since taxes apply to most things sold (well, in my country at least ). In fact, you might have to pay extra for shipping / postal services for the cd depending on where you live.

I'm from Poland. Of course I expect to pay extra in case any physical body is to be shipped (Bookdepository.com is an exception). But frankly, I won't believe Jeff Vogel (from Spiderweb) is breaking the US law by not adding tax when I buy his games Just wondering why it's being added in Basilisk case.

[Kreador Freeaxe]

I'm from Poland. Of course I expect to pay extra in case any physical body is to be shipped (Bookdepository.com is an exception). But frankly, I won't believe Jeff Vogel (from Spiderweb) is breaking the US law by not adding tax when I buy his games Just wondering why it's being added in Basilisk case.

The tax is being added by the processing company. Different companies will handle this differently--some requiring the seller to figure out the tax themselves (in other words, hope they're selling small enough quantities that it isn't worth the time and expense of the tax agency to try to collect it). BW isn't adding the tax on. He's not sitting in his office with a calculator and the tax codes of every country in the world (at least, I'm pretty sure he isn't).

[kelticpete]

I only saw 8 reddits. I joined (it's free, you don't even have to give an email..just username password, proof you are human. bam. 30 seconds)

add this game to reddit.

[AstralWanderer]

...But frankly, I won't believe Jeff Vogel (from Spiderweb) is breaking the US law by not adding tax when I buy his games Just wondering why it's being added in Basilisk case.

Spiderweb sell their games direct and have no European Union presence, so don't have to charge VAT to EU customers. However most shareware payment processors (Plimus, Digital River, etc) *do* have an EU presence and therefore have to comply with EU legislation.

Basilisk Games could choose to sell directly but would then have to deal with credit card processing themselves (which would include trying to cope with spammers and other online criminals flooding their website with card numbers to check which ones work).