Oolite Bulletins

aegidian wrote:

Or, like I said, with a box stuffed to acornsoft-esque value.

Okay, let's see:

• A reference sheet: check
• Hardcopies of not one, but two novels (Status Quo and Mutabilis): check
• Eight wonderfully crafted galaxy maps (need to be printed nicely): check
• Miniature models of all default ships: check
• a choice of Oolite music as an added bonus on the game CD: check

I take it Selezen knows a thing or two about printing on cardboard, so the box itself should be manageable to create. I'd say we already have a (virtual) box of quite impressive proportions. If you guys come up with another idea or two, it's going to put acornsoft to shame!

Printing and packaging costs like anything else are driven by volumes. The set up costs for tooling for a carton/box are the same regardless of volume although there would be no artwork or graphic design costs. It is possible to get a standard size carton printed to whatever design, but small runs are still quite expensive when you break it down to indiviual unit cost. A printed label afixed to a std carton would be the cheapest option if done by hand.

The ebay picture was not a photograph but a mocked up image, so who knows how it is actually being distributed.

The overall cheapest (and by far the easiest) solution is on a plain old CD in an envelope, the second class post would be the most expensive bit!

OK tried to keep quiet, I really did, but I couldn't.

Before embarking on this bold endeavour might it be an idea to check with Frontier?

I hate to be down on the concept but there is a difference between a free thing floating round the ether of the internet and an "at cost" boxy product kind of thing that can be waved round court and the government will want the V.A.T. (value added tax)from.

If you want oolite to reach as many people as possible then make it easier for flighty gaming people to plug in and play.....

One slick looking web page with downloads for all systems, top 10 oxps as voted for by players, newest developments as kulled from the forums. Animations of downloadable ships, OXP reviews and rating systems and game balance counters. Eye Candy for the masses.

Pretty boxes are a distraction and make pencil pushers think they can squeeze money out of you. (Because your obviously rich because your making pretty boxes).

Very sensible ideas, CA... (the thought of a 'sticker' saying approved by Frontier Developements makes me grin hugely).

It's all a bit '80s' though isn't it? And not very 'green'.

We buy loads of software at work and it's all downloads and a license key. Manual are online, support is only line (no novellas for MS Office thank god ). Our devs use MSDN, all online again. Our other stuff is SaaS.

The concept of shipping a box with stuff in it seems archaic nowadays.

I like the idea of a 'pack' of stuff though, as Clym suggests, game + top 10 OXPS + maps + novella(s) + keyreference guide.... but downloadable as a one click installer from oolite.org.

Cheers,

Drew.

drew wrote:

(no novellas for MS Office thank god )

Now you mention it I can see it right in front of my inner eye:

The Memoirs of  Clippy





(Just imagine the hatedom it would inspire!)

drew wrote:

2. At what price point will this cause us a problem? Right now this chap is selling Oolite for £5.75 and free postage; not a great deal beyond the production costs and the postage.

I agree. Until 1.5 years ago, I only had an isdn connection. With this, downloading the full game was a real problem for me. Actually I never did it myself and always had to ask others to do it for me and put it on a stick or disk. Than a cd for only £5.75 could be called an attractive alternative I might have considered at that time.

How hard would it be to add a 'check for new version' at the end of the install. Clicking would check a versions page on the download site(s), and take the user there if new version available. Softly softly catchee monkey ...

NigelJK wrote:

How hard would it be to add a 'check for new version' at the end of the install.

better still "check for a new FREE version"

Commander McLane wrote:

I take it Selezen knows a thing or two about printing on cardboard, so the box itself should be manageable to create.

Darn it, you had to drag me into it!!

Creating a cardboard box to put the booty in would be easy enough - A3 card, 210gsm thickness, laser printed outside. Make the face size for the box a little larger than A5, then this will allow inclusion of A5 printed media (booklet printing from duplex printers, for example). Using A3 source card will give enough clearance to be able to modify the thickness as required and allow more content to be put in the box.

Alternatively, and this would probably work out cheaper and quicker, why not get hold of DVD cases and print up inlay cards for them. DVD cases are dirt cheap and come in a variety of sizes and designs. A single disc black 14mm case (the sort you find most DVD movies packaged in) start at 17p per case (20p if you want commercial grade with clip for booklet). You can go from there up to a 33mm spine which will hold up to 10 DVDs (or you can remove the inserts and put anything you like in there) for between 50 and 60p.

I could draw up a box template quick sharp and I have several templates for DVD case inserts.

Since I'm taking part in this now, I'd advise caution if selling via ebay and make clear to the buyer (and any commercial entities that could be reading the ad) that they are paying for the packaging and labour costs in creating the distribution, and not paying for the game and its addons.

