Re: what about the future?
 

Buying the IP, and then throwing it out. Now that would be a design mistake. **** the code, the IP from dominions is worth the money. (With IP, I mean the backstory of the nations, the different nations themselves, the different sites, the magic system (spell names and effects), the images etc).

And why? Because with the IP comes a community of fans. (Yippy, that is you and me!).

Re: what about the future?
 

I'll note that large capital investments like that are tax deductible for corporations.

Also, Dom3 is not the only game Shrapnel produces, and should not be expected to make up the cost of said equipment on its own. Realistically, the cost of said equipment per disc sold across all their games is probably less than a dollar, but I can't swear to that one.

Its certainly not a material cost for the game. Its a capital investment, and is accounted differently.

I believe that shipping is paid for separately from that price tag =p

They shouldn't need to do that much warehousing just for Dom3, so storage costs are presumably low, especially on a per unit basis.

They run a single website which accomodates all their games. Like capital investments, its not dom3's job to pay for that on its own, and the actual cost per disc shipped is probably under a dollar.

Actually, most of these things are kind of like capital investments in that its not dom3's job to pay for all of it. (Except development, which I already talked about at length, and that should have been paid off already). I agree these are legitimate expenses. Selling an old game at $50 does not help pay for these things. No sale is no money made at all.

I might argue that dominions3 is such a niche game because the price is so high. I mean, dom3 has a lot of boardgame and wargame type appeal. There are (at least) millions of boardgamers and hundreds of thousands of wargamers out there. The niche doesn't have to be as small as it is. Part of this is probably a failure of advertising (or lack thereof). But part of this is almost certainly the large price tag on an old game - why pay $50 for dom3 when you could pay about the same for something brand new with killer graphics? At $20/unit you still see something like $18 gross profits (price - material cost) which can go towards salaries, paying off capital investments, etc... And you'll probably move a lot more units. For every person who buys it at $50, there's probably 10 who would try it at $15-20. And since the only real cost per unit is the materials cost, well, you do the math.

Re: what about the future?
 

Your math is great. But alot of the info seems based on the larger game corps. The advertise and shelfware groups. Thats a very different business plan involving large contracts, advanced monies, spending on ads, bulk purchasing, 3rd party sales, etc. Its a gamble on future sales.

Nothing is wrong with that. But if you read the history of Shrapnel thats kindof what Shrapnel was created to offer an alternative to. Instead of years of payback for advanced outlay before the devs see any profit checks; Shrapnel sticks to low outlay, publicity instead of advertising, distribution instead of shelfware. It allows them to take chances on games that the other guys wouldnt touch. Shrapnel is here for niche non-shelfware games.

Thats only some of it. Not really my area. Maybe you want to say that Illwinter should move to a mainstream game company, not that Shrapnel should become one. If you look at the entire game list, I dont think most of those would be here under that arrangment. But everyone involved seem happy. Ive only known of 2 developers to leave. One to try it on his own, and one to try the bigboys (after one game he came back)

Re: what about the future?
 

Damn you are right there. I think I was more thinking along the lines of the constant costs for shipping each product. (The packaging, the guy putting the stuff in the packaging etc, which is part of the shipping costs, but I don't think that is paid from the additional shipping expenses (Or at least that is what I think)). But you are still right :). My bad.

According to: http://positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/?p=827

You also pay something like 10% payment processing, 20% tax (at least in the UK, don't know in the US (shrapnel is US right?)). So that is an additional 30% of each sale that will not be profit. (Sure, the 30% remains constant if you sell your game for 1$ or 50$. But still).

Ps: Totally unrelated, but cliffski is great. I wish more small developers released their sales stats.

This I doubt. I read a large blogpost by some indy dev a while ago who very eloquently wrote why this isn't always true, and the process of gradually lowering the prices doesn't always lead to more sales. Sadly I cannot find it. :). But this remains a matter of opinion. Only shrapnel can try to test this theory.

Because Dom3 has the depth other new killer graphics games lack. It is rather unique in it's scope and type of gameplay.

Re: what about the future?
 

I totally agree. Dominions is the fun-time project of one creative programmer, and one creative teacher of ReligioMythos. I think anyone would be hard stretched to pick it up and expand it without falling back on old standards that we have all seen 100's of times in other games.

Re: what about the future?
 

I think it was Jeff Vogel. At least this what I could find regarding the subject doing a quick search.

http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2009/...more-pt-1.html

True, Jeff makes very niche games. SP RPG's, with substandard graphics, but I think his type of audience is comparable to the Dom3 crowd.

And you could argue that Jeff releases a new game every few years, and thus the comparison isn't totally correct. (And I would have to agree with you there).

I just don't think that reducing the price by two thirds would really increase the amount of sales ten-fold.

