I was wondering about some of the Rebellion stuff that was talked about like map sharing, triggers and steam workshop that hasn't happened as well as some other modder requested items: titan keeps level, configurable command points needed for titans and capitals, etc.
This made me wonder how much is your mod worth to Rebellion if it's ported... And unlike previous expansions, this game is $40 ($30 previous sins owners) which is a sharp contrast to $10 expansions.
Latest unique download stats from moddb (last major release version only).
Star Trek: Sacrifice of Angels 2 ~10,000 downloads
Stars ~3,500 downloads
Sins of the Fallen ~6,000 downloads
Maelstrom ~14,000 downloads
Distant Stars ~unknown
Star Wars: Requiem !unknown
7 Deadly Sins ~unknown
Sins of a Galactic Empire ~17,500 downloads
Stargate Invasion ~11,000 downloads
Many of these mods are also mirrored at other sites like strategy informer, their own download sites or a plethora of other sites (you'd be surprised). This makes the real download counts difficult to tell for sure, but these numbers are pretty solid.
Did you buy Rebellion because one of your favorite mods mentioned it might convert to Rebellion?
Did you buy Rebellion because you expected atleast some to all of the major mods to convert to Rebellion?
Did you buy Rebellion because you knew Sins of a Solar Empire was modder friendly and has several quality mods already released for Previous Expansions?
If so, the net impact from mods for Rebellion could be anywhere from 15,000 - 20,000+ (possibly more) additional units sold.
Assuming the $30 dollar price tag for previous owners this could result in $450k - $600k+ in additional sales.
Now, I understand these are guesses and this is still much lower than the probable number of units sold for rebellion given the original game sold at-least over 500,000 units in 2008. In the case of Rebellion though, we are talking about previous sins owners and potentially justifying their purchase of Rebellion to follow the mod(s) they are interested in for a much higher priced expansion. Plus an additional 450 to 600k isn't anything to sneeze at.
Even excluding the potential hard dollar amount mods may contribute, there are still a wealth of intrinsic benefits that modding provides through free advertising, forum activity, etc.
So...
Would Steam Workshop increase sales over the long term (continued visibility on Steam even after the game drops of the top sellers list)?
Would Map Sharing increase sales?
Would making some of the new content (within reason) such as Titans a bit more moddable as some have requested benefit sins in the long run?
