The Power of Community #3

We have used the title "Power of Community" twice already on this blog, but it's very fitting to use it again.

First time around, it was to in the case of a member of the truck sims fan community helping us find a publisher in Brazil. Trying alone, we were not lucky enough to identify any company interested in distribution of our games there. Fortunately, players of our games often know way more than we do, especially when it comes to local market conditions, so the recommendation to approach Tech Dealer was spot on. After releasing 3 games though them already, we have freshly signed ETS2 with them now, too.

When we used the title again, it was to comment on the incredible uptake of crowd-sourced translation of Trucks & Trailers though GetLocalization. It was a great experience, too, we have since used GetLocalization.com again and again, most recently for Euro Truck Simulator 2. The game is at the moment fully translated into over 20 languages, and more are in the works. For one of the upcoming game updates, we hope to be ready with utf-8 support, being able to localize the game into even more languages. Our programmers are currently working on this, also inspired by the help of community and the chance to offer the game in native language to even more of our fans.

Now for the third time we felt the title was needed, we have some interesting development in the truck brand licensing area!

Since last week, we have received e-mails from three truck manufacturers inquiring about our game. It seems to have been the result of a group of our fans bombarding their facebook pages with a campaign to license their brand to ETS2 (or so we understand) - it was loud enough to attract their attention. We tried to approach all truck manufacturers over the past 3 years, and mostly it wasn't really a problem that we were refused. Actually it was the problem of not being noticed at all, not being able to reach the level of decision makers in the companies. Now it seems that where we have not succeeded, you guys managed to make them raise their ears and notice our game. Nothing is to be taken for granted, the discussions are at very early stages, but with a bit of luck there is a chance for 3 more vehicles in our game getting the proper name and brand in future ETS2 updates.

Not everything works as a charm though. We have also been trying to use the power of the fan community to get noticed by Valve, the company behind Steam, on the Euro Truck Simulator 2 Greenlight campaign. Unfortunately so far this was not a success, the game is now lingering at #43 on Greenlight, actually losing a couple of places in the race since last week. Perhaps when the demo is out on October 19th, it will raise awareness of the game by so much that yet more votes will come. Others are way more lucky in this regard, Farming Simulator 2013 did not even have to go through Greenlight and was accepted to Steam with no problems (you can pre-order it already). Maybe we have picked the wrong simulation niche if there are so much more farmers than truck drivers? ;-)

To end this post on a positive note again, let's take a look at a few more landmarks spicing up the world of ETS2!