I doubt I'm allowed to say this, but I'm actually sad that popular bittorrent sites don't keep good logs of the amount of times the torrents are downloaded. It would make it easier to determine the pirate popularity of Dom3. World of Goo had a 90% piracy rate, in that case it was possible that a increase in sales by lowering the price. Don't know about Dom3.

Re: what about the future?
 

My online sales experience is more in areas like posters and tshirts and ebooks. But there are some very interesting psych studies, and reports by biz majors, about pricing. In some cases, raising the price of an item actually amounted in more sales. And why certain numbers actually work better than others for prices (just based on peoples preferences). Im not sure it applies here, but the discussions there are great about the real world vs what you think SHOULD happen when dealing with the mass public. The same occurs in those forums with things like art vs scribbles, cute vs shock, sites with many offerings or just a few.

What people think should work, doesnt always.
(isnt there a Spock quote for that?)

Re: what about the future?
 

That slightly steps into an area I actually voiced an opinion but didnt win out.
I wanted the protection of Dom3 to follow the protection of Dom1. Full game with a ceiling.

It would have allowed review sites to distribute the game, torrent sites to distribute the game, fans to distribute the game. Then Shrapnel would be able to offer online ordering of the unlock codes with very little overhead.

There are many many pros/cons to that and I agree with the way they went (at that time way back then). But Id be willing to pitch it again with some of the new changes to the online world.

Re: what about the future?
 

Damn, at the risk of sounding like a fanboy (which I ain't, I just read his blog). But apparently that is what Jeff (Spiderweb software) does. See: http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2010/...-business.html.

This would also work to a degree. The current copy protection tends to go off if people are using the same key across different pcs. (Right? That is what I recall). So as one of the large appeals of Dom3 is the multiplayer. This would stop people from easily sharing their keys.

Re: what about the future?
 

It doesn't seem a stretch to me to imagine someone buying the IP with the intention of staying true to the game but then asking how to expand beyond a loyal, but niche, audience. Perhaps a few changes here and there to the nations might give a broader audience something they can immediately recognize and relate to. And what about that overly complex magic system - how about if that is trimmed down to make it more accessible. And if those changes succeeded in gaining them more sales than they lost from alienated players of D3 then it would make sense.

This is pure speculation of course and it's possible this wouldn't happen but think about various game franchises and how some installments of those franchises are viewed negatively. Perhaps because of changes in game mechanics, or UI, or the intangible "feel" of the game. I might be more surprised if a new version of Dominions by a different developer maintained the spirit of the game than if it didn't.

Re: what about the future?
 

Dominions is an old niche game with ugly graphics. You can try convincing someone to it, but price tag is just stupid. Especially for digital copy.

It's not like there are any ads for dom [well, there are, but we all wish there weren't]. They have digital download, they can as well make it .torrent link and sell cd-key. Manual is on torrents too. So their costs here are around $0. All they need is to pay IW smth [but we can't know for sure what's the deal], and it's certainly is not $40+ per copy.

So it's all just down to IW that does not care about proper distribution [so they are a bit rude and arrogant towards clients/players] and Shrapnel, which has no idea about doing business or treating people [but it's so common in business, even huge companies like Dell or HP].

And I have bad feeling next IW's game will be released by Shrapnel too :( It'd be nice to never see them again.

Re: what about the future?
 

A marketing move would be to
A) simplify it for the masses
B) make it a Windows game which would automatically fix lots of ui complaints
C) make it 3D graphics and upgrade the sound

Malfador would be a good example. His low-graphics high strategy game of Space Empires IV on Shrapnel became a hi-res candied shelfware SEV thru Strategy First. And then became a stripped down FaceBook app game.

Re: what about the future?
 

This actually made it a lot harder to play at my machine. Somehow the 3d-stuff gave me horrible frame rates, didn't work on my multi core machine etc. Eventually I just gave up...

Re: what about the future?
 

I wasnt thrilled either. The game ended up in sales bins, and the modding community never did catch up to what SEIV had. I own it but I still play SEIV and have deleted SEV from my machines.

It was also rather a setup. Malfador is beta testing his next game called World Supremacy and will be offering it thru Shrapnel Games Inc

Re: what about the future?
 

I'm not sure why everyone is so convinced a game like dom3 needs to be a niche game. Admittedly, it doesn't follow the *current* trends in *computer* games (which seems to be going more and more in the overly clicky direction) - although the Civ series remains tremendously successful and arguably Dom3 is, like MoM, Civ-with-magic.

But it also appeals to other types of gamers (such as Warhammer players or Avalon Hill boardgame players). Surely many of these people own computers and might even be tempted to play a computer game that appeals to their style of gameplay.

If dom3 got half the advertising Civ IV had gotten, it could have been a big hit. Ok, it would probably have wanted to actually rework the base code and improve the AI for that kind of advertising effort. But still, turn-based strategy is hardly a dead genre, or even an unpopular one. There's nothing niche about it.

