Hi

I'm really not looking to rain on anyone's parade here, but it seems to me that a reality check is in order.

hoccalugee wrote, "Why would SEGA/CA ever want to LOSE the thousands of free workers who make their great game even better?"

The answer is that CA-SEGA just does not care about the relatively small numbers of veteran/hardcore TW players. Nor are they (any longer) interested in the modding community or facilitating their contribution to the development of the franchise. The proof of this is obvious: modding tools for ETW were promised on release or "soon" thereafter. Where are they?

The economic logic is equally obvious and unarguable: CA-SEGA wants to milk their cash cow for all it's worth. Anything which distracts from sellable add-ons is competition CA-SEGA can well do without. The advent of downloadable content packs has hugely increased the profitability of small (some might say trivial) add-on releases -because of the massive reduction in the cost of distribution and elimination of several links in the distribution chain.

Why would CA-SEGA countenance foregoing this additional revenue for the sake of retaining the loyalty and enthusiasm of a few tens of thousands of veteran/hardcore TW players?

CA-SEGA's bean counters are only interested in the hundreds of thousands of 'casual' gamers who are content to receive plenty of eye candy and action ("sandbox" gamers) for their £35 - on the strength of shallow, misleading, and some might argue dishonest, reviews - but who never really do more than dip their toe into the complexities and intricacies that the developers may have have attempted to create.

I'm sorry, but much as I would love to be able to agree with your position hoccalugee, it just doesn't stand up when analysed in the cold hard light of economics and what we know about corporate behaviour.

It's time to board our ships and sail off into the West.

Regards
Victor