Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

Post by goatdan »

Before diving into anything else (which I'll do in a minute), we now have a FaceBook page started yesterday, and if we get 200 fans before Labor Day (a week from Monday) we're sending everyone a 10% off coupon. You can go complain that I'm not on FaceBook with everyone else ;)

All right, for some replies...
DCDayDreamer wrote:
goatdan wrote:I'd love it, but I don't think I can just make one appear. We'll see, no promises (since I can't make it happen).
On the subject of demos, and whilst researching for a Cool Herders page at DCEvo, some interesting information was unveiled:

2004-05-03: "The Midwest Classic opened today, but I've hardly read anything about it to date. I wonder how Cool Herders is doing."

2004-05-30: "In Cool Herders news, THERE STILL ISN'T ANY. Gah. That's just rude."

2004-06-01: "Got pictures of the Midwest Gaming Classic, after finally posting a whiny post begging for pics at one of the Dreamcast boards"

Not exactly good promotion for an upcoming commercial title is it?.
Well, what Tursi was looking for wasn't promotion from us, but people who saw the games to be commenting on them. Its a sort of interesting thing that we've seen at the show just in general. In a nutshell, it started as an Atari Jaguar show, and now basically no one from that community comes out even though we do a significant Atari Jaguar display at the show. For the Dreamcast, we did really big displays in 2003, 2004 and 2006, and we never got a significant amount of people out for it.

It's changed how we promote things at the show.

As for our promotion of Cool Herders, at that point we didn't have a contract and we were a year and a half away from the final production of the game with no idea of how long it would take to complete it. In many ways, having promoted it more in 2004 at the show would have only helped to contribute to the errors we made by announcing stuff in 2006. We did, however, have the signed contracts and copies of both Cool Herders and Maqiupai to promote, although the pressing errors that occurred (which was actually the CD manufacturer purposely screwing us, which is a long story) didn't have the final copies come out for the rest of the year.

Our radio spots for that year actually talked about how you could see Maqiupai and Inhabitants there. Cool Herders (and DCASTLE) were extra unannounced titles that we added to hopefully generate internet buzz afterward, but as I already mentioned, the main Dreamcast core didn't come out, so it didn't drive as much attention as we had been hoping.
At which point, we hadn't done a project with Tursi for four years, and he had nothing actively in development that we would be releasing, so it made sense that he wouldn't know the current status of what is going on. That same person did contact me right after that, and I told him what was going on.
Of course this all fuels what I (and everyone who bothered reading about GOAT Store Publishing to begin with) already knew, but it would be interesting to see your take on this subject Dan.
Those two are pretty easy to explain actually.
DCDayDreamer continues to rattle the cage of GOAT Store Publishing. :twisted:
Rattle away -- and go like our GOAT Store page in Facebook ;)
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

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cube_b3 wrote:Piracy was what killed the Dreamcast, and it still after it.
Could be. But then there is more that goes into it than *just* people downloading titles...
I was speaking to Roel the other day and we were discussing how R4 sales, are we discussed the sales of R4 CD vs R4 Torrents.

You'd think people would be sentimental enough to buy a low priced new Dreamcast game rather than downloading it, man's greed is often underestimated, what's even more underestimated are the number of distribution channels required for a game to sell.
To be fair -- and I'm not condoning piracy, but it's something that anyone should think about -- people have a certain price that they will pay for a game. I am strongly in the camp that if a game is overpriced for the market, piracy and the black market will figure out a way to do it. Now, some people don't think a game is worth anything, and you'll never sell them on it. But selling a game like Cool Herders, if they can get a similar game for $1 on their iPhone, why buy Cool Herders? So, you need to take into account your price point very much.

If you are finding that there is a large market for downloading and pirating your game, it probably means two things:

1) Your game is getting a lot of interest in the secondary market, which means that people have heard of it or at least wonder what it is.
2) Your game is probably overpriced, since they would rather pirate it than buy it.

I'm definitely in the camp that piracy does not necessarily greatly adversely hurt your sales -- unless your game is crap to begin with, in which case the people who find it via the download and play it decide that they definitely won't buy it.
The death of Lik-Sang played a major role in the system's decline, wouldn't you think so?
Not exactly. Lik-Sang was a huge exporter of new Dreamcast titles and did a ton of that business, but when they left places like Play-Asia and so on filled the market. The market for Dreamcast games, especially expensive Dreamcast games, just isn't there any more.

I think I wrote this in an article I did a while ago for Gamasutra, but the Dreamcast was at a really interesting point for development and I don't think third party development will ever happen like it again. Firstly, Sega wasn't big enough to go after the people hacking the system (reverse engineering, not pirating) -- they had to focus on the development of their upcoming stuff and promotion of it. Secondly, there was no real alternative for programmers to create stuff at a good price and get it promoted. Today, with things like Xbox Live and the Playstation Network Store, you can for a relatively low entry point create a game and market it directly to people.