And in a world where Lord of the Rings had 3 blockbuster movies, Harry Potter is looking to go the distance with all 7 (?) books as movies, and who knows how many other major fantasy motion pictures coming out, to pretend that the game being fantasy would limit its appeal is ridiculous. One of the most popular Civ IV mods was a fantasy mod (FfH2).

So why is this necessarily a niche game?

Re: what about the future?
 

it is a niche game simply because it is created by a very niche company: Illwinter, and published by another niche company: Shrapnel. if Dominions3 was created and published by a large company such as Sid Meier's(Civilization series), EA(well, you all know them...), Blizzard, Westwood Studios(C&C series, Red Alert, etc), etc than Dominions3 wouldn't have been a niche game.

Re: what about the future?
 

Why is it niche?

- Turn based strategy is niche. Very hard to get a AAA publisher for. (Yeah, I know it is a circle definition, it is niche because the big boys say it is niche). There are very few exceptions, civilization, and some handheld tbs games. And only civ has some depth.
- It has a humongous learning curve. As almost all tbs games have. This makes it hard to pick up and play. Which makes it niche.
- Comparing it to Civ isn't totally fair. Civ is the exception to the rule. You should compare it to other AAA tbs games. Ow wait... these don't really exist... why would that be?
- Would the 14 year old the current halo/gears of war crowd play Dom3? Or women? Would your mom play it? For most of these it would be No. So that makes it kinda niche.

Nobody said that fantasy made it a niche game. I think it is the other way around.

And Warhammer and Avalon hill games are also niche. They appeal to a very specific set of people. And this group isn't that large you know.

Just compare tbs games with depth to adventure games. Both have great potential. But remain niche.

And if the GUI had been fixed, the graphics polished, the micro fixed, the AI better, A single player campaign included etc...

13lackGu4rd, if a AAA publisher would have developed the game they would have thrown a lot of the depth of the game out of it. They are looking to reach a max amount of players. (So the game is less 'nichey'). So sure, it wouldn't be a niche game if it was developed by Blizzard for example. But it also wouldn't be Dom3.

But I agree, it is niche because it has a niche developer. But that is what makes Dom3, Dom3.

Edit: Just fyi, but I think hardcore gamers have become a niche.

Re: what about the future?
 

More reasons:

- It is 'Original' fantasy. No easily recognizable fantasy stereotypes. (Such as elves, dwarves, orcs etc).
- You don't fight your own battles, you just give orders.

Re: what about the future?
 

Its niche because it comes with a sticker on the box...

Warning: Contains Serious Micromanagement

Brain requirements:

If you go to the shops and forget what you intended to buy, purchase a chocolate bar and upon returning home remember what you were supposed to get, then it is advised not to play. Upgrade your cerebellum first.

Re: what about the future?
 

I'm just off to bin my CD. See you guys later.

Re: what about the future?
 

Soyweiser, you got it right. Well done. I started reading this thread last night (started at post #90 so haven't read the whole thread) and thought this morning I might jump in here and post, because so many people posting here have it all wrong. But your post is right on. The two biggest reasons that Dominions 3 is a niche game and these are pretty equal: 1. the learning curve and 2. the graphics.

The whole discussion of pricing is all wrong also. Maybe a post later that explains how and why pricing is as it is would be helpful.

Thanks for contributing.

Re: what about the future?
 

Again? :)
I can search for showing up together and easily find a chain of posts, interviews, bloggings going back for years. Dom3, Dom2, SEIV, various "about Shrapnel Games" articles and why it was created.

OK there might be some changes.
Maybe you can just dig up some of the old ones and update it. :D

Wow, Ive been around too long.

Re: what about the future?
 

There are things about Dom3 that make it great, that are tradeoffs which naturally reduce the player base (graphics, the learning curve, historical mythology instead of generic fantasy), and then there are things that could be polished (the AI, lack of a single player campaign, the UI, Windows integration, more/less varied music and "smoother" sound (more music to combat repetitiveness, a thorough revising of the sounds in the game to remove any "screeching elephants", etc.), the game manual, balance and more regular "updating" of older Nations), which would appeal to both the current fanbase, and bring in new players, at the same time.

All of these things would take time, but some of them could be done without monetary cost, or attention from the Devs:

While the AI, the UI, and the Windows incompatibility are basically beyond the ability for anyone but the Devs to directly improve, the rest probably wouldn't be impossible for the existing player base to atleast improve, if not completely fix.

A very good map with a lot of attention given to extensive background "flavor" and documentation...well, it won't replace a "proper" campaign, but it might go a long ways towards filling the gap. Done well, though, it could go a long way towards increasing the "roleplaying" aspects of the game, and add some semi-canon, which, if interesting enough, might draw some customers in on it's own merits.

The cost: A huge amount of time and talent, and some consideration towards both an amicable "vanilla" scenario, and towards how even to go about creating such a thing. Also, probably the equivalent of writing atleast one historical fantasy novel...or series...and enough research to choke a Great Sage.

