GameDaily BIZ today learned that developer S2 Games will announce later this week that it will be circumventing traditional methods of publishing and distribution for Savage 2: A Tortured Soul, and instead will make the game only available for purchase as an online download on the company website—Savage 2, the sequel to Savage: The Battle for Newerth, is scheduled to go on sale this fall for $29.99.

S2 hopes to show the development community that it is indeed possible to create and distribute high quality titles at a fraction of the typical video game budget. Naturally, selling the game via digital distribution comes with some perks, such as not having to share revenues with retailers or publishers and not having to rush to meet publisher/distributor deadlines. As the abovementioned price point indicates, S2 plans to pass on some of these savings to its customers.

"If the game was sold through retail stores, we would be forced to set a higher price point like the other AAA titles out there," said Marc DeForest, co-founder and lead designer, S2 Games. "By circumventing traditional publishing methods, we're able to pass the savings directly on to the consumer as well as have much greater artistic license with our game."

As popular as digital distribution has become, there's no denying that brick & mortar is still the foundation of video game sales. S2 games is taking a bit of a gamble by going exclusively with sales via download. We spoke with DeForest about what went into S2's decision to skip retail.

GameDaily BIZ: My initial reaction to hearing that you were foregoing retail was to think that this was something that was done out of financial necessity, to avoid the costs associated with retail. Was this decision based primarily on costs?

Marc DeForest: The decision had absolutely nothing to do with costs. The upfront costs of traditional distribution methods are not that significant. We released Savage 1 both online and in stores.

BIZ: Ignoring retail for Savage 2 seems like a risky proposition. How does selling the game via digital distribution only affect your sales goals?

MD: The advantage of our development methodologies gives S2 a more reasonable development budget to work with. By having less expense involved in making the game, our sales goals are very obtainable as it is. We feel we will lose a few percentage points of our sales by selling only online, however the advantages heavily outweigh any minor loss of sales we might see.

BIZ: Are you worried that selling it online only will alienate some gamers that wanted a boxed version or that it will limit sales to just people with broadband?

MD: If Savage 2 had a single player element I would be much more worried about losing a good percentage of sales by offering the game online only. However, because Savage 2 is primarily an online game (only LAN and Tutorial are offered offline) we feel that a majority of our customer base will be broadband users and therefore be able to download the game with ease.

BIZ: How did you weigh the advantages and disadvantages when deciding to release your game online only?

MD:We have experience selling games online and in retail stores, I believe this was a big advantage in determining whether selling the game online was risky or not. We sold over 20% of our copies of Savage 1 online. The funny thing is, we made MORE money from those online sales than we did all the retail store sales.

BIZ: Without the retail support for the game, will you have to redouble your marketing efforts? How do you plan to spread awareness?

MD: I believe by foregoing retail support we actually can consolidate our marketing efforts and get more bang for our budget. We're going after those users that are online; therefore we can focus a majority of our advertising efforts on websites like gamedaily.com We plan to have continuous press coverage of the game to help initial awareness. We will then launch a blitzkrieg advertising campaign with heavy exposure and high frequency for a 2-week period at the time of launch (demo will launch simultaneously). We'll also place a few full page ads here and there in the major print publications, again, just pump priming ads.

BIZ: Is it your view that digital distribution is quickly becoming the best bet for independent developers to get their titles on the market?

MD: In my opinion, digital distribution is the ONLY method independent developers should use. The traditional method of publishing works for the big players. They have the muscle to get paid on time and obviously have the financial wherewithal to spend large market development funds in stores. Small operations putting out very high quality stuff get stifled by the "big boys" of the industry, no matter how high quality the title is because of the control being exerted by dominant players. It is a battle that is just not worth fighting. The technology is readily available and easy to implement to sell games online and receive 90% of the revenue instantly, rather than higher distribution and market development costs and receiving a much smaller percentage and being paid in 90-180 days, if at all.

BIZ: Will all future S2 titles be sold only via digital distribution or will retail come back into the picture again at some point?

MD: We pride ourselves on being a self publishing, independent developer. We like making our games, our way, on our terms. Part of what affords us to do this is the way we look to publish Savage 2. I can't guarantee that all our titles will be digitally distributed, especially if we get into games with single player elements. However, for the next 2 titles we have planned we're looking at keeping things the same.

BIZ: Ever since the original Savage it seems like the combination of FPS and RTS elements has become more popular in the PC gaming community. How will Savage 2 build on this?

MD: It is my opinion that the melding of genres is a natural evolution in gaming. With increased technology we're capable of doing so much more. Savage 2 continues to bring FPS / RTS / RPG elements together by giving more players RTS interface control. Now commanders as well as builders and officers have some top down, RTS style views to help them in their roles. We've enhanced "grouping" capabilities by offering players significant incentives to stay with their officer and squad. We also reward players to properly carry out the orders from the commander and officers. RPG is more heavily brought into Savage 2 with the addition of item drops, enhanced NPC AI and significance, a more enhanced experience system, and a few other surprises.

I'd like to sum up this response by saying that, while we bring together all these elements of game play, it's individual skill that is most important to us. We are not building a game where better items and higher levels equals dominance. Those factors are only made to enhance a player's / character's abilities but not give a distinct advantage. It will always be player skill and a team's ability to organize that will determine the outcome of Savage 2 matches.

BIZ: Marc, thanks and good luck.