I've always taken the stance that when a game is released, you need to look at the other games like it on modern consoles and their prices. The truth is the Dreamcast market for indie games has been eroded more and more by the continuing openness and availability of things like the iPhone, iPad, Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network Store, Steam, and so on. When you can download a much more fully featured racing game than R4 for a quarter of it's cost on the modern system in your living room, why should you pay whatever to buy the old version for the console you have to dig out of storage.

It, at the end of the day, is the reason the market isn't there any more. And that isn't something you could change, or even something I think you would want to change.
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

Post by goatdan »

DCDayDreamer wrote:
cube_b3 wrote:seeing MGC reminds me of my room back in 2005 and no one wanted to enter my room
What you have to remember is, the MGC is an event for classic consoles (there's even a pinball machine parade there), the whole thing is entirely for the retro experience, having new or upcoming games for an old console is just an additional novelty at the show.

RSG are attending entirely different events, they are at a modern venue alongside big names in the industry, so they HAVE TO make their booth look more professional.
Wow, now you're defending us?

Heh -- we don't quite have a "parade" for the pinball machines, but there are two things worth expanding on from what you said. The first is that these are pictures from the 2004 Midwest Gaming Classic, not the modern shows where we have expanded our set ups at least somewhat from this. This was our first year drawing a decent crowd, which was 1400 over two days. Now, we get 1400 in the first two hours of the show generally.

The second is *exactly* what DCDayDreamer said. These are two completely different events. We market ourselves as a trade show for gamers, by gamers. The displays and what we do at the show has a much more fan-centric twist to it, and a much less commercial-centric twist. You go to a show like the ones that RSG goes to to see things that are coming out in the future and you want to see. At the Midwest Gaming Classic, the biggest reason you go is to meet people.

In my opinion, the difference to use another industry's terms is that with a show that just works at selling stuff to you, you go there and get immersed in it and see what is coming up, but very little really impacts you. At a show like the Midwest Gaming Classic, you get interested by new things and then become "evangelists" for those things. For instance, when E3 comes every year in the US, for about a week it is a huge deal and everyone is talking about it. After that, it disappears and doesn't get interest again until a few weeks before the next show, when people start talking about what is going to happen next.

For our show, if you look around online, there are already a bunch of people that are big into different parts of the electronic gaming hobby talking about next year's show, which is over six months away, and what they are going to bring.

It allows, in my opinion, for a market that is much more receptive to seeing and experiencing things that they have enjoyed in past years again and again. If Nintendo showed up at E3 this year with just games that were already released, no one would write or care about them. We can show up with relatively similar stuff to last year, and people will talk about how great it is. A *perfect* example, we show the documentary Tilt: The Battle to Save Pinball every year. It's the same movie we've shown since either 2006 or 2007 when we started. There are people who come and see it *every year* even though the content doesn't change, and *every year* we sell a bunch of DVDs for it. Hell, we're playing it before Tommy: Pinball Wizard at a cross promotion we have for the show at a theater this weekend.

Can you imagine if Nintendo showed up with a bunch of copies of Wii Sports and said, "CHECK THIS OUT!" at E3? That's the difference, really.

And, just one slight note, while we definitely have a bunch of retro stuff there, we are definitely not exclusively retro. Both Sony, Atlus and Sega have participated in the show in the recent past to promote new things that they had, and we also have related industries show up (Polk Audio came out last year). And, when those groups come into our show, they change their booths to look more like what you say in the pictures. If we changed to the RSG booths, people would look at them as being really different and not sincere.
cube_b3 wrote:I would've been less critical of those MGC pictures if they had customing GSP dreamcast's like this one
I'm sure that Dan could think up something far more original than that if he thought about it. If Dan really needed a gimmick, he only has to bring along to any event a Goat with a Dreamcast painted on its arse, then stand there handing out controllers to anyone brave enough to plug one in.
That would be freaking cool. Well, I don't know how I could surgically stick a Dreamcast actually into a goat, but yeah...

Actually, we found that the best thing to do is to hide the console altogether and just have the controllers out.
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

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Christuserloeser wrote:^ One thing that I immediately noticed is that GOAT hooked all their Dreamcasts to high defintion PC monitors, while redspotgames Dreamcast stands only use old SDTVs. I wish there would have been just one single HDTV with a Dreamcast hooked up via VGA.
I'm glad you noticed this - One of the things that we have constantly gone for is the best presentation of the actual content of the games for a price we can afford. Which I guess is the one other thing I should point out here -- our booth at the show is created using what we have to best show off things. We tend to use LCD monitors now for the Dreamcast titles, but we don't have enough money to construct a super expensive booth, and we definitely don't have enough space to lay it out like those bigger shows tend to.