Music's been discussed before, and sounds have already been improved by modders. It would be nice if we could get together some kind of "Forum's Choice" music soundtrack for each existing Nation, drawn from free open sources without legal strings. There's quite a lot of sources for exactly this kind of thing, online. Not only pieces of music, but also sounds. There's even a limited amount of modern music, distributed as free, unlicensed music.

The cost: Time, probably from several individuals, in order for proper perspective and scope, and still more time, to assure that the pieces selected are without legal strings.

The game manual can-and from what I've seen, probably should be-rewritten by (old) players, for (new) players. The better such a thing was written, the more it should (slightly) reduce the learning-curve.

That's not a criticism of the original manual, it's simply a product of years of post-Gold research, and updates to the game. The ability to edit and expand the existing manual to clear up confusion, and correct mistakes/fill in gaps, would be useful, but if a manual needed to be rewritten from the beginning for legal reasons, that would also be possible.

The finished product could then be accessed by PDF or what have you, and downloaded/printed, without publishing costs. This could be separate from, and parallel to, Wiki efforts, since some people like having the information in their physical hand, while others prefer having it at their digital fingertips, via the web/wiki.

The cost: Again, lots of time, good writing/editing skills, more research (I think the manual could be made more "readable" and interesting, and we wouldn't be handcuffed to a page-count, since this would be a PDF), and either permission from Shrapnel Games and Illwinter, or a separate website and a complete rewrite.
A downloaded manual can easily be handed to a friend, who might then read it, and decide to give the game a chance. That could bring in a few customers, here and there.

As per balance: Some Nations are more powerful than others. That's not a bad thing, by itself, and doesn't always need to be excised. That does not mean that the Nations we have can't be better balanced against each other, without making them all the same. This could (and in my opinion, should) be a much larger focus than it currently is, compared to the development of new original Nations. For one thing, the better the existing Nations worked against each other, the more fun it would be to create new Nations to compete with them, and compare them to.

For those who consider the Nations that come with the game to be sacrosanct: As far as I know, none of them are hardcoded into the game, all of them are fully modifiable, and Kristoffer himself (who's admitted he doesn't always fully grasp balancing issues) has modded his own Nations in the past, to make them more playable and/or interesting (Recently, Hinnom and Jomon).

As for making Nations "all the same", this ofcourse isn't a goal, but it has some limited potential. For instance, niefel giants, elephants, dragons, etc. all lack gluttony. If that single factor were made homogenous across all 50+ Nations, it would affect balance enormously, and in many cases for the better.

Units with abilities that can be considered common, and very useful, like assassins, scouts, sailors, and banner units, could be made more commonplace across the board, while still much more expensive and rare for some Nations than others, increasing strategic options and flexibility, especially for weaker Nations, while not destroying balance.

New abilities, such as "Shattered Soul" could be incorporated into existing Nations that were simply created long before the ability was coded. New Heroes/Multiheroes, Summons, and Pretenders could be added, to make existing Nations play in new ways.

There's no reason that independent units need be generically bland. Great citystates, ancient warrior-orders, mysterious ruins (and their occupants) assassin cults, and crumbling empires might exist in many lands where Pretenders simply haven't arisen, and might be interested in getting behind a likely Power.

Independents could be more thoroughly and interestingly developed, in terms of flavour, while removing the most generic independent units that have little usefulness, giving the AI (and the players as well) a small break in the process. This could likely be done more easily than the creation of a new Nation, since consideration of balance and pixel art would be less burdensome.

Making each Nation in the game as balanced as possible, while adding new interest to old ideas, could be expected to net atleast a few new players. The cost: Lots of time, again. Help, if possible, from people who understand balance. Much less graphic intensity than creating new Nations (which should appeal to some people on the Forums).

Dom3 may always remain a "niche game", but it can be made broader simply by removing it's real weaknesses, without compromising it's strengths, even the quirky ones that might be considered "faults" in the eyes of some.

Some of those weaknesses (not all, but some) can be repaired by the "niche players" who love it, despite them. And, in the process, make the game more successful, which we can all be proud of.

Re: what about the future?
 

Ive got a long list of notes for a (never created) blog on Dom3 which would be full of "How can I" questions and their answers. Like switches/config, battle simulator, save/restore, screenshots, uplod battles to youtube, set an alarm, host, notes, notes on map, make a map, make a mod, make an AI (play against myself), change the music, speed up the game, beat the AI, beat Ermor, beat that perfect strategy, bank my money, run a game without leaving my machine up 24/7, run a pbem game, host a blitz game, play xxxxxx nation best, see what the AI is thinking, play on a lan with one copy, play against my bud with us both having the same nation for fairness, run in windows mode, add a title to my gods name, get ALL the titles on my god to ones I like, get a sound or screen change when the turn has processed, how can I get a "take me back into my game" button like other games have, How do I see age, see size, spectate a game like on steam, change sounds my wife hates like elephants and women screams, soften the mouse click, stop the E key from ending my turn, do my MP turn without updating the server, talk voice to people in the game like XBox, set waypoints for my build queues, make maps look hand drawn
and many more.

