The Ratbag / WW distinction

Who in their right mind wouldnt love Ratbag? -small upstart company, hitting the ground running with great racing titles right from the get- go. You gotta love that kind of story. And now they do it again with Sprint Cars: wickedly fast 800Hp beasts-of-a-car let loose on miniature golf sized dirt tracks.. yeaaaah baby! Cool. Ok, but Ratbag has been paid for their creation already. Sprints is 'in the can' and so is the demo. Its done, finished, completed. So lets turn our attention away from Ratbag. Lets turn it towards the publisher, WW. Who are these guys? They have no history of publishing anything like what Ratbag gave them before DTR came out. They have no backround or current presence in what we think of as the simracing community. No forum presence. No interviews. Hell, even their very own homepage does not list Sprint Cars as a product!(!) Thats who these WW guys are. They are ignorant of what they have gotten themselves involved with -via- Ratbags excellent programming work: a community of fans that expect a certain level of service and information. And in return for that they get loyal fans and internet fansite support. Granted this is new territory for WW.. how many Swamp Buggy fan sites are there? How many 3rd party programmers working to improve Swamp Buggy? Uh.. have you seen any new car skins for Swamp Buggy? Exactly. If nothing else, WW is guilty of extremely poor service. Ratbag made a silk purse out of nothing, and these guys are single handedly turning it into a sows ear (reputation wise.) And all the words of John Bodin or Don Wilshe cant make it better. WW is about the worst karma in a publisher that a sim fan could ever be cursed with. mr Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.

On Thu, 21 Sep 2000 17:21:27 -0400, "Dave St.Onge" <[email hidden]> wrote: >This is not limited to Ratbag....I remember about 2-3 years ago a product >called Baseball Mogul was to come out, and it took more than 6 months AFTER >it was ready for it to be released...the reason...WW was involved... That's better than dumping it out 6 months early, like Sierra or Hasbro do. I'm not really defending WW, but what you're saying is a no-win situation. People are going to bitch about it either way. Tim

In article <[email hidden]>, Tim O. <[email hidden]> wrote: That's better than dumping it out 6 months early, > Tim > > The flaw in what you said, Tim, is that '6 months early' doesnt apply to a game that is already finished. In the case of Spints, the demo was sent to WW last Tuesday to release.. its not like they are doing 11th hour work on it. Its as finished as its ever going to be. In fact I just read on the Sprints ng that WW has said (on the phone) they will not release the demo til after the full version comes out: mid October. This is the same demo that they've had since last week. 'Early' doesnt apply here. mr Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.