I'm also a capacity person, so I'm *always* sitting there going, "How can we get more people playing?" If you have four people constantly on two TVs for 10 hours a day, with the average time being 10 minutes a game, you have 240 people that can experience your title that day. If you have twelve monitors and one person playing on each for 10 minutes a game for the same amount of time, you can have an extra 120 people play your titles each day. And realistically, you never have four people playing a game for long. So, my feeling on it is that I'd rather take and expand the content as much as possible and get people to play the games, where I think they will sell themselves, instead of worrying about the presentation of the games.

And it isn't even about selling the games, it's just about enjoying the show without stupid long lines to see things. I look at pictures and hear reports from people that I know who go to shows like E3 and whatnot, and they talk about how they had to wait in line for an hour to try this, and 45 minutes for that. One of my goals every year with the MGC is to make it so that there is enough capacity that at all times throughout the show, if you want to walk up to a console and play it, there will be one available. Maybe not the exact game you're looking for, but something so you don't have to wait in line unless you really want to for something.
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

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cube_b3 wrote:Yeah, I noticed the HD Monitors as well but your average Joe will go for presentation any day, let's try and sell a Dreamcast Demo Display Panel (DDDP) and compare it's selling price with a Dreamcast Bundle that includes a VGA box and a PC Monitor.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ULTRA-RARE-SEGA-DRE ... 497wt_1166
Better yet, let's go to a Game Convention set up a Dreamcast with a VGA Box connected to a monitor, and a cross the hall a DDDP, it is obvious the DDDP will attract more players.
I've sort of already addressed this, but I can tell you from the MGC that we have had some console display systems in the past (Hell, I've got a full modern Playstation set of them) and we don't tend to use them because for our show and our patrons, the Dreamcast set up with a VGA Box attached to a monitor is actually a bigger attraction than paying enough to buy new TVs for the Playstation displays and setting them up.

And the price of that Dreamcast demo thing is outrageous. I have looked into getting some in the past, and the price was about 1/10th that, which is much more fair. For $3500, I could buy a brand spanking new pinball machine, so the choice for me would be very easy...
Even Harmless Lion says that the torrent count is greater than games sold (but then again the torrents are free).
Exactly. And I don't know where Tursi got that exact number from (the less than 200) as Cool Herders did sell more than that. Regardless, the torrent count for stuff like this doesn't surprise me for being higher, because again -- it's people either checking it out with no idea what it is, or who just felt the price was too expensive. The key is hitting that in-between where you sell the right amount of copies to produce the most return on investment. If we had priced Cool Herders at $5, I bet we would have sold a TON more. Of course, we also probably wouldn't have made any money on the entire run.

You can still sell rare Atari 2600 games for $50 even though you can pirate them and play them in a few minutes. It's all about knowing the market.

Oh, and I missed one thing in an earlier post from you I meant to address specifically:
... what's even more underestimated are the number of distribution channels required for a game to sell.
I don't think it is the quantity of distribution channels, as much as the quality of the distribution channels, the way those distribution channels can sell your product, and the way those distribution channels feel about your product. I can all but guarantee that if you give a bunch of copies of a game to two retailers, one who thinks the product is great and one who just sells games, the one who thinks the product is great even if they get 1/10th the people going to their web site will outsell the one that just sells stuff. Don't support your retailers, and they won't support your product. It's something that we definitely try to do with our retailer network...
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

Post by Quzar »

Can't really figure out how to tie this in properly, but DCDayDreamer, if you want to talk about failure to promote/poor planning/wrong audience you need go no further than MagFest 4/DreamCon 2006 pt1 which DreamZone/DCEvolution championed.

Drove 24 hours to get there and find that Curt and I were two of pretty much 10 booths at the place, and the only ones who weren't just selling stuff. MetaFox showed up, but I think I saw him for a grand total of 5 minutes while there. I showed off NeoDC (and from time to time various Screamcast miscellany) and a demo for Goat Games. I think over the course of the two days maybe 5 people actually stopped to try the stuff out.

Not sure how well Curt did at getting the DCEvo demos out, but the whole thing was definitely not inclined towards homebrew or independent games or any related subject. The 300lb teenage girl selling anime styled art commissions across from me had more people stop to see what was going on.

That being said, I personally had a good time. My booth fee was covered for me, I got copies of all the DCEvo material, made a copy for myself of the goat games disc, and got a free PS2 (I left my booth overnight and when I came back the next morning I found one of my DCs disconnected and a PS2 hooked up in it's place, I was one of the last people to leave and nobody came to claim it). Oh, and the DreamCon 05 shirt MetaFox gave me.
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

Post by cube_b3 »

That sounds like MGC just isn't the place for Goat Store Publishing?
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

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cube_b3 wrote:That sounds like MGC just isn't the place for Goat Store Publishing?
Quzar was talking about Magfest. We definitely get attention for the games at the MGC, it just isn't a bunch of reporting from people who are already part of the scene.