Alot of my notes are for things that the devs have already fixed such as "how can I have multiple saved gods for the same nation". And now that we have an official wiki I could just do it there. Yeah.. but we all know what Im like about getting things like that done :target:

Re: what about the future?
 

Better than I am!

Re: what about the future?
 

And yet one of the premier CivIV mods was a fantasy mod. There's clearly demand for a 'fantasy Civ' game. I don't think it would be that hard to get a large publisher for one (so long as you had developers willing to actually put the effort in to turn out a first rate product).

This is what a tutorial game would be for. No, not something in the manual on paper, a scenario that walked you through playing the first 20 turns or so with pop-ups and scripted events.

Actually, thats the first thing Dom3 would need done to it to be mass-marketable: have hooks in the code to allow scripted events.

Master of Magic was also tremendously successful. Master of Orion was tremendously successful (1+2, 3 was an abomination and failed not because it was turn based, but because it was a poorly composed set of 'features'). Panzer General was hugely successful, and that franchise is still alive and well (and still turn-based!). Combat Mission was quite successful and spawned two sequels (all 3 within the last decade). Saying TBS is dead seems to show a lack of knowledge.

I can't comment on the success of Elemental (although it seems to have been released as a beta...), but its a fantasy civ game that just got released.

There are women who play dom3. At least 3 of them. If the IRC population is any indication, women make up somewhere on the order of 3-5% of the dom3 player-base. Which for a conflict-driven game is probably pretty good.

My mom wouldn't know how to use a computer game, much less have a desire to play one. The over 60 computer game market is *really* niche.

Why are we trying to compete with the FPS crowd? Those aren't the competition. We should be trying to convince all the people playing FfH2 in Civ4 that what they really want to be doing is playing a TBS game that was *written as fantasy*. And we want to convince the board and war gamers that they could spend some time playing a computer game that has as much depth as the board/war game they like playing. That's your market. Its actually a pretty large market.

Seriously, do you know how many people play Axis and Allies? A lot. The A+A *tournament* at GenCon gets a whole room, and a pretty large one at that, all of which are people who enjoy boardgaming with strategic depth - and that's just one boardgame, and the people who play it seriously enough to compete in a tournament *and* travel to GenCon to do so. Sure, not all of them are necessarily interested in fantasy, but you don't need all of them to be interested. Or we could talk about the success of Battlelore, various LotR strategic boardgames, etc...

Warhammer is popular enough that GW runs stores in major cities dedicated solely to Warhammer. Avalon Hill (now defunct of course) produced Axis and Allies, probably the most successful war game ever made after Chess. This group is huge. Clearly you've never been to a gaming convention.

Already proven TBS is not that niche, see above. Not sure about adventure games - you'd have to define the genre =p. Because I'm honestly not sure what you're referring to in this day and age.

--------
Now, dom3 would certainly need some work if it wasn't going to be niche. But its work that shouldve been done anyway.

I do totally disagree that you need to genericize the fantasy elements, btw. FfH2 has plenty of interesting factions which aren't generic (it has some that are generic, which is unfortunate, but the factions that were included are what the creator chose to include, not what was demanded by the fanbase.) If you offer an even vaguely compelling fantasy world the fanbase will accept it as is.

I mean, hell, you could see Dom3 as just renaming 'generic' fantasy elements into other things, which is so common in fantasy literature these days its a trope unto itself. (Now, dom3 is using the original names, but if someone only knows 'elf' and 'dwarf', they'll see them as renames). I mean, 'sidhe' are elves. Svartalfar are dwarves. And anyone with half a brain can see that. To pretend dom3 doesn't have 'elves and dwarves' is to horribly delude oneself.

Re: what about the future?
 

I'm smiling Gandalf. Yea, I've explained it over and over. Although there are even more compelling reasons why we do what we do than ever before. It just amazes me the people who think that mainstream publishers reduce the price of a game bacause they sell tons more doing so. Sigh.

Re: what about the future?
 

I never gave up the hope that the waveforms for all these great potential contributions would finally be collapsing into something more material. :rolleyes:

And I can honestly say that I really started to wonder what was up with you, HoneyBadger, good to see that you have returned to the forums.

Re: what about the future?
 

Tim Brooks:

I'd like to apologise on behalf of our arrogant community. No one here has idea about conducting anything business-related nor has any experience in production, management or distribution of any kind. You and Shrapnel sound like a very successful company and every indie game developer is aware of your unique and greatly efficient ad campaigns, so they flock to you, hoping that you will pick their game as next release. I hope ad campaign for next IW game will be as awesome as the one that's going on for Dominions 3!