I can't find much to disagree with here, Mark -- I do applaud Wizard Works for bringing us an excellent title like DTR for only $19, but despite the fact that there are some decent people involved at Wizard Works, I think their role in the Infogrames (formerly GT Interactive) heirarchy is to simply move products, period. Remember, also, if it weren't for the dedicated sim-heads at Papyrus, we wouldn't get SQUAT from Sierra in terms of follow-on support. And, as you pointed out, Wizard Works doesn't seem to be much better than Sierra in that respect. As I said, though, there ARE some good people at Wizard Works. For example, there's Mark Bracken, who was involved with DTR, and, unfortunately for him, he also helped bring us Swamp Buggy Racing as well. I don't think Mark planned to produce such a stinger with the latter; what he intended to do was bring a unique and different sort of arcade racer to the shelves for a low price with a minimum of up-front investment. Swamp Buggy Racing was intended from the start to be a pure arcade set in a completely different genre. Daylight Studios utilized the Ultim@te Race Pro game engine, I believe, and produced a low-budget racer aimed at the EXTREMELY casual gamer. Unfortunately, the end result was nowhere near as interesting as something like Fiendish Game's ultra-cheap (yet FUN) "Hot Chix 'n Gear Stix" arcade racers. To be fair to Mark and Wizard Works, though, despite the fact that the DTR demo features more tracks than found in the full version of Swamp Buggy Racing, you have to admit that SBR really isn't much worse than Infogrames' flaghip arcade racer, Test Drive 6. When the parent company sets their sites so low, you can't expect Wizard Works to produce miracles -- so it may well be a miracle that DTR and DTRSC weren't actually nothing more than Head Games' recent "Sprint Car" title (which, ironically, looks like it shares the Ultim@te Race Pro game engine with Swamp Buggy Racing). [Further irony: There's no mention of Sprint Car Racing on Head Games' Web site.] Now, all that said, please note that I'm not arguing with anything you said, but I think it can all be summed up better than either you and I have accomplished so far: 1) Publishers are evil bean counters. 2) Developers are godlike beings. 3) Don Wilshe is a genius. 4) John Bodin and Mark Rael are usually full of $#!+. 5) We're very lucky that Head Games' "Sprint Car" title didn't turn out to really be DTRSC. ;-) -- JB In article <8qdpe2$jsd$[email hidden]>, [email hidden] wrote: > Who in their right mind wouldnt love Ratbag? -small upstart company, > hitting the ground running with great racing titles right from theget- > go. You gotta love that kind of story. And now they do it again with > Sprint Cars: wickedly fast 800Hp beasts-of-a-car let loose onminiature > golf sized dirt tracks.. yeaaaah baby! Cool. > > Ok, but Ratbag has been paid for their creation already. Sprints is'in

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> the can' and so is the demo. Its done, finished, completed. So lets > turn our attention away from Ratbag. Lets turn it towards the > publisher, WW. Who are these guys? They have no history of publishing > anything like what Ratbag gave them before DTR came out. They have no > backround or current presence in what we think of as the simracing > community. No forum presence. No interviews. Hell, even their very own > homepage does not list Sprint Cars as a product!(!) Thats who these WW > guys are. They are ignorant of what they have gotten themselves > involved with -via- Ratbags excellent programming work: a community of > fans that expect a certain level of service and information. And in > return for that they get loyal fans and internet fansite support. > Granted this is new territory for WW.. how many Swamp Buggy fan sites > are there? How many 3rd party programmers working to improve Swamp > Buggy? Uh.. have you seen any new car skins for Swamp Buggy? Exactly. > > If nothing else, WW is guilty of extremely poor service. Ratbag made a > silk purse out of nothing, and these guys are single handedly turning > it into a sows ear (reputation wise.) And all the words of John Bodin > or Don Wilshe cant make it better. WW is about the worst karma in a > publisher that a sim fan could ever be cursed with. > > mr > > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ > Before you buy. >

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.

In article <8qe329$vp4$[email hidden]>, [email hidden] wrote: > > <snip>4) John Bodin and Mark Rael are usually full of $#!+.<snip>;-) -- JB > You got that right! :) mr Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.

> If nothing else, WW is guilty of extremely poor service. Ratbag made a > silk purse out of nothing, and these guys are single handedly turning > it into a sows ear (reputation wise.) And all the words of John Bodin > or Don Wilshe cant make it better. WW is about the worst karma in a > publisher that a sim fan could ever be cursed with. This is not limited to Ratbag....I remember about 2-3 years ago a product called Baseball Mogul was to come out, and it took more than 6 months AFTER it was ready for it to be released...the reason...WW was involved... Dave

Wah! I want my new game, I want it now, and I'm gonna thcream and thcream until I'm thick until I get it. What does your post aim to do, Mark? I know absolutely nothing about WW, nothing at all, but why is it important? -- Colin Harris Bomber Racing: Http://fullspeed.to/Bomber ICQ 25485061 <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:8qdpe2$jsd$[email hidden]...