Which, as I've said before, is *exactly* the audience that we want to sell to. Promoting the games to the same audience doesn't garner new sales, although it can help to excite the base for additional projects. Due to the length between projects, it makes far more sense for us to market toward new audiences.
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

Post by Christuserloeser »

The way I understand DCDayDreamer is that he is posting constructive criticism.
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

Post by DCDayDreamer »

goatdan wrote:
DCDayDreamer wrote:DCDayDreamer continues to rattle the cage of GOAT Store Publishing.
Rattle away
I fully intend to. :wink:
goatdan wrote:Wow, now you're defending us?
Just pointing out some facts. You guys did (and still do) a great job with The GOAT Store and the MGC, mistakes were made, lessons have been learnt, but sometimes a little reminder of both the good and bad points helps to keep the focus on a positive path for the future.
Quzar wrote:Can't really figure out how to tie this in properly, but DCDayDreamer, if you want to talk about failure to promote/poor planning/wrong audience you need go no further than MagFest 4/DreamCon 2006 pt1 which DreamZone/DCEvolution championed.
I'll attempt to tie this in, but I think we need to look at how DreamCon came about to begin with, and what it did in its short run. This information is taken directly from the DreamCon page at IndieDreamsWiki:
DreamCon 2005

The first DreamCon acted as the surrogate convention for the Midwest Gaming Classic, which was not held that year. It was held at the East Coast Gaming Expo 2005 on July 25th, 2005 in Reading, Pennsylvania. As the Midwest Gaming Classic was the usual place for new GOAT Store Publishing games to debut, DreamCon 2005 featured a playable demo of Cool Herders. It also was host to many familiar named from the Dreamcast community. Sam Steele was present with updated versions of DCSquares and DCBlap. Lawrence Sebald had updated versions of his RPGs, ljsdcdev and DCRPG on hand. I.M Weasel had his Macintosh burning tools available. Curt Grymala represented DCEvolution and DCHelp with a "burning station" and several of DCEvolution's compilations available on a high quality CD-R with a laser printed label and booklet with a CD case. MetaFox represented The GOAT Store, Dreamcast-Scene, Screamcast, and Cydoca Entertainment. Playable versions of Grizzlies: Forest Prelude and Feet of Fury were available. Fackue's Dreamcast Development discs were also available to anyone who wanted to get into Dreamcast developing.

DreamCon 2006 part 1

The next year, it was decided that the convention would be at multiple locations, as Wisconsin was too far for most of the exhibitors of the first convention to travel. The first stop of DreamCon 2006 was held at Magfest 4 on January 13th, January 14th, and January 15th in Charlottesville, Virginia. As with the last DreamCon, a new playable GOAT Store Publishing game was presented, only this time it was the first time the public got a glimpse at the game. A demo of GOAT Games was presented for the first time at the show. Curt Grymala, representing DCEvolution and DCHelp, returned with the "burning station" setup from the last year, except he had new compilations to hand out to the convention attendees. MetaFox once again returned as well, representing The GOAT Store, Dreamcast-Scene, and Cydoca Entertainment. Playable versions of Feet of Fury, Inhabitants, Maqiupai, Cool Herders, and the unlicensed Korean Dream Para Para game were available. Screamcast was represented at this convention by Donald Haase. Screamcast had Grizzlies: Forest Prelude and BurgerDC on show.

DreamCon 2006 part 2

The third location of the show was at the Midwest Gaming Classic 2006, which had returned after a year in hiatus. Exhibiting at the event were Dan Loosen from The GOAT Store, DCSteve and Tommy Watson from BOR Revolution, a site dedicated to showcasing games using the engines from Senile Team, and MetaFox, representing Screamcast, Cydoca Entertainment, and Dreamcast-Scene. Ten new games were announced at the show: Feet of Fury 2, Donk!: Samurai Duck, R3K, an untitled S+F Software adventure game, Amnesia: Psychic Spelunker, Blocks2: Master of Blocks, Age of the Beast SE, Fightoon, Yumi: Samurai Warrior, and Feuer Frei. In addition, new information was revealed about GOAT Games and DCastle. Several games featuring the Beats of Rage engine were showcased, and a new video for Age of the Beast was shown. In addition, videos were shown for R3K, and screenshots were shown for Fightoon. Grizzlies: Forest Prelude and BurgerDC were once again playable at the show. Dynamite Dreams and Feuer Frei were shown for the first time.