Re: what about the future?
 

I'm curious as to the demographics of the TBS market and whether it's an aging audience that was exposed to turn based games when they started playing computer games and maintained an interest in them over time. Do the vast majority of young players today (if they have an interest in strategy games at all) prefer the fast pace of RTS games (something that didn't exist when many older players began with strategy games)?

I also wonder about the overlap between players interested in military simulations and 4X games. The Squad Leader players I've known wouldn't have had any interest in fantasy games...

Re: what about the future?
 

"Publishers run a mile from anything with turn-based mechanics - it is regarded as too niche." - Julian Gollop Creator of X-Com. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/featur...p#comment61000

Dom3 is a bit to complex to explain just in the tutorial. (Which Dom3 has actually).

Master of Magic - 1994
MOO - 1993, 2 - 1996
Both not the best examples. I'm talking about the current market here.
Combat mission I never heard of before. So I don't know how popular it is. And isn't doing that good (according to 5 minutes of wiki searching: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_...orce#Reception).
Yeah, panzer general is doing good. (The fact that you yourself mention that the whole series is still turn based, as if it is an accomplishment is a clear sign.)

When I said other AAA games, I meant other current AAA games. There aren't that many left. Sure there used to be big AAA games, but the gaming world has moved on. TBS has become a nice in which only a small amount of big titles can survive. (Currently only CIV). And most of them aren't innovative anymore. HOMM? Just play HOMM3, it is the best one of the series.

The main point remains that the market has little room for a lot of big AAA TBS games. Only a few of the very large amount that used to be created remain.

*Laughs* ...

But that is the whole definition of a niche game. Only a select group of people play it. It has little appeal to women, young 14 year olds etc. So it is a niche game! Of you want it to get out of the niche, you must convince other types of people to play. This was the main point of the discussion. Is Dom3/TBS niche or not? If only a select group of males plays it, it is a niche game.

Yeah, but do you know what stratigic depth boardgame players are? A niche group. Sure there is a lot of action at GenCon. But that is like saying that the Amish aren't a small religion because the Amish churches are allways full.

Mostly only in the UK. Stores in other European countries constantly close. Warhammer is also getting more and more expensive. They tend to increase prices fairly often. (I personally think because they need more and more money to keep the business afloat). And warhammer, and most miniature painting and combat games do have a niche appeal. It is also the only business to be able to do this. Which makes for a bad comparison. Never compare the best game or business with the normal businesses. That makes a crooked comparison. All the other games businesses who tried to create dedicated stores have failed.

Ad hominem, and not relevant.

A gaming convention is a gathering place of very hardcore gamers. Just like Moss Eisley is a hive of scum and villany. GenCon is a hive of hardcore and geeky gamers. Both niche.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_games

You know, infocom, SCUMM etc stuff. No recent big hits there. Sure some resurrections of old games. (Yeahh... a Monkey Island remake... yawn...)

But we are getting a bit offtopic. I think the main problem is that my definition of niche is a bit broader than yours.

But can Dom3 get more players, sure, a lot can be fixed. (Just compare it to Dwarf Fortress, a game which could be vastly improved by upgrading the UI. (See: Goblin Camp) getting a lot more players (and donations)).

But could it ever appeal to a large group of players like a game like Diablo or Halo does. I don't think so. To niche appeal.

Re: what about the future?
 

I see what you did there.

I'm actually a bit interested, Dom3 seems to be on sale fairly recent right? But only for a small amount (like 10%). Does this bring in more sales?

I keep forgetting Dom3 has music. I was bothered so much by it that I turned it off. I do like Dominions III though. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKa2MzIgRqI

Re: what about the future?
 

Actually he showed that he is still missing some major points. Advertising/shelfware vs publicity/distribution. Everything has its pros and cons but the advertising route is not great for indies and niche.

They have said in the past that it didnt. Or at least not nearly like people think it might.
They also offer other price breaks which can be used in connection with sales. Such as for American military (which I use often) or for students worldwide. Both of those allow another 10% break.

Any music can get old. Ive had Dom3 since mid-2004 and play it often. Nothing could survive that!

Except (as I often mention in beta and game programming groups) new games should take a look at Fractal Music. Very little programming overhead and each nation, player, style, and time into each game could have its own musical flavor. Some musician/programmer should get good at that and start joining beta groups!

Re: what about the future?
 

I would love to see Dom 3 engine on a "Evolution of Civilizations" model/theme (inspired from Carroll Quigley, google it, you can find PDF of the book available).

And instead of magic / religion / military, a 6 tiered model on

Military - armies, navies,
Political
Economic - depending on terrain, broken into agriculture, mining, commerce and as evolved, fabricated production
Social
Religious
Intellectual - science

Each of the 6 axis influencing the civ, i.e., religion affecting population, social affecting "happiness"/culture/"dominion" spread, military the act of "manual" conquest, economic the output of food and resources, intellectual for technology breakthroughs, etc...

