Ok, it's like this. I want you all to think like businessmen/women: If you were the President of Interplay, and you wish to release a new space-themed game (e.g. A sequel to FreeSpace), what marketing strategies would you use? What strategy are you going to use to make sure that the sales go through the roof rather than the poor sales that happened in FreeSpace 2?
Heres mine:
1. A very important subject inside the FS2 UELA. On of the UELA terms states that "It is possible to duplicate a copy of FS2 and give it to a friend". A lot of HLPers find that a rather contrived UELA, but beneficial to the community. However, this will mean sales will drop badly; since everybody just downloads them through somerthing like Tureys installer. Note that Turey's installer does inclue FS1 VPs and core files, the actual full game is not available to us (Otherwise Turey would be offending the law - badly.) This must be changed; eliminate this UELA term.
2. More advertisement. One of the main reason why FS2 sold so badly is because of it's poor advertising. A lot of us who lived through 1998-2000 barely knew that there actualy was a sequel to FS1. Interplay refused to spend ad budget on major gaming magazines or website (E.g. Filefront, Gamespot).
3. Somethng that makes FS2 more interesting than other games on the market. AFAIK, FPS is currently the most beloved themed of all. So, perhaps Interplay should co-operate with other companies which make FPSers, and combine two engines (The Space-sim engine and FPS engine) into one. However, also make sure that the company IS good enough, otherwise the money you pay the with is simply flushed down the toilet
4. Genuine copy of the new game extras. Like the Windows thing, you may only benefit from upgrades, extras, goodies etc. if you buy the game through a valid retailer.