DreamCon 2007

The 2007 DreamCon convention was held by Curt Grymala of DCEvolution at Magfest 5 on January 4th, January 5th, January 6th and January 7th in Vienna, Virginia. This time DreamCon was integrated right into the convention, with several tournaments. Saturday's tournament was Cool Herders, with the prize being copies of some of DCEvolution's images, complete with labels and cover art. Sunday's tournament was Feet of Fury, with the prize being a Dreamcast with all of the hookups, a Playstation controller adapter (so a Playstation dance mat could be hooked up), and a copy of Feet of Fury.
There's not much else I can say, DCEvo tried (with its very limited capacity) to display some of what the community had to offer, by using DCEvo, Curt could give away free software on CDR to promote Independent Dreamcast projects to whoever was interested. From a personal perspective I can not say if any of the DreamCon events were a success or not, but Curt was always positive about the events he attended, and both he and his family had a good time at them (from what I can remember when he posted in the DreamZone forums).
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

Post by goatdan »

DCDayDreamer wrote:
goatdan wrote:Wow, now you're defending us?
Just pointing out some facts. You guys did (and still do) a great job with The GOAT Store and the MGC, mistakes were made, lessons have been learnt, but sometimes a little reminder of both the good and bad points helps to keep the focus on a positive path for the future.
Just for the record, I was kidding -- I know that you don't *just* have it in for me ;)
I'll attempt to tie this in, but I think we need to look at how DreamCon came about to begin with, and what it did in its short run. This information is taken directly from the DreamCon page at IndieDreamsWiki:
DreamCon 2005

The first DreamCon acted as the surrogate convention for the Midwest Gaming Classic, which was not held that year. It was held at the East Coast Gaming Expo 2005 on July 25th, 2005 in Reading, Pennsylvania. As the Midwest Gaming Classic was the usual place for new GOAT Store Publishing games to debut, DreamCon 2005 featured a playable demo of Cool Herders. It also was host to many familiar named from the Dreamcast community. Sam Steele was present with updated versions of DCSquares and DCBlap. Lawrence Sebald had updated versions of his RPGs, ljsdcdev and DCRPG on hand. I.M Weasel had his Macintosh burning tools available. Curt Grymala represented DCEvolution and DCHelp with a "burning station" and several of DCEvolution's compilations available on a high quality CD-R with a laser printed label and booklet with a CD case. MetaFox represented The GOAT Store, Dreamcast-Scene, Screamcast, and Cydoca Entertainment. Playable versions of Grizzlies: Forest Prelude and Feet of Fury were available. Fackue's Dreamcast Development discs were also available to anyone who wanted to get into Dreamcast developing.
Oh, okay -- I don't know if this is exactly correct. As far as I remember it, the DreamCon idea was sort of taken from the Jagfest: On Tour idea where you would have a specific type of event that went from place to place showing off different stuff. I know for a fact that the idea was hatched completely without my input or the GOAT Store's input, and it wasn't until after people had announced that they would be doing it that I said that I would be happy to support them in whatever way I could. The first DreamCon was at the East Coast Gaming Expo because that was where the people lived who came up with the idea to do it.

The only tying that I really think is appropriate between DreamCon and the GOAT Store, GOAT Store Publishing or the Midwest Gaming Classic is that the release of Feet of Fury, Inhabitants and Maqiupai had really re-energized the rest of the community, both from the coding and the fan sides, and that was where the idea came from.

MetaFox did have full permission from us to represent us -- it was his work that got both Inhabitants and Maqiupai released.
DreamCon 2006 part 1

The next year, it was decided that the convention would be at multiple locations, as Wisconsin was too far for most of the exhibitors of the first convention to travel. The first stop of DreamCon 2006 was held at Magfest 4 on January 13th, January 14th, and January 15th in Charlottesville, Virginia. As with the last DreamCon, a new playable GOAT Store Publishing game was presented, only this time it was the first time the public got a glimpse at the game. A demo of GOAT Games was presented for the first time at the show. Curt Grymala, representing DCEvolution and DCHelp, returned with the "burning station" setup from the last year, except he had new compilations to hand out to the convention attendees. MetaFox once again returned as well, representing The GOAT Store, Dreamcast-Scene, and Cydoca Entertainment. Playable versions of Feet of Fury, Inhabitants, Maqiupai, Cool Herders, and the unlicensed Korean Dream Para Para game were available. Screamcast was represented at this convention by Donald Haase. Screamcast had Grizzlies: Forest Prelude and BurgerDC on show.
This is basically correct, although I don't remember the DreamCon at the MGC being a factor with determining to do MagFest. As I recall, we didn't figure out if we would be able to host a DreamCon at the MGC until well after this was over, probably around March. It really depended on if MetaFox or anyone else was willing or able to come.
DreamCon 2006 part 2

The third location of the show was at the Midwest Gaming Classic 2006, which had returned after a year in hiatus. Exhibiting at the event were Dan Loosen from The GOAT Store, DCSteve and Tommy Watson from BOR Revolution, a site dedicated to showcasing games using the engines from Senile Team, and MetaFox, representing Screamcast, Cydoca Entertainment, and Dreamcast-Scene. Ten new games were announced at the show: Feet of Fury 2, Donk!: Samurai Duck, R3K, an untitled S+F Software adventure game, Amnesia: Psychic Spelunker, Blocks2: Master of Blocks, Age of the Beast SE, Fightoon, Yumi: Samurai Warrior, and Feuer Frei. In addition, new information was revealed about GOAT Games and DCastle. Several games featuring the Beats of Rage engine were showcased, and a new video for Age of the Beast was shown. In addition, videos were shown for R3K, and screenshots were shown for Fightoon. Grizzlies: Forest Prelude and BurgerDC were once again playable at the show. Dynamite Dreams and Feuer Frei were shown for the first time.
Realistically, I didn't showcase. We provided a couple displays, but it was really left to MetaFox do decide what to show. I did speak which is where the announcement comes from. But beyond that, I had some random cool things from my own collection that were there, but they were unrelated to the homebrew / independent stuff being showed off. Like my Jet Set Radio pachislo slot.

