Empires of Steel

[Greybriar]

Empires of Steel isn't a new game. It has been around for a few years. But I just read its Post Mortem and it made me sad. Yeah, it's a couple of years old, but I hadn't seen it before.

I remember following the game as it developed and reading Brit's posts on the forums. He was so down to earth and eager to please. He even removed the copy protection for us. I bought Empires of Steel from GamersGate. My only regret is that I didn't purchase it sooner.

Anyway, I thought I would share with everyone what I just found out. Sorry if it's old news to anyone, but I wanted to be sure all were aware of Brit's experience with Empires of Steel.

[Jarhead0331]

interesting...and sad.

Brit seemed like a good guy and one of those developers that really supported his game.  I'm sorry things did not work out for him as he had hoped.  I wish him lots of luck in whatever he decides to do next.

That being said, I'm somewhat surprised that it seems like all he did for the last 5-1/2 years is work exclusively on this game.  That just doesn't sound right to me.  The game does not seem overly complex, why was there so much labor involved that it was a full time job for that extensive of a period of time?  I know he is just one guy, but it seems to me that he could have had another full time job and worked on EoS at the same time, especially once the game had been released and gone retail.  Had he done this, his financial situation may not be as precarious as he claims it has become and the game, and his dream could have lived on.  Unrealistic expectations?  I dunno...he notes that he was prepared to earn only $9 per hour based on the anticipated revenue of the game...even if this was his best case scenario, still doesn't seem like enough to live on.   

Anyway, just my random thoughts...

[Longdan]

I bought the game and enjoyed it.  It is too bad it came out this way.

[steve58]

I bought the game and enjoyed it.  It is too bad it came out this way.

yeah, same.  I found the game to be enjoyable and playable. I seem to remember towards the "end" he got a lot of grief from one forum user...never could make the guy happy (no offense if it was anyone here  :D)

[airboy]

I bought it and disliked it.  Gave it lots of time.  The AI was very weak.  The only way you could get a good game was play on a very small map with lots of players.  The mere territory pressure masked the weakness of the AI.  Play on even a medium size map and the AI could not even expand and exploit large land masses where they had original cities.

The AI in the old Empire Game (from the 1980s) was better than this.

I don't know the developer and don't wish him any personal ill will.  But this is a game that looked originally like a wonderful update of Empire that never had a good AI.

[Swatter]

I wish the guy best of luck, hopefully he puts his experience to good use next time. Being a hobbyist game programmer, I can vividly see where he is coming from. Making more than simple games is a huge task for one person. When he says he was working on it for 5 1/2 years, he probably rewrote everything a few times as he was learning. It sounds like creating an effective AI was his biggest hurdle and he was never able to really overcome it. I will definately keep his experience in the back of my mind as I go forward. Does anyone else have other links to lone developers spilling thier guts like that?

[Steelgrave]

I bought it, played it for a week and promptly forgot about it. There just wasn't enough there for me, I'm afraid.

[Tamas]

I am afraid a similar story may be hiding behind most games made by lone devs or small teams (maybe not so devastating ones financially, but who knows) which don't hit the bigtime.

It must be very hard to pour your heart and sweat into a product then watch it fail to live up to your expectations.

I guess the moral of this and similar stories is to never go into indie development taking success for granted, and never put all your chips on your first game.

[bbmike]

I bought the game when it was first released. For me, I think the game had two problems. One was the interface. Something just doesn't seem right about it. It seems tedious to move your units around and information seems hard to find. The other is replayability (is that a word?). I've played Empire Deluxe to death and this just seemed to be more of the same. I'm all for for remaking games but I think in addition to copying the original you need  to add some new options or remake a game people really, really want.

I was surprised to read that this game was made by one person. I think that is amazing! I didn't regret my purchase then and am more glad that I bought it after reading this. I still play EoS once in a while and will probably continue to do so. I think he would have had more success though if he had created a game that more people were  looking for. Maybe something like an Age of Rifles remake? Or Imperialism? Or a real Star Fleet Battles turn based type game?
It was sad to read this and I do wish him the best. He is clearly a very skilled programmer.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Greybriar!

