Hello Everyone!
My name is Tamás Bakó and I’m the CEO at Artery Studios. If you would like to know more about our company then visit our company website here.
When Valve contacted me about two weeks ago to announce their Autumn (nov 21-27) and Winter (Dec 20-Jan 4) sales – and to ask whether we’d like to include SOTMC (Secret of the Magic Crystals) or not – I came up with an idea. Let’s set the price at $1.99 and try to generate a total sale of 50.000+ copies.
Some of you might already heard about the ‘SOTMC Summer Steam Sale Phenomenon’. During the sales over 25.000 copies were sold. This happened in less than one week. Thanks to the ‘fan’ letter we received we soon found out that sales were driven by the reddit post by Vice_Versa_1993 (original post can be found here) and Cauchemar89. (originaly post can be found here).[edit]
I’ve managed to farm a lot of reviews, blogs, even tumblr feed in the links section. Take a look. I’m sure there are lots more so contact me if you found anything interesting and I’ll add them to the Links.
So the idea is that with your help (yes, you there who could be a devoted fan of any age or a gag gifter, steamgifts user, youtube video sharer, blogger, hater, etc.) we will try to shift a total of 50.000 copies during the Autumn and Winter sales. “Why would I do that?” you may ask. Well, there could be a number of reasons. First would be that you enjoy playing SOTMC and would love to share with your friends, family, colleagues. Another reason might be to troll or gag gift someone so they share your horror and you can laugh while they install the game. Could be the – now routine – challenge of completing the game to 100%. I would also like to give a couple of reasons for you all.
Main reason would be that if we reach our goal of 50.000+ copies then we’ll pour this money into producing SOTMC II.
To turn this into something even better, let’s treat SOTMC as a currency while the sales last. With each copy you buy you may earn something personal and global, a bit like a Kickstarter pledge (with the benefit of receiving a couple of copies of SOTMC too). Let me explain. You buy:
- 1-5 copies of SOTMC – Thank you very much -> Buy now on Steam!
- 6-10 copies of SOTMC – Receive a copy of SOTMC II for free* + your name in the credits of SOTMC II -> Buy now for $11.95
- 11-20 copies of SOTMC – Receive 3 copies of SOTMC II for free* + your name in the credits of SOTMC II -> Buy now for $21.85
- 21-40 copies of SOTMC - Receive 3 copies of SOTMC II for free* + your name in the credits of SOTMC II + a limited SOTMC II t-shirt** signed by the developers -> Buy now for $41.75
- 41+ copies of SOTMC – Receive 5 copies of SOTMC for free* + your name in the credits of SOTMC II + a limited SOTMC II t-shirt** signed by the developers + Your name gets in the horse database*** -> Buy now for $81.50
Also, if we reach our aim and sell over 50.000 copies we will draw 50 limited edition Aenus USB**** drives between participants.
* if we reach our goal and SOTMC gets produced (more information will come soon in the blog)
** if we don’t reach our goal then this will be a SOTMC t-shirt (photos will come later in blog)
*** if we don’t reach our goal then we can add you to current database of SOTMC in next update
**** These drives will get made once we reach 25.000 copies sold in the sales.
What’s next ? Read on the blog and help us to make Secret of the Magic Crystals II. With your help it may turn out something special!
[edit] as it turned out my research wasn’t thorough enough and it was two reddit.com thread that started the summer sales hype.[/edit]
how do you know how many copies we buy, and where we should buy that copies?
also, your first game is awful.. its a great game with many promisses, but then its just the samme single minigame over and over and over again…
if your first game is very cool in graphics but really lacks of content…. how want you to expect we buy a boring “mingame” 6 times… the game was like abandoned.. i was in steam foruns and i didn’t see support for it, i send an email asking for an answer to developers like 6 months ago, never get one…
We will try to keep this simple. Most of the cases we can become buddies on steam so we can check your inventory. Or if we’re less suspicious we may accept screenshots.