Also, and since I wasn't at the other events, I'm not sure about this, but DreamCon at the MGC was meant to show off *everything* for the Dreamcast, not just the new stuff. The idea was to create a Jagfest-esque display of neat Dreamcast stuff to get people interested in, which helped to draw them in where they would learn about the other stuff.

Finally, R3K was not shown at the event, unless the person was talking about the QBasic version that I had there. R3K is Gary and my's property, we created it and were working on trying to get it produced into a real game. We have a demo of it that was completed, however the person that did it got it to us about a year later, nothing was ready at the show. We did, however, show a Blocks2 (Irides: MoB) video which I still have somewhere and was really quite fun. Feuer Frei was not officially shown at the show. We did have a demo copy of it that we showed to a grand total of four people I think, so I would barely even call that something what was shown.
DreamCon 2007

The 2007 DreamCon convention was held by Curt Grymala of DCEvolution at Magfest 5 on January 4th, January 5th, January 6th and January 7th in Vienna, Virginia. This time DreamCon was integrated right into the convention, with several tournaments. Saturday's tournament was Cool Herders, with the prize being copies of some of DCEvolution's images, complete with labels and cover art. Sunday's tournament was Feet of Fury, with the prize being a Dreamcast with all of the hookups, a Playstation controller adapter (so a Playstation dance mat could be hooked up), and a copy of Feet of Fury.
There's not much else I can say, DCEvo tried (with its very limited capacity) to display some of what the community had to offer, by using DCEvo, Curt could give away free software on CDR to promote Independent Dreamcast projects to whoever was interested. From a personal perspective I can not say if any of the DreamCon events were a success or not, but Curt was always positive about the events he attended, and both he and his family had a good time at them (from what I can remember when he posted in the DreamZone forums).
That last one I agree with from what I recall. Curt most definitely did a good job setting things up and running them. I know that in talking with MetaFox about some of this stuff, the biggest problem was just cost. I don't know if this is true for MagFest, but I know that for the East Coast Gaming Expo show, they got three or four tables, and they were charged full price for those tables, which I believe was something like $75 / table, or about $300 overall. Since they weren't selling anything, and as was noted giving away things.

On top of that, you have people who aren't advertising things that make them money. I mean, a $300 advertising cost for ECGE which as I recall had about 500 people is a horribly expensive advertising venture. Add to that at least there, I know they weren't happy with the location they were placed or the promotion that was done for them being there, and it becomes stupid to continue it.

Certain similar events have worked at the MGC because we put an emphasis on content and do things differently because of that. DreamCon isn't at the MGC anymore only because no one is willing (or maybe is able) to do the name justice. I could call a couple Dreamcasts in the museum area DreamCon, but I feel like that isn't right. If anyone is interested in doing something like that contact me and maybe we can work something out.
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

Post by goatdan »

Wow, going to point this out before you do DCDayDreamer...
Roel in interview wrote:To tell you the truth, the GOAT Store was too impatient to wait for negotiations with us to complete and announced Age of the Beast SE on their own initiative. At that time we had not signed a publishing deal for Age of the Beast with the GOAT Store (and we still haven't), and we had not agreed to make a Special Edition either (as I recall it, the closest thing to an agreement was that we said "possibly"). Obviously we were not too happy with that situation.
I just forwarded Roel a couple emails, the first a couple weeks in advance where he is saying exactly what work they would do to get stuff done for the official announcement, and the second when we discussed - since AotB had already been announced as freeware - a special or limited edition version of the game.

SenileTeam was not contacted by Red Spot Games until January of 2007 about their games. After the announcement, there were no emails discussing how they were unhappy with it -- only one talking about the Samurai Warrior game which was announced and asking more about it since it was going to use the BoR engine.

I've asked Roel for permission to reprint the emails, as that statement was far off base if not a complete and utter lie.
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

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goatdan wrote:Wow, going to point this out before you do DCDayDreamer...
To be perfectly honest I really wasn't sure about bringing that up at all. I've already hassled you about certain points with regards to GSP, but as far as I'm concerned (and as I pointed out in a previous reply) a simple 'cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances' should suffice as closure to any previous announcements by GSP of forthcoming titles that did not appear. In this case it's the 'other party' who has made a statement beyond what I deem to be necessary, and sadly, it does read as another black mark for GOAT.