Sounds like a lot Civilization series, but I like the Dom 3 "province" model much better.

Re: what about the future?
 

Apparently all games are niche games by Soyweiser's metric. Hell, even WoW is a niche game. Damn, if niches are that big, what's the point of calling things niche games.

Soyweiser, i tip my hat to you, you managed to take all meaning out of the word niche.


----------------------
Regarding TBS being niche - yes, X-Com had a hard time of it because squad-level TBS is pretty much dead (no matter how much I'd love to see a good squad-level TBS game personally). Grand Strategy and 4X games, on the other hand, are still the domain of TBS, because its too hard for a person to play such a game run in 'real time' *and* have the game go anywhere. (ie, massive time compression is necessary for there to be any development, and the scope is so large that it just explodes in your face if its on a timer). Basically, once you get to operational level and above, all military games need to be turn based to be playable by people.

Anyway, the proof is in the pudding here. FfH2 is a hugely successful mod in CivIV. It exists because there is no high-quality fantasy civ-like game, and the following for it demonstrates the existence of a large market for a 4X fantasy game. Now someone just needs to release one that people actually know about and is polished, neither of which really describes Dom3. (Heck, I think more people are aware of DF than Dom3...)

---------
Re: Combat Mission
Yes, critical reviews weren't that great. But it spawned 2 sequels over the course of 4 years. Since the thing companies are really concerned with is sales, that suggests that there is definitely a market out there. That people obviously bought something that the critics didn't like much means either (1) critics are biased against TBS games to the point they can't get a fair review (so critical reception is a worthless metric) or (2) people who want a TBS game are so starved for games that they're willing to buy something even with bad reviews.

I haven't found actual sales figures yet. But 2 sequels does say something.

Re: what about the future?
 

Zeldor:

Oh, I don't feel the community is arrogant. Did I say that?

I think you are mistaken. There are several knowledgable people here who seem to have a great understanding of the niche gaming industry. The sad thing is that there are those here that have no idea what they are talking about, spouting off as if they do, but others may not know that.

Thanks!


Glad you like them. They sure have worked for us.

Re: what about the future?
 

Yes, the TBS market reached its peak in the mid-1990s. Since then it has been shrinking as those who grew up with no other strategy gaming form are dying off. Don't get me wrong, there are new converts, but not at a rate that replaces the aging market.

And of course, there are always exceptions, though few and far between. A game comes along every once in a while, that the non-TBS market falls in love with. But because you buy one TBS game in 10 years doesn't make you a TBS gamer. And it doesn't change the TBS market into mainstream gaming.

I think that more and more, TBS gamers are willing to cross into other genres, just because there are so few good TBS games. But you are also right, there are those that will only play one genre.

Re: what about the future?
 

I am really curious about HoMM5 income and HoMM6 business plan. They ruined great series and I wonder if it's financially viable for them. Pretty much 90% of core players left, I wonder if they managed to attract new people by stripping most of fun and replacing nations with generic fantasy [and adding lots of almost-nude chicks].

Re: what about the future?
 

It is really interesting how sales in a niche market seem to work for us. Our best results are with sales of 10-15%. This brings in enough unit sales to make up for the lost revenue from the discount. Not enough to make more money (more units, same income). What doesn't work is large sales say 20% or more. You sell more units, but not enough to make up for the lost revenue from the discount (more units, less income).

Re: what about the future?
 

In pure player numbers it is. Farmville wins. 80 mil vs 10 mil (And WoW is actually one of the biggest non-facebook games out there, the whole growth of silly facebook games has taken a lot of developers by surprise. Kind of a repeat of the gigantic growth of the casual games market a few years back). :D. Stupid simple games are bigger than more complex games.

But just to play with the MMORPGers a bit more. In the MMORPGers world most are actually niche games, at least compared to WoW. Eve online? 300k players. Small amount compared to the 10 Mil of WoW. So Eve Online is a niche in the MMORPG world. It targets a specific group of players who want SF space combat, and large scale corporate shenanigans. And still, shrapnel/IW would be very happy if Dom3 sold 300k copies. I think even half that would be great. :). So yeah, niches can look very big, but it is still a small part of a larger market.

If the niche is that big, why do board game stores have such a hard time staying profitable? Why do almost all the large RPG/boardgame publishers go bankrupt or get taken over by a the giants? Why is it so hard for normal boardgames to stay in production?

Sure you can get The Settlers of Catan everywhere. But that is simple low strategy board game. Now try to buy Shogun/Samurai Swords somewhere. Big strategy board games get out of print often. Why? Because eventually the market is saturated. The avid war/boardgamers all have a copy. And the group of these is rather small so it doesn't really pay off to keep copies laying around for the small amount of sales you get. While Settlers still sells regular. Why? Because difficult board games are a niche, and settlers has a broad appeal.