Buy on Steam or Mac App Store.
Glad you asked. If you don’t enjoy playing SOTMC then you can gift it to friends, children or someone you hate. It’s up to you. With your help, SOTMC II could get developed and could end up being a game you’d like. Worst case you can still gift on steam gifts.
If we achieve a bigger user base on the original SOTMC we will release at least one update that focuses on a less boring gameplay and some new features. More on this later in the blog.
How will I prove you my purchase of 6+ copies?
At the moment I’m thinking about simple proofs like screen shots and sharing your account with one of our accounts (adding as buddy). Basically unless we sense fraud we will try to make this simple and easy.
Firstly, thank you for thinking of this. I’m one of the first few members of this dedicated Steam Group to those of us who have managed to 100% the achievements on Steam for SotMC – and I’m proud to say that I even went to the “extreme” of hiding in the corner of my school classroom to play SotMC, much to the embarrassment to whoever caught me. Nonetheless, I persevered and completed the game.
I will definitely try and buy as many copies of SotMC when the time comes.
Just one thing I’d like some clarification on.
“41+ copies of SOTMC – Receive 5 copies of SOTMC for free* + your name in the credits of SOTMC II + a limited SOTMC II t-shirt** signed by the developers + Your name gets in the horse database***”
You do mean, “Receive 5 copies of SOTMC II for free”, yes?
Thanks for this!
One more thing.
Will the SotMC copies previously bought on Steam count toward the say, 41+ goal, or not?
At this point this only applies for new purchases as we are raising towards SOTMC II, however, I hear you. We’ll think of a reward for existing, loyal customers also! More info on the blog soon..
Apologies for posting several times now.
Are we supposed to buy each copy individually? It’s a pain, since right now, you can only have one SotMC in your Steam cart at a time. We’d have to buy it, add it cart, buy it, add to cart, etc…
That’ll also cost those of us with prepaid credit cards lots of service charges.
I understand it might be a pain to do so, however, at this point we don’t have a better alternative. I believe Steam Wallet can be topped up so at least credit card charges won’t multiply. If we hear of a proper solution, we’ll let you know.
Yes, that is a typo, thank you for pointing this out.
I would just like to say, as a SteamGifts user, this is awesome. Pure awesome. I really love the attitude you have shown, not being perturbed in the least by the possibility of gag/troll gifting. I’d just like to say, while I have no idea if I can financially support this yet, I am wholeheartedly behind this idea in spirit and well wishes if nothing else. I hope this is a grand success!
Thanks, we hope it goes well! If everyone shares the info and buys or gifts some, then it might become a reality.
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/woyli/ಠ_ಠ/
ONE DOLLAR IS NOT ONE EURO/POUND. REMEMBER THAT.
Not sure what this meant to be but indeed, Steam charges $4.99, EUR4.99 and GBP3.99 currently for SOTMC so I expect sales prices to be at $1.99, EUR1.99, GBP1.59. Will confirm this and add to FAQ once Sales is on.
Use Google’s currency converter. The game would cost 0.79 EUR normally.
0/10, will not buy.
currency converter doesn’t do much as pricing and conversion is up to Valve, same as Apple in App Store.
So you can’t do anything about the unfair prices for Europeans? Because for now we have to pay more to buy the game than people in the USA.
Only thing we could do is to lover the quota for EU residents. We’ll look into this. Unfortunately conversion is done on a global scale by Valve and not much we can do about that. I understand it’s unfair but it has always been the like this. :/ For example all apple prices are like 1$=1EUR :/ Not ideal.
I’m not an European resident, but I did have an idea…
How about you eliminate the middle man? Just have them send the money straight to you (using a sort of website that automatically converts the money to USD fairly, of course), and you give them key codes to enter on Steam.
I’ll look into this option and if possible then go with it. Sounds like a good solution, however, not sure how many players I can reach out.
