Nuclear Dawn giving gift copy to every player

If no one's playing a multiplayer game, no one's spreading word about it, and there's no reason for anyone new to buy it, so how do you recover from this? Indie dev InterWave faces this problem with FPS-RTS Nuclear Dawn, and is trying to jump-start it with free copies.

Alice O'Connor

June 14, 2012 12:30 PM

Multiplayer games live or die on their playerbase. If no one's playing, no one's spreading word about it, and there's no reason for anyone new to buy it, so how does a game recover from this? Indie developer InterWave faces this problem with its near-future FPS-RTS Nuclear Dawn, and is now trying to jump-start the community with free copies. Everyone who already owns Nuclear Dawn will receive an extra copy on Steam to gift to a friend, InterWave explained in a blog post, coming when the June update launches. It's also cutting the price from $19.99 to $14.99, though digital distributors frequently have it discounted to around $12.50 and Amazon already sells a boxed copy for $11. There have also been several Nuclear Dawn free weekends on Steam since it launched, letting all and sundry play for nowt then pick it up cheap on sale if they take a fancy to it. Yet despite these efforts, Nuclear Dawn doesn't even break the top 100 most-played games in Steam's stats. It is a Steamworks game, so everyone who owns it will be tracked there, but there were at most 300 players (the number the lowest-ranked game had) when I checked this morning. Nuclear Dawn was initially created to be a Source mod, but InterWave decided to take it commercial and the game launched in September 2011, then priced at $25. Whether this latest move to reinvigorate Nuclear Dawn pays off or not, InterWave is continuing support and has begun work on its next project, side-scrolling survive 'em up Dark Matter. It does hope to return to Nuclear Dawn for a sequel some day, though.

The RTS side of Nuclear Dawn

Alice O'Connor

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June 14, 2012 12:30 PM

Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Nuclear Dawn giving gift copy to every player.

If no one's playing a multiplayer game, no one's spreading word about it, and there's no reason for anyone new to buy it, so how do you recover from this? Indie dev InterWave faces this problem with FPS-RTS Nuclear Dawn, and is trying to jump-start it with free copies.
- RomSteady
  
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  June 14, 2012 12:33 PM
  
  Interesting tactic. Hope it works for them.
- Visceral Monkey
  
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  June 14, 2012 12:37 PM
  
  Neat idea, I like it.
- X-GOUKI
  
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  June 14, 2012 5:56 PM
  
  the game is fun, but if I'm not mistaken it came out right when BF3 came out and it just didn't get much attention (also the graphics being done by the source engine don't help either).
  
  I managed to get a couple of my friends to try it, and while they liked it, they don't let go of CoD.
- cell9song
  
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  June 14, 2012 6:06 PM
  
  I feel really bad for these guys. Its obvious they put a lot of thought and sweat into this game but it just remained below everyone's radar.
  
  At the very least, it should serve as a good demo piece for team members when they search out other jobs if the game tanks.
- [deleted] 330156526
  
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  June 14, 2012 6:08 PM
  
  [deleted]
  - marmite
    
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    June 15, 2012 3:19 AM
    
    and me! http://steamcommunity.com/id/marmite
- USteppin
  
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  June 14, 2012 6:27 PM
  
  Only time I played it was to get some achievement during the big Steam sales event. Gun play felt kinda odd but seemed to have potential if you got a group of friends to play it with you.
- [deleted] 92559685
  
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  June 14, 2012 6:38 PM
  
  [deleted]
- johnlocks
  
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  June 14, 2012 7:23 PM
  
  I feel their pain
- Narrator2012
  
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  June 15, 2012 12:57 AM
  
  This is why I need more steam friends!
- Snipergen
  
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  June 15, 2012 1:44 AM
  
  That's a cool idea and I hope it works but I'm not interested at all in their game.
- Creepin_Jeezus
  
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  June 15, 2012 3:03 AM
  
  Bit of a shame to see them struggle, I remember back when HL2 was still fresh, and they made some awesome concept art as a mod.
  - Fenring42
    
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    June 15, 2012 3:12 AM
    
    Problem was, it only came out like a few months ago.
- Nullzero
  
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  June 15, 2012 3:24 AM
  
  Played it and got my money's worth I think.
  
  It was buggy and unbalanced at launch... its probably better now. But why go back to it?
  
  I think if you make a multiplayer game, your days are pretty much numbered from the start... even CoD franchise has its limits.. the only exceptions I can think of are the big ones... like DotA/LoL... WoW... and Counter Strike.
- Twin--Sword
  
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  June 15, 2012 6:42 AM
  
  The game all so had poor balance at the start.
  
  Stealth class been stupidly OP that did not help when around 75% of players in every game picked stealth due to having no real weakness since they could gun down assaults form past there stealth view range.
  
  Support was worthless Medic heals was ok but 100% unable to defend it self with its crappy SMG.
  
  Support Engi shotgun was just epic fail yer 5-6 point blank chest shots to kill assaults was not fun when they could kill you in less than half the time.
  
  Exo pointless since stealth players could just gun you down as are unable to do any thing.
  
  The poor map balance leading to 1 side having a 90% win rate on some maps since the map was that inbalanced.
  
  IF they fixed all that it could be a good game but i don`t see it.