On Sun, 11 Jan 1998, Chris Cracknell wrote:
> The CD wouldn't have sold retail anyways. The activision packs were a
> commercial failure and the market for classic material is too fringe to
> have any sort of mainstreme appeal (not to mention it's not like
> everyone has a Supercharger to play the games with).
I wish you would keep your mouth shut in areas in which you have no
knowledge. I happen to know the sales figures for Action Pack. V.1 and 2
sold briskly, at around similar numbers as the arcade emulator CDs. Only
volume 3 sold poorly (so much so that few people even know it came out).
Activision made a mistake by licensing those Atari titels for AP 3 because
they a) paid too much for them, and b) the titles were mostly 1st
generation and of limited appeal. AP3 was a mistake in planning and
execution and should not be indicative of the failure of the concept.
AP sold to those who were not necessarily on the internet and therefore
were ignorant of the ROM piracy. There is still a significant market out
there who has not seen the ROMs online who could be exploited. Is it easy
to find them? No, you need a careful marketing strategy. But they are
still there. I've still given up on the commercial mainstream CD, yes,
but the concept was valid at that time. Just because JTS was unreasonable
and the "suits" at the publishers were disinterested doesn't mean it
wouldn't have worked. But it's water under the bridge now.
> You don't need to sell retail to make a profit. Most of the people who
> are going to buy your CD are already accessable to you through
> RGVC. And for the non-online collectors, I'm sure video game specialty
> stores like Jerry G's would be eager to carry another Supercharger CD.
We're talking about the difference between 500 units and 50,000 units.
> What the collectors want are the Supercharger games. The Atari and Activision
> libraries are available on-line and through a few dozen pirate CDs.
The purpose of the commercial CD was to reach the non-wired public who may
not even know that these games are available online. As popular as the
internet is, not EVERYONE is online. I wanted to break out of the RGVC
niche.
> Bob's 2K Okie Dokie is PD, but you might be able to negotiate a deal
> with Bob for the 4K version as well as Stella Sketch. And now that
Bob already has his own CD. No need to duplicate efforts.
> the mighty Oystron is activated you might be able to work out a deal for
> that. INV2 might not be far behind either.
This is a given.
> Bridgestone is willing to deal.
Just because Bridgestone is willing to deal doesn't mean the deal will
make sense, economically, to us.
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