Hard wire the cost and everything into the disc contents too, maybe even the game contents. Some kind of official "Aegidian" logo might be an idea, hidden somewhere in one of the folders on the disc. My worry would be that third parties might hike the price up and pretend to be us, selling with less legal awareness than we are just to make a quick buck. That sort of thing could put an end to us and Oolite pdq. Remember that Elite TNK was closed down due to a third party selling TNK-derived works for profit, not because of the dude that wrote TNK.

I think that Oolite should be distributed by any means necessary as long as it's fair and doesn't infringe on Bell & Braben's IP (and the law, of course). What about other online distribution methods? Amazon? Play? Freecycle? Shop on Oolite.org?? It's easy to set up a shop page with a paypal option (I did it for MadCap in about an hour).

How about going for something standard that people can buy separately and then print their own content and make the box. I would very much like to have a box on the shelf together with the rest of the Elite universe.
Something like this might work:
http://www.soundpack.com.au/images/prod ... D_full.jpg
Several other choices are available.

Gimi wrote:

How about going for something standard that people can buy separately and then print their own content and make the box. I would very much like to have a box on the shelf together with the rest of the Elite universe.
Something like this might work:
http://www.soundpack.com.au/images/prod ... D_full.jpg
Several other choices are available.

Ookea, for your very own self-assembly flat-packed galaxy?

aegidian wrote:

There are reasons why some people might choose to buy Oolite on ebay. Believe it or not some people can access ebay but can't or won't download software. Other people might like to have a hard copy of their software but have no way of making a hard copy.

It's not like it's competition, nobody here loses any money because a copy gets sold on ebay. The buyer may regret paying for something they could download, but only if that's a valid alternative and something they'd prefer to do.

In the end my goal with Oolite is to have as many people as possible enjoy it. Having another way for people to get it, or become aware of it helps that.

no, but people on here don't make the money that's made on ebay by someone who (we have to assume, perhaps) put in zero effort. If you sold the stuff, no one would bat an eyelid, i'd think, cos you did a huge amount of work and effort. All us OXPers have too, and yet some anonymous ebayer thinks he can spend a few minutes downloading stuff, banging together a somewhat-inaccurate blurb (2 million planets? really?) and make money off us. i think it stinks. if you're happy about it, fair enough, but it sticks in my throat and the amount of stuff i've cobbled together is nothing compared to others here.
if we do want people to be able to get it on disc, i'd say we should do it ourselves, have a big page/section/banner/whatever somewhere obvious on the .org. We could charge a nominal fee that would cover cost and maybe add a quid or two to site fees or something. my thought would be have the latest version and the usual guide etc, and perhaps some of the fanfic. then we could offer a 10, 20 or 30 "OXPs of your choice" option for an additional amount, so people could get the game a little customised to their own preferences. or, say, get the game plus a "ship pack" (20 new ships OXPs) or mission pack (a selection of mission oxps) - each "pack" to be a couple quid or whatever. Additionally, to pimp the community, we could add in a compilation of the "how to OXP" tutorials.
all we need is someone to burn it off and - idea - we can have a "design a CDROM label competition.

If we -do- make Oolite-on-a-stickCD, then I think it should just include all of the OXPs of which their authors are happy to have included, as well as a small utility program making it easy to list all of the OXPs, open their readme's, and enable/disenable them.

This would actually be value-add, as presumably all included OXPs would be verified as working correctly with that version of Oolite, and whoever put together the bundle and OXP Manager program would actually need to spend a fair bit of time putting it all together.

Certainly don't think it should be a couple of quid for the core game, then a couple of quid for each "OXPansion pack". That seems -way- too commercial to me.

My 0.2Cr

Personally I'm increasingly of the opinion we should not generate (or sell at cost or profit) anything physical at all. I pulled the 'at cost' copies of my books from Cafepress a while back as I grew increasingly uncomfortable about them being available in hardback - there being the potential perception I was making money out of 'Elite'. There was also little justification for them. 24 copies were 'sold' against approximately 26,000 downloads.

Far easier to stay 'free' and unfettered to the 'real' world and not have to worry about those implications. Thus, if any of the stuff appears in a physical medium, it's 'wrong' and the community can jump on it.

As such, I wouldn't be giving permission for any of my Oolite material to appear in a physical form sold at cost or profit. (Community folks who want physicals of the anthology or Incursio can contact me for a one privately.)

My opinion is that the potential risk to 'Oolite' is too great and we shouldn't do this.

Cheers,

Drew.