HPS

[Steel God]

I will not claim to speak for HPS, but as someone who play tested for them for a handful of years I can give you my impression, which is that they never struck me as motivated by sales volume. Their goals always seemed aimed at two things concurrently.

1) Getting the product as right as possible (given limitations).

2) Setting a sales target that was not HUGE, but just enough to make it profitable from a business sense.

Obviously if you can't do 2) number 1) don't mean squat, but I never got the impression they wanted a block buster IF producing it meant compromising getting it right. They won't sell you junk backed by a year and half of hype, only to take your $50 and offer to patch your game that doesn't work as advertised. I know some games I worked on testing in 2005 still have not come to market, and that's testing after design and development, so getting it RIGHT is important in a way that other companies can't fathom. They know they have a niche market, and a loyal following, and I think for them that's enough. Word of mouth will get them more sales than a flashy entrance page thingee ever would.