what's gamepark thinking ?

[nik166]

i'm surfing on the web while waiting for the shipping of my GP32 (ordered 16 days ago at GBAX .... grrrrr )

but the more i read, the less i understand their marketing philosophy

for example on insertcredit.com

on one side we have interviews of gamepark saying

And I would like to tell all GP32 owners to be patient, as we are planning lots of things regarding the GP32’s future. Stay tuned!

and on the other side news like

I got a mail today from a fellow by the name of Tom Bryant regarding Radium for GP32. It seems he checked with Karma Studios - here's what they said:


"While we have the GP32 version working, it is uncertain if we will release it for GP32. It seems like the market is too small for us to make any money on it and could possible harm our sales on the other versions. We haven't had much [contact] from our GP32 contacts (including CEO), so we're assuming the system is dead."

Kind regards,

  Martin Wenting     (Managing Director - Karma Studios)

:blink: feel like we have a great machine sold by mad peoples :blink:

what do you think of it ?

 

[hando]

........................................................

 

[timthepig]

infact does anyone own a official gp32 game? -are there translation patches available for it?

I would never considering buying one until a English translation patch was available -- unless the game really didn't need it.

 

[TJFBryant]

This is tom bryant,
Don't worry about the GP32, in a market totally controlled or almost controled by Nintendo's GBA, its tough for GP to market their device for such a small company.

I have 2 official games, Tomak and Her Knights...both which don't REALLY NEED an English patch. As for as more games coming...trust me...there coming.
GP is finally settling into there marketing strategy,
be patient things are happening, AS for radium...thats one game we may see for the GP32 IF all of the GP32 FANS out there show there support for the game and for the system. ;-)

 

[craigix]

Wait a minute nik, you order from us SIXTEEN days ago? Are you sure the order has gone through? We dispatch in 24 hours...

Could you email me (craig@gbax.com) or phone up so it can be sorted out?

Thanks,

Craig.

 

[nik166]

Wait a minute nik, you order from us SIXTEEN days ago? Are you sure the order has gone through? We dispatch in 24 hours...

don't worry , the problem has already been resolved

in fact (i'll tell the whole story in case some guy would hesitate to order at GBAX because of my little sentence )
since i'm a very zen and patient (and french) guy, i ordered by airmail , wich has, according to the site , a 12 days delay,

after 10 days i send a mail to gbax and someone tells me to not worry yet

so i send an other mail after 14 days and i'm told to wait a little again

but THIS AFTERNOON , i received this

Your order has just been returned to us by the Royal Mail.  The reason given is in french
'preciser l'adresse'  I presume this means it is an incomplete address.

so my order will be resent "[EDIT] has been sent" , but by UPS this time

GO ON FOLKS! ORDER AT GBAX !

(i say it for people like hazel who could have any doubt about gbax for a little second and mailed me )

ok now may the topic continue

 

[Vanguard]

"While we have the GP32 version working, it is uncertain if we will release it for GP32. It seems like the market is too small for us to make any money on it and could possible harm our sales on the other versions."

Tom, could you ask your boss for me how it is that the market is too small to make money on, but still large enough to threaten sales on other versions?

(Not trying to be rude, this argument just doesn't make any sense to me)

Thanks

 

[ralp99]

developing/producing software for a title that will not move many numbers (tiny userbase) == it's a loss, and you end up spending more than you've made.

 

[Vanguard]

True, but they did say it's already running

 

[adr]

infact does anyone own a official gp32 game? -are there translation patches available for it?

I would never considering buying one until a English translation patch was available -- unless the game really didn't need it.

I've got Her Knights and it's brilliant! There's an English patch available but you don't really need it, I can make about as much sense of the story now as I could when it was in Korean, and to me, Korean just looks like advanced maths or something!

I'd like more retail games but I'm always hasty to spend money when I have it and don't save up. I've seen the Hany party game going cheap though, so I might get that. Does anyone have the full version, and is it good/worth the money? I had the demo of 'Tower' and it was cool, but not the sort of thing I'd pay for. What are the other mini-games like?

