A question about Auran's marketing.

[Veristek]

Hi, all.

I'm sure this has been asked already, but I was just informed to buy Auran stuff directly, and I checked a few FAQ's and stuff that said Auran decided not to sell TRS 2009 in retail stores. I was wondering, without the selling at retail, how would people who don't know about Auran, its forums, and its community know TRS 2009 existed? Or new customers who may get interested in the whole TRS franchise from seeing TRS 2009 on the store shelves? What about advertising or something to increase Auran's customer base?

Just a few thoughts rolling around in my brain that I thought I'd air out. I got into the whole TRS franchise when I saw the Trainz Railwayz pack at Circuit City earlier this year and I got hooked.

 

[Johnk]

I think you're right, it has been discussed before - many times. In the old days Auran spent a lot of time developing the Trainz core and a lot more time creating routes and assets. The program cost around AU $70. Now Auran spends most, if not all of its energy improving the core and the community develops the routes and assets. Thus a price cut of almost half. TRS2009 WBE is the first of two releases. Without it, the community can't build any new routes and assets to take advantage of the new more powerful core. In a few months time, when the community And Auran has time to create a lot of new stuff, the best will be released with the second part of the program called Engineers Edition (EE). The two volumes combined will be the full-blown TRS2009, but both can be purchased and run seperately. My guess is that EE or, or EE with WBE will then be available at retail stores.

Keep in mind that without the release of WBE there would never be a TRS2009. WBE also contains a much more powerful engine than TRS2006, so purchasing it now will help you enjoy trainz more. It also gives you an automatic discount if you purchase EE later.

 

[johnwhelan]

Hi, all.

I'm sure this has been asked already, but I was just informed to buy Auran stuff directly, and I checked a few FAQ's and stuff that said Auran decided not to sell TRS 2009 in retail stores. I was wondering, without the selling at retail, how would people who don't know about Auran, its forums, and its community know TRS 2009 existed? Or new customers who may get interested in the whole TRS franchise from seeing TRS 2009 on the store shelves? What about advertising or something to increase Auran's customer base?

Just a few thoughts rolling around in my brain that I thought I'd air out. I got into the whole TRS franchise when I saw the Trainz Railwayz pack at Circuit City earlier this year and I got hooked.

Basically there is a market opportunity that Auran are currently exploiting. RS came out looking buggy and the amount of add ons is minimal, Microsoft isn't due out until next year, so there is a niche in the market that Auran are trying to exploit.

Normally it takes two years to get a title out TRS2004, TRS2006 etc. and about three to six months to get titles out in the channel. TC3 came out a few months ago.

What Auran have done is looked through the basic game engine code and come up with a few improvements that take advantage of some of the recent developments in graphics cards. The basic engine is fairly reliable and well worked out but content to the new standard will take time to develop. So release the basic game engine via download or direct sale gets it into the market place very quickly compared to the normal channel route and the profit margin is better. It's a limited market true but the most important people are content creators at the moment.

The idea behind WBE is to allow people to create content. Also to correct content so it runs in TRS2009 native mode. TRS2009 retail needs new content and I imagine Auran are commissioning some at the moment to jump start the process. Already we are seeing TRS2009 specific content on the DLS. I'm correcting a lot of my content at the moment so it runs error free in TRS2009. If you look round the forum you can see threads such as this one
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=34688
where content creators are discussing how to use the new features. So things are moving albeit more slowly than Auran might wish.

EE edition will come out in the first quarter of 2009 with new content and that's the one that will hit the stores.

Cheerio John

 

[Veristek]

Thanks for the information and the heads up, guys. I didn't think of things that way before. I want more people to use Trainz, because its the best customizable train simulator with Surveyor, Driver, etc. plus custom content. Imagine what it'd be like if Trainz was as popular or as famous as, say, Halo or World of Warcraft. (grin)