I'm all for ironing out any or all misconceptions, bad press, poor judgement calls, or whatever else that might be a crutch for GOAT, if that means I'll end up being the miserable old cantankerous fool that constantly criticizes you - then so be it!...

Once again you have chosen the wrong words Dan, for someone who can string almost endless rational posts together, you sure know how to put your foot in it sometimes. Was there any real need to put "if not a complete and utter lie" in there?, you are in the position to lay all the previous misconceptions and problems to rest, by all means put the wheels of communication with the developers back in motion, but keep it at your true level - keep it professional (and leave the accusations to the hecklers).
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

Post by cube_b3 »

Roel has emailed me to Delete that portion out of the interview, so officially he never said that.
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

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DCDayDreamer wrote:Once again you have chosen the wrong words Dan, for someone who can string almost endless rational posts together, you sure know how to put your foot in it sometimes. Was there any real need to put "if not a complete and utter lie" in there?, you are in the position to lay all the previous misconceptions and problems to rest, by all means put the wheels of communication with the developers back in motion, but keep it at your true level - keep it professional (and leave the accusations to the hecklers).
I actually did think about how to say that, but I'm going to stick with those words. Based on all of the email communication that we had, which I did forward to them and say, "What the hell?" more or less. He either did it because he had absolutely no memory of any of the events and / or communication with me, which I hope is the real reason, or because he wanted to join the crowd of people that said that we did stuff without developers permission and stuff, which is a complete lie.

At the end of the day, I really do have these emails -- it's why they retracted that statement already -- and it came down to one of those two reasons. Having said that, I find it an odd lapse in judgment to incorrectly remember an entire year's plus worth of dealings with us. Maybe that is what it is, and I hope that it was -- but even if that is what they felt, there is no real reason for them to make a statement like that.

I've, in the past, allowed things like this to slide too much, which is why some people believe the reputation that they have heard to be true. I'm done with that, as 'leaving the accusations to the hecklers' has consistently resulted the the GOAT Store being the one who gets heckled.

I have hope that Senile Team will actually come out and say that we supported them, but that the RSG deal was better for them (which would be the truth), in which case I will happily apologize for using the word "lie" with what they wrote, and chalk it up to a bad memory.
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

Post by DCDayDreamer »

goatdan wrote:I actually did think about how to say that, but I'm going to stick with those words.
That's fair enough, but regardless of what you consider my posts to be, my last reply in this thread was intended as a nudge towards keeping your responses to others (especially developers) at a 'certain level' that should only be expected from someone in your position.
goatdan wrote:At the end of the day, I really do have these emails -- it's why they retracted that statement already
Nobody doubted you about this Dan (and the retraction speaks volumes to anyone that actually gives a shit). The reason behind the initial statement is not important, facts have been pointed out, memories have been jogged, things have been corrected - problem solved!.
goatdan wrote:I've, in the past, allowed things like this to slide too much, which is why some people believe the reputation that they have heard to be true. I'm done with that, as 'leaving the accusations to the hecklers' has consistently resulted the the GOAT Store being the one who gets heckled.
This is the 'new' attitude from you that I aimed for by throwing out random criticism, insults, or whatever else you consider my replies to be. GOAT has been quiet for too long, you guys let things slide when in all honesty you had all the aces from day one. The hecklers are out there (I aim to be one of them for a reason), it is up to GOAT to put the record straight, but wouldn't it be better to keep it at a level that everyone has expected from the beginning?.
goatdan wrote:I have hope that Senile Team will actually come out and say that we supported them, but that the RSG deal was better for them (which would be the truth), in which case I will happily apologize for using the word "lie" with what they wrote, and chalk it up to a bad memory.
Does it really matter if they do not?, retractions have been made, let's move on...
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

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DCDayDreamer wrote:That's fair enough, but regardless of what you consider my posts to be, my last reply in this thread was intended as a nudge towards keeping your responses to others (especially developers) at a 'certain level' that should only be expected from someone in your position.
Here's the thing -- while in many ways I do agree with you, there have been instances in the past where people have blatantly lied about stuff that we did or didn't do. From claiming we refused to contact anyone through email, or that we denied game releases for whatever reason, and lots of other stuff. I truly have no idea why these people did it.

The reason I had been so trigger shy was due to in no small part the last community that I had been super involved with was the Atari Jaguar community. The story in a nutshell is that in 2001 when we held the first Jagfest (that became the MGC), it was a big success. We were the only ones that stepped forward to suggest us hosting it that year, and after we had so much fun we suggested we could host again in 2002. For whatever reason, the community absolutely erupted about how we were trying to take over the community, how we were horrible and so on.

The more that we tried to defend ourselves, the more hostile the community became. I had people actually email me telling me I was worse than Hitler because we were going to "take over the Jaguar community and execute anyone who loved it." I'm not making this up, I wish I was. It was horrible. And I really still don't understand what we did that was so bad. Longstanding community members who knew us left the scene entirely because it left such a bad taste in their mouths, and it took years for the community to recover.