 

[TJFBryant]

Vanguard, I would love to try and explain this marketing strategy for you. But 2 things first.
One... I don't work for Karma Studios, So I don't have a boss. I received an email from Karma Studios on the Radium Game because I was interested in gaining information on Radium. sorry.
Two.... I wish I could understand Karmas Thinking also. I don't understand much about mass marketing, not in the gaming industry anyway. I am only a freelance reporter trying to bring information on various topics to the GP32 gamer. Any more information I receive from Radium and Karma Studios...I ll post it. KEEP the great posts coming all.

 

[Esn]

Also, does anyone know how many GP32's have been sold?

GP has stated different figures in different interviews; I've seen both 15,000 and 150,000... does anyone know the truth?

 

[GurtyGurt]

I asked a Korean friend of mine about the GP32 and he just looked at me quizzically. He'd never heard of it, and he just came back from Korea! I dunno if that means anything...it's not like he would have missed it if it was around, I mean I know him because we both hang out in the same arcade

Either way once I got my GP32 I showed it to him and he was very impressed...

 

[}Yak{]

Regarding the commercial games I'd happily pay up for Pinball Dreams, and probably for Super Plusha too. Haven't seen enough demos of the other ones yet to decide about them.

There's a degree of gp32-mania going on over at the Llamasoft boards at the moment. Quite a few new owners amongst our ranks now . Some of them keen to do a bit of coding on the beast too .

\
-) - Yak
/

 

[GurtyGurt]

Yeah, I expected as much, and all things considered you are the most respected persons in cult gaming (for lack of a better term)...then again, you have a habit of backing systems that are doomed. I presume GP32 will be different because not only is it a different self-supporting concept altogether, but you aren't working for Gamepark in any way

I don't think the GP32 really compares to the Konix system, the Jaguar or the Nuon, though. All those systems were mainstream, GP32 isn't. For that matter, it doesn't compare to any system I can think of. When the GP32 first came out I thought it'd be dead in months, especially since it was around the same time a similar super deluxe 32 bit system came out. What was that thing anyway? Am I confused? It might have not even been the GP32!

Anyhow, I am always very cautious about paying full console game price for a handheld game. That's the biggest downfall with the GBA IMO - you can get a lot of the games on SNES for a fraction of the cost.

 

[nik166]

hmm, if the game is GOOD (that means,original, fun, technically impressive) it's not a problem

but paying full price for a new tetris... , of course , snes and gpengine games are less expensive

 

[jlebrech]

Anyhow, I am always very cautious about paying full console game price for a handheld game. That's the biggest downfall with the GBA IMO - you can get a lot of the games on SNES for a fraction of the cost.

Yeah the games are cheap (or free) for GP32 but you are buying it for the cost of a gamecube (well almost its halfway price between gc and ps1)

 

[GurtyGurt]

GC's were $199aus here for a while with Mario Sunshine and a memory card. That's about $100us...they're back up now, though. Only reasons I can think of for the sale was overstock for the xmas period (about 6000 sold nationally, which is abysmal really)

 

[Vanguard]

Vanguard, I would love to try and explain this marketing strategy for you. But 2 things first.
One... I don't work for Karma Studios, So I don't have a boss. I received an email from Karma Studios on the Radium Game because I was interested in gaining information on Radium. sorry.
Two.... I wish I could understand Karmas Thinking also. I don't understand much about mass marketing, not in the gaming industry anyway. I am only a freelance reporter trying to bring information on various topics to the GP32 gamer. Any more information I receive from Radium and Karma Studios...I ll post it. KEEP the great posts coming all.

Wow, I completely misunderstood. Somehow I got the impression you worked there. My apologies.

I'm wondering if their remark about hurting sales on other platforms could be a concern about getting on the big 'N's bad side if they release software for the GP32. (Pure speculation)

 

[GurtyGurt]

Could be possible. I dunno if it still happens, but it's a well known fact that Nintendo used to use monopolistic deals on companies prohibiting them from porting games to other machines for long periods of time. And now, NoJ has a new CEO or something I heard. It's probably best just to wait and see...especially since you'd be treading on lots of Ninten-toes if you did anything to upset the balance of the portable console market. (oh, the horror!)