Real E$tate Empire has been selling quite well on the Reflexive game network since landing there on Dec. 18th. And the game continues to sell a few copies from the Rusty Axe website everyday. That said it has never reviewed particularly well by game reviewers, end users have typically been even harder on the game and nobody has ever given the game a glowing review or said this is their favorite game. People say the game is too hard. That it's too short. They complain that it isn't profitable to fix everything on a house and sell it. Some days it is downright brutal to read the reviews.
So sometimes you have to just not read the reviews or you might pack it in. Because, for all of the complaining, the game does resonate with a certain core audience who continue to seek it out and buy it from a website that doesn't see a trickle of what the big guys get. That's not to say that I can't learn something from what people have to say but, as a designer, one has to be careful to remember to make something that works well for some people even if others might not get it all. So, I'm listening to what people have to say and taking it into consideration for future titles. My next financial simulator is going to be a midgeon easier to play in certain regards and the game will last over a longer time period. But it's still going to be a financial geeks toy rather than fodder for the Portal Top 10 lists. I remember my boss at Atari talking about arcade teams who would often create a couple of games that were critically well received but didn't earn money and how, sometimes, those teams would find their legs and figure out how to make games that people wanted to spend money on. Invariably the teams then wanted to make more games that made money because, at the end of the day, it's not about pleasing everybody but it is about pleasing those people who are willing to pony up their hard earned sheckels for a ride on the shiny new toy.
Off to lick my wounds at a neighbour's house party,
L
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