When this stuff had come up before, I had no intentions of getting into it with anyone. Let them do and say what they wanted to, as in the Jaguar community defending ourselves destroyed our reputation. The people who cared could contact us and we would go from there. But, unlike that situation, no one did, which let the lies continue to fester and our reputation to go in the toilet.

So although I truly think now (more on this in a minute) that this was a misunderstanding and nothing more, I'm going to make sure that this sort of thing is fixed. No matter what it was in the end, I won't allow stuff that incorrect to stand.
This is the 'new' attitude from you that I aimed for by throwing out random criticism, insults, or whatever else you consider my replies to be. GOAT has been quiet for too long, you guys let things slide when in all honesty you had all the aces from day one. The hecklers are out there (I aim to be one of them for a reason), it is up to GOAT to put the record straight, but wouldn't it be better to keep it at a level that everyone has expected from the beginning?.
To be fair, if someone is outright lying and we try to get them to set the record straight and they don't, I'm going to call them on it.

I jumped on this one so quickly because I found it so ridiculously far off base that I could barely believe that it came from the people who I had an over three year relationship with. And, it happened to come on the exact same day that we really made a big step with relaunching GOAT Store Publishing, so it was the last thing that I wanted to see or hear.

After communicating with them back and forth about what they said, it does appear that they didn't make the statement purposely to slander us, but instead chose the wrong words to make the statement correctly. If they had said that they felt pressured into making the announcement, didn't have any finalized plans for the SE version, and still aren't too happy about that decision I'd agree with them on all of those points. For the record, I think that I can say the exact same thing back about how I felt dealing with them at that moment in time (and this isn't anything against them, it's really kind of what I was getting from a lot of people involved with that MGC 06 announcement), and I think that would be totally fair.

So, I'll say it right here -- I overreacted when I said that they may have posted an outright lie, and instead it was just a poor choice of words. And I'm sorry that I lumped them in with the whole bunch of other people that unfortunately have made similar statements that were out and out lies.
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

Post by DCDayDreamer »

goatdan wrote:So although I truly think now (more on this in a minute) that this was a misunderstanding and nothing more, I'm going to make sure that this sort of thing is fixed. No matter what it was in the end, I won't allow stuff that incorrect to stand.
That is exactly the sentiment that should be put out there (this also goes back to, and directly opposes your position on editing Wikipedia pages Dan). Without the 'real facts' from the persons directly involved with any projects, no matter what they are: complete triviality with regards to Dreamcast Independent games to life changing breakthrough research and development with Cancer treatment - it is the true facts that need to be made public, without those facts everyone is in danger of becoming ignorant.
goatdan wrote:To be fair, if someone is outright lying and we try to get them to set the record straight and they don't, I'm going to call them on it.
You couldn't say anything else that would clarify that position more, as far as I'm concerned it's a stance that can only be respected in any circle.
goatdan wrote:I jumped on this one so quickly because I found it so ridiculously far off base that I could barely believe that it came from the people who I had an over three year relationship with. And, it happened to come on the exact same day that we really made a big step with relaunching GOAT Store Publishing, so it was the last thing that I wanted to see or hear.
I do not think that the timing has anything to do with this situation whatsoever, everyone involved in the Dreamcast community just wanted to put something 'out there' for the anniversary date, it is just coincidence that the GSP site relaunch coincided with the Senile Team interview.
goatdan wrote:So, I'll say it right here -- I overreacted when I said that they may have posted an outright lie, and instead it was just a poor choice of words. And I'm sorry that I lumped them in with the whole bunch of other people that unfortunately have made similar statements that were out and out lies.
To summarize, that makes you exactly the same as Roel Van Mastbergen...

Just another guy who on one hand can create something from nothing, just for the love of the project - see it through to the end knowing that there will be no great reward, and on the other hand just make mistakes like anyone else on the planet.
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

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DCDayDreamer wrote:I do not think that the timing has anything to do with this situation whatsoever, everyone involved in the Dreamcast community just wanted to put something 'out there' for the anniversary date, it is just coincidence that the GSP site relaunch coincided with the Senile Team interview.
I agree with everything else, but I just wanted to say this -- I wasn't even with that comment in there thinking that they did it on purpose to thumb their nose at us. What I did feel was that we had finally, finally created the right site that I feel really strikes the correct balance between professional and fun to really represent what we feel that GSP is.

And, on that same day a completely new inaccuracy surfaces that instead of just focusing on the future of GSP, I feel like I have to clean up the mess from.

It totally was a coincidence, and one that now I do believe was just a poor choice of words instead of anything more. But, I think that they should have just done it the way that it is now originally. I think that they would probably agree with that too.
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Re: Goat Store Publishing's Future Plans

Post by goatdan »

Oh yeah, and it doesn't help that the mailing list broke damn near immediately too. That was just the creme de la creme. Hope it isn't a sign ;)
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