I think this is a good point. All sim fans should take note of this because the story of Wizard Works is going to be more and more common as larger distributors gobble up only 'mass' market games and leave the nitch developers to fend for themselves with inexperienced and unknowledgable small time producers. Someone said they don't know of WW....well, you don't know of gaming then because WW produced one of the top selling games in history - Deer Hunter. They managed this feat not because they had a great product (probably one of the WORST gaming titles ever), but because they undersold every other game on the market and pushed it in markets that targeted uneducated buyers over actual gamers. So for Christmas, instead of getting that $40 NASCAR LEGENDS title you really wanted, you end up with Deer Hunter because your wife was able to buy it cheap in the frozen food section of your local Piggly Wiggly instead of having to walk into the unfamiliar game world at your local mall and drop a pretty penny. So - what does all this mean? Well, it speaks volumes to those who make up the SIM marketing nitch (and beleive me, its a nitch no matter how popular you think you are). It means that if a developer want to have a chance to make a decent paycheck they better produce titles that the big boys will want to sell, and if you haven't noticed...the big boys are not too interested in pure sims anymore. OR as a developer you can turn over your hard work to a company that gives you drivel for it because their markting is 'buy cheap ; sell cheap'. Companies that offer nothing to the developer but a small paycheck and a box for their game....too bad that box usually ends up being marketed next to the Certs at your local CITGO. So even if the sleez bag producers do win, the developer doesn't. The developer is not bothered for any patches or anything else to promote the game or help it become a mainstay in the genre simply becuase the producer could care less if you played it for 1/2 hour or 3 years - just as long as you bought it. So...if your a developer which sounds better to you? Eating or really making that all time great sim? Yeah, there are a handfull of sims out there but the majority of them are very compromised now days and you can expect the same to continue. This along with more and more complicated licensing issues will soon spell a quick death to racing sims. SO - don't be too suprised when you logon to RAS in 2010 and still have to put up with all the same GPL is KING wooping. PS - on a funny side note I read a review that made fun of WW and moked them for being bested at their own game by HeadGames - who, as you know, recently released the now infamous pile of poop Sprint Cars game for $9.99 undoubtedly to cash in early on those unsuspecting fans of DTR. <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:8qdpe2$jsd$[email hidden]...

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> Who in their right mind wouldnt love Ratbag? -small upstart company, > hitting the ground running with great racing titles right from the get- > go. You gotta love that kind of story. And now they do it again with > Sprint Cars: wickedly fast 800Hp beasts-of-a-car let loose on miniature > golf sized dirt tracks.. yeaaaah baby! Cool. > > Ok, but Ratbag has been paid for their creation already. Sprints is 'in > the can' and so is the demo. Its done, finished, completed. So lets > turn our attention away from Ratbag. Lets turn it towards the > publisher, WW. Who are these guys? They have no history of publishing > anything like what Ratbag gave them before DTR came out. They have no > backround or current presence in what we think of as the simracing > community. No forum presence. No interviews. Hell, even their very own > homepage does not list Sprint Cars as a product!(!) Thats who these WW > guys are. They are ignorant of what they have gotten themselves > involved with -via- Ratbags excellent programming work: a community of > fans that expect a certain level of service and information. And in > return for that they get loyal fans and internet fansite support. > Granted this is new territory for WW.. how many Swamp Buggy fan sites > are there? How many 3rd party programmers working to improve Swamp > Buggy? Uh.. have you seen any new car skins for Swamp Buggy? Exactly. > > If nothing else, WW is guilty of extremely poor service. Ratbag made a > silk purse out of nothing, and these guys are single handedly turning > it into a sows ear (reputation wise.) And all the words of John Bodin > or Don Wilshe cant make it better. WW is about the worst karma in a > publisher that a sim fan could ever be cursed with. > > mr > > > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ > Before you buy.