No offense
bought already 3 copies and will buy more in the next days and bought before some copies to giveaway^^…
You could set different prices for different regions. Yes, Valve will calculate price on its own when you only enter the price for $US…but you can(or should) enter more than one price. The “right” price should be 1,50€ and not 1,99€. So a base price of ~4€ would be “fair”. Same for the UK price. There it is 1,5 Dollars more than in US…right base price should be 3,1 pounds. Its just feels wrong that we must pay “so much more” than the peoples in US…
It even exist a big steamgroup because of this “problem”: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/1e1us …and no, we are not greedy
Thanks for the info! We’ll look into this and set prices properly as soon as possible!
There are many, many games on Steam that do not use the standard Valve regional price conversions. So you’re either uninformed or lying about it. I don’t believe you’re purposely trying to rip off Europeans, so I’ll assume you’re just uninformed. Please contact Valve and ask them how you can set custom regional prices. Then take a look at the average exchange rates (EUR/USD, GBP/USD, RUB/USD, BRL/USD) in the recent past and calculate regional prices that are approximately equal to the US price.
If you so wish, you can set lower prices for the poor parts of the world – Eastern Europe (EU2), Russia (RU), former Soviet countries (UA) and Brazil (BR). I believe there’s also a price region for Mexico.
And finally, why is the price in the former Soviet countries (UA price region in Steam terms) higher than the US price? That makes no sense whatsoever. And it’s not Valve’s doing either, their standard regional conversion is 60% of the US price.
Hi! I don’t think there would be any reason or advantage in lying about this. Since we are Hungarian developers we know that eastern regions are poorer and if we knew we could set prices individually on our own to different regions we would’ve done it earlier. Uninformed? Yes, I think you’re right. We’ll see if we can update this asap to help non-US customers. Thanks for the info!
@Tamasbako
What is your Steam profile?
“tamasbako” just created recently as I didn’t had my own profile before, just a company one. Feel free to add me, thanks. Will add this to FAQ also.
Thanks, though I can not find you via search. Steam is bugged that way sometimes.
Can you please provide the actual link. (ie: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197xxxxxxxxxx)
Thanks,
Try this pls: http://steamcommunity.com/id/tamasbako
This seems like a pretty cool idea, I may have to partake in buying extra copies for random people since I already got a few copies of it for my friends during the first steam sale and we actually played at the same time and talked over skype about strategies of which methods are the best to train our horses and how many races we did, it was pretty fun.
Wait until you hear more about the 4 player online multiplayer horse race in up coming update of original SOTMC.
That does sound like fun, I feel like we would take it too seriously and become over competitive.
I can help you promote it if you would like my help. I have a massive group on Steam which is really active and growing really fast everyday. The group name is “Hookups” http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Hookups
I also added you on Steam so we can talk more. My name is Sammy,
http://steamcommunity.com/id/o0O0oOdbOo0O0o
Contact me on Steam when you have time so we can talk.
Hi Sammy, please promote, every share, like or e-mail or tweet helps for sure! I’ve accepted you on Steam btw!
May I ask if you reach this 50,000 goal can you also promise a Linux port? I’m a linux user and using the Steam Linux beta I’d love to see this game supported on that platform.
We’ve been looking into Linux porting original SOTMC already and all I can say is that as long as we can do it, we will. Can’t promise at this point but we would most definitely like to release both games on Linux Steam!
When buying multiple copies of the same game on steam you have to checkout with only one copy, is it possible to see if Valve will make a workaround so that it will be easier to purchase many copies of the same game ?
I’ll check if we can sell keys directly.
awesome news, had tons of fun gifting sotmc last year and looking forward to it this year again
however
I’d just like to make sure steam are aware/prepared for such a thing, their default protocol is (or at least was last year) to temporarily lock out accounts after purchasing about 5 of the same item in a short period of time. which made bulk buying sotmc a major pain.
I see this being a problem and hopefully we can sell them directly on our page.
That’s awesome!
Hope you will reach your goal.
Put this on reddit!