[airboy]

Empires of Steel isn't a new game. It has been around for a few years. But I just read its Post Mortem and it made me sad. Yeah, it's a couple of years old, but I hadn't seen it before.

I remember following the game as it developed and reading Brit's posts on the forums. He was so down to earth and eager to please. He even removed the copy protection for us. I bought Empires of Steel from GamersGate. My only regret is that I didn't purchase it sooner.

Anyway, I thought I would share with everyone what I just found out. Sorry if it's old news to anyone, but I wanted to be sure all were aware of Brit's experience with Empires of Steel.

I read the entire post-mortem.  It was very interesting.  Thanks for bringing this up.

[Greybriar]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Greybriar!

I read the entire post-mortem.  It was very interesting.  Thanks for bringing this up.

You're welcome.

[Zulu1966]

interesting...and sad.

Brit seemed like a good guy and one of those developers that really supported his game.  I'm sorry things did not work out for him as he had hoped.  I wish him lots of luck in whatever he decides to do next.

That being said, I'm somewhat surprised that it seems like all he did for the last 5-1/2 years is work exclusively on this game.  That just doesn't sound right to me.  The game does not seem overly complex, why was there so much labor involved that it was a full time job for that extensive of a period of time?  I know he is just one guy, but it seems to me that he could have had another full time job and worked on EoS at the same time, especially once the game had been released and gone retail.  Had he done this, his financial situation may not be as precarious as he claims it has become and the game, and his dream could have lived on.  Unrealistic expectations?  I dunno...he notes that he was prepared to earn only $9 per hour based on the anticipated revenue of the game...even if this was his best case scenario, still doesn't seem like enough to live on.   

Anyway, just my random thoughts...

Completely agree with this. It is madness for a first time developer to take 4.5 years to create the first game - if he is doing it full time. I too cant understand why it took that long - I have been a programmer so I know intimately how complex it can be so am not attempting to diminish what he did accomplish - but for what came out the  other end 4.5 years later it seems excessive. It suggests to me he didnt really start out with a plan and just kept going and going to get it finished.

I looked at the game when it first came out - and two big things really hurt it. Firstly the price. $45 for this was utter, utter, madness. It was a 20 dollar game and I guess fault there lies with battlefront who advised it. If you look at his sales figures on the next blog entry when it was reduced to 20$ there was still a spike in sales. Thats a year after release and despite the negative reviews he talked about.

Secondly - the thing was incredibly bland. It just had no soul or unique selling point. Minecraft is what it is because it gave something that was unique. EoS did nothing really that empires didnt do years before. There are free versions of that still available that essentially do the same thing.

There were also games like civilization that did a whole lot more than EoS. I think basically he made a game that had already been done and done in a way that he was never going to compete with.

I really think the price was the thing that hurt this most though. I know - had it been 20 bucks on release it was likely something I would have bought. Now - I dont care what the price is I just lost interest. Sales are about the first couple of months - anything after that is just trickle money.

[Rayfer]

I enjoyed the game and still fire it up once in awhile.  It is a challenging turn based wargame that is not at all complicated, so it is easy to get into and just enjoy.  It offers a lot of options when setting up the world map...i.e. difficulty level, quantity of resources, etc., and everything from multiple islands to just one large land mass and everything in between.  But a disclaimer: when I say challenging I mean it from my perspective only....I find most all wargames very challenging even at 'normal' difficulty settings.  Even HPS games (which many forum posters say have braindead AI's) like Gettysburg give me a tough fight that I struggle to win.  So it doesn't surprise me that others find Empires of Steel too easy.

[SgtRock]

 I was a big fan of Empire Deluxe but, Empires of Steel never grabbed me for some reason. It's sad that an independent developer can't make it, especially when it comes to wargames. Strange that he can't get this on Steam, same with Panzer Corps, does Steam hate wargames?

[son_of_montfort]

That Post-Mortem is from two years ago. I wonder what Brit has been doing in the interim?