In article <v3xy5.60572$[email hidden]>, In article <v3xy5.60572$[email hidden]>, "L_NiN0" <[email hidden]> wrote: The developer is not bothered for any patches or anything else to promote the game or help it become a mainstay in the genre simply becuase the producer could care less if you played it for 1/2 hour or 3 years - just as long as you bought it. Good post L_NiNO. If theres a bright cloud in any of it, its that a strong racing title can have a long lifespan- precisely because a small niche of users goes out of their way to support the game. So sometimes even a cut-rate title can take on a new and larger life (DTR.) Sometimes a title seems to dwarf whatever the publisher might try and do down the road with the release (World Sports Cars.) Simracers might be a small group as far as marketing goes, but I'm constantly amazed at what gets created by 3rd party programmers and fans. A handfull of great titles is all we need. And we already have a few. mr Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.

> That's better than dumping it out 6 months early, like Sierra or > Hasbro do. I'm not really defending WW, but what you're saying is a > no-win situation. People are going to bitch about it either way. It would be different if they made changes to the product, or corrected some flaws within the product. However, in this case, no changes were made. They just sat on it to the point that even the person(s) who wrote the game didn't even know what was going on. It was originally scheduled to be released in March or April (baseball sim), yet it didn't get out until October or November...it was the result of WW screwing around... Dave

I thought WW had bought and paid for the game from Ratbag. Surel that means they can release it whenever the hell they like, if ever <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:8qe11a$th2$[email hidden]...

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> In article <[email hidden]>, > Tim O. <[email hidden]> wrote: > That's better than dumping it out 6 months early, > Tim > > > > > The flaw in what you said, Tim, is that '6 months early' doesnt > apply to a game that is already finished. In the case of Spints, the > demo was sent to WW last Tuesday to release.. its not like they are > doing 11th hour work on it. Its as finished as its ever going to be. > In fact I just read on the Sprints ng that WW has said (on the phone) > they will not release the demo til after the full version comes out: > mid October. This is the same demo that they've had since last week. > 'Early' doesnt apply here. > > mr > > > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ > Before you buy.

In article <8qeat4$ak9$[email hidden]>, "Marc Davey" <[email hidden]> wrote: > I thought WW had bought and paid for the game from Ratbag. Surel thatmeans > they can release it whenever the hell they like, if ever<snip> > Yes thats true. They own it.. and they can do whatever the hell they want with it. My guess is that they'll eventually try and make money off it by selling it in stores at some point, and when they do, it will also probably appear (as so many games these days do) in pirated form on the internet. Warez pirates also do 'whatever the hell they want' with games. The differenece is, in their case, the publisher loses out on some profits. Now why would people want to consciously deny a publisher profits? Think about it.. or dont. I could care less :) mr Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.

LOL. Seems to me that these days S/W publishers are considered to be right up there with used Car dealers :o) <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:8qenln$n74$[email hidden]...

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> In article <8qeat4$ak9$[email hidden]>, > "Marc Davey" <[email hidden]> wrote: > > I thought WW had bought and paid for the game from Ratbag. Surel that > means > > they can release it whenever the hell they like, if ever<snip> > > > > Yes thats true. They own it.. and they can do whatever the hell they > want with it. My guess is that they'll eventually try and make money > off it by selling it in stores at some point, and when they do, it will > also probably appear (as so many games these days do) in pirated form > on the internet. Warez pirates also do 'whatever the hell they want' > with games. The differenece is, in their case, the publisher loses out > on some profits. Now why would people want to consciously deny a > publisher profits? Think about it.. or dont. I could care less :) > > mr > > > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ > Before you buy.

It's the old story, Mark, of a developer having the ability and the "marketeer" having none. The strangest part of the whole Ratbag/WW connection is that Ratbag either couldn't find a more professional publisher.....or that WW were the only ones to agree to Ratbag's terms. Maybe we'll never know. -- Regards, Bruce Kennewell, Canberra, Australia. --------------------------- <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:8qdpe2$jsd$[email hidden]... > WW is about the worst karma in a > publisher that a sim fan could ever be cursed with. > > mr

In regards to someone mentioning the demo would be released after the game is, the email I recieved from Ratbag said the demo would be available for DL on the 4th for users registered on Ratbags site. Gues I'll wait till tomorrow and see!