Thanks, will do!
Couldn’t you just sell it in packs?like how, some games have a 3 pack if you can’t put more than one pack at a time just do a 10 pack since it will make it easier for a lot of people
Good idea, will investigate! Probably best idea so far. If possible, we’ll go this way.
This would help! I’ve already bought four, and it was a pain.
Working on a better solution for bulk buyers. Thanks for the hard work !
21 copies bought
You’re a hero! Thanks!
Bought 11 copies. here’s my steam inventory so you know I’m not lying.
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198050689640/inventory/#753
Goodluck with SOTMCII!
PTG
Also do you know what would be awesome? If you managed to get a/several hat/s or clothing item into TF2. That’d be an awesome way to promote the game. XD
We tried that instantly after the Summer Sales as a bonus for the great sales but they weren’t interested. :/
Confirmed! Thank you for the purchase!
Bought 6 copies of the game so far.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/zomby2d/inventory/#753_1
I’ve been adding SotMC to my cart with every purchase I’ve made since the sale started. It wasn’t as painful that way since I was already buying stuff anyway. Better than going through the process of buying one game over and over.
Thanks for the purchase, your purchase is now verified !
I managed to increase my purchases to 12 copies with the Winter sale. That’s probalby as high as I’ll go seeing as my wallet is now pretty empty.
Hi,
I already give some copies bought during the sale, does that mean that they don’t count?
Is there any way you can prove the purchase? Perhaps billing or invoice from Valve, etc. ? Or history. I’m sure there’s a way to find out what games have you bought and gifted so we can figure out the exact amount and verify the purchase, too. Thanks for the purchase by the way!
I kept all the invoice and I can screenshot the gift history, so it will be fine I guess
Absolutely! Thanks for the purchase!
Hello Tamasbako.
I’ve bought 45 copies. Would you mind checking my inventory when you’re able? I’ve added you as a friend over Steam. I’ll show them to you when you’re online.
Added you over Steam. Will check when online or you can share the inventory link also. Thanks for the purchase!
Hey Tamasbako.
I can never find you online, so I turned my inventory to friends only. Please confirm as soon as possible so that I can revert it back to private.
I would also like to mention that this is not my only “bulk” purchase, as I have bought about another 40 or so copies during the summer sale. I can provide proofs of purchase if necessary.
45 copies confirmed sir! Thank you for your purchase. We’ll need to figure out how to add copies from old sales or how to treat them. It’s in the pipeline, don’t worry!
I should have stored them to screenshot instead of shipping them out as I found prospective targets… Still, here’s a screenshot of my recent purchases. I only got 6 so far. (You can add me for confirmation that that user name is indeed my account, I guess)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v433/GrayFox2510/SotMCgrayfox2510.png
I’ll crack this game in the near future, finally out of school and I gotta work on my backlog quickly before I find a job… XD
Thanks for the purchase! Best is probably to either add me as a Friend on Steam or provide a link to your inventory. You can also mail me that if you don’t want to share your inventory in public.
I absolutely love the game, but I really think it is not a good use of time to buy one copy at a time over on Steam. Not only is the process tedious, it might compromise your account and getting it lock-out for further purchases for one reason or another (gotten locked out when I was purchasing my 12th copy of Defense Grid during the last sale…)
Is there an easier way to support the sequel instead of buying one copy at a time?
Cheers! Working on a more simple solution to support game and/or but more copies at the same time.
Only got 6 copies until now
will buy more when Holiday sale starts!
http://steamcommunity.com/id/diabLo-Designz/inventory#753_0
Here is a screen, have some giveaways running which will run out tomorrow.
http://www.abload.de/img/untitled66pyz.png
And how much did you sold now in this event
? Hopefully you get packs and correct prices when the holiday sale starts 
2 Giveaways with SotMC are ended. Picture is the only proof now
http://www.steamgifts.com/user/diabLo2k5
Added 6 copies under your name Sascha! Thank you for the purchase!