He's dead Jim...

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I'm still happy with the latest Star Trek film, and I've had 2 weeks to mull it over. Yes there are tech problems with parts of it... to many to list here, but I enjoyed how it all fell together. We even got to hear some great old Star Trek lines... but one that we didn't hear: "He's dead Jim..". And I guess that's a good thing...

But when do we know a game is dead? Its easy to look back and see, yes, no sales... its dead! But when do you stop making content for a game that has some DLC? When do you officially move on?

In board games we only do an expansion when the expected sales, 1/3 of the original sales, makes finanacial sense. That's a hard thing to NOT do because as a designer and publisher, I think I can stir sales by subtley fixing some of the problems with the original. Also, it shows that as a publisher I support my products.

But at some point, its time to just hang it up. It doesn't mean your product failed or that you did a bad job... it just means that the microsecond of our attention span has moved on. Recently I used a phrase: "Throwing sauce on the pig", which means trying to dress up something that is not worth the effort.

As hard as it is, look at the sales and realize that a small percentage of those who already bought the game, will be buying the downloadable Content (DLC). If that number is not large enough to justify the production of the content, move on.

Comments? Need an example? Are you listening Germany?

Mac