Something like Age of Wonders Shadow magic perhaps? or Disciples III? Or HOMM? The games do excist, but somehow they are never as complex and interesting as Dom3.

Sure, the fantasy mod is popular. But if released as a stand alone game would it also sell? (Like the Jason Engle art btw)

But why are we still arguing if TBS games are niche or not? In the last 15 years TBS games have always been outsold by RTS and FPS games.

The focus should be on how do we get Dom3 to all the TBS players who currently don't own it. (Which is actually out of the question as development on Dom3 has halted, and IW is working on a non-Dom project. (If my information is correct)). Not, how do we increase the amount of players in the TBS games niche. (Which would be nice, but is difficult to do. I think the handheld TBS games have helped a lot, how is the one called with the little red and blue(?) tanks and soldiers?).

Re: what about the future?
 

Is this for all games? Or just for Dom3?

Re: what about the future?
 

FWIW: http://www.next-gen.biz/features/val...-too-expensive

"Discounting games does not only increase unit sales--it increases actual revenues. During the 16-day sale window over the holidays, third-parties were given a choice as to how severely they would discount their games. Those that discounted their games by 10 percent saw a 35% uptick in sales--that's dollars, not units. A 25 percent discount meant a 245 percent increase in sales. Dropping the price by 50 percent meant a sales increase of 320 percent. And a 75 percent decrease in the price point generated a 1,470 percent increase in sales."

Of course, it helps if people actually know you exist, (ie, Steam has a much higher profile than Shrapnel) - that's where advertising comes in.

Re: what about the future?
 

Pretty much across the board.

Re: what about the future?
 

I know that article. It is from Valve. Be careful wth broad statements like that. The game they talk about had increased sales, but it came with an announcement of upcoming additional content. That alone would have increased sales. We announce a patch and our sales jump by those kind of percentages.

Also, these games were featured on their front page. What they don't say is that any game on their front page does great. That when it drops from the front page, its sales are much, much weaker.

So was it the sale, the announcement of upgrade, or the front page?

Re: what about the future?
 

Here's the thing you're neglecting - the lifespan of a game. One title cannot stay in print forever, you're right. And it shouldn't. Publishers need to release a steady stream of titles in order to stay in business. And this is even more true for computer games where changing technology obsoletes old games. (Don't get me wrong, I still love playing games from the 90s, but i probably won't even be able to run them after my next (imminent) hardware upgrade.)

A computer game's lifespan is 5 years at the most. Only the most exceptional games hit 10+ (eg, Starcraft). So when you start off by asking questions like 'Why is it so hard for normal boardgames to stay in production' or 'why do RPG companies go out of business', you're asking entirely the wrong questions. You need to keep producing new products that will bring back older customers as well as be accessible to new customers. This explains why Magic the Gathering is still going strong some 17 years after starting. Or why WotC chose the publication structure it did for D+D 4e (every year sees a new set of core books), and why a 5th edition is inevitable.

Dom3 is already past the expected lifetime. It shouldn't be expected to generate any sales at all, especially at full price, and that it does should be regarded as miraculous.

Re: what about the future?
 

One of the biggest developers does this and gets LOADS of press, for games that already are hugely popular before. Valve and L4D are huge, both in PR and amount of gamers who like it. (And zombies always sell of course ;) ).

Question is, does the lower price help? Or the fact that it was expensive before and is now on sale?

What works for Valve doesn't have to work for a small developer. You can only do this if your potential consumer base is already large enough. Advertisement is pretty hard you know.

Ps, incoming Jeff Vogel fanboyism :D
http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2009/...-big-sale.html
"So the only real moral of the story is that people like sales. Not a shock."

http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2009/...more-pt-2.html
""If You Charged Less, You Would Sell More Copies"

This is true. The problem is that I won't sell enough more to justify the lower prices.

Microeconomics tells us that as we charge less, we sell more, but we make less per sale. At some point, there is a best price, a point where (number of sales) * (profit per sale) is at its maximum. The question is, where is it? Based on my experiences shifting prices up and down, I think I'm actually at the sweet spot."

http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2009/...more-pt-1.html
"Now don't get me wrong. Some games (casual quickies, simple puzzle games) should be inexpensive. But everyone (retailers, reviewers, customers) is enabling a mindset where all games, even the niche products and larger, deeper, less casual titles, are expected to be desperately cheap. This is not going to help developers stay in business. This is not how a healthy industry is maintained."

Re: what about the future?
 

Interesting. Thanks for the information.

Re: what about the future?
 

Publicity is free (except of course for having a publicist to do it). Dom3 and new Shrapnel games appear in nearly every online gaming magazine or review site almost instantly.

Advertising costs money. Someones money. Usually the publisher. Thats one of the complaints of indies who leave big publishers for smaller ones. The advertising and other fancy features put them in a hole. It can take 1 or 2 years to payback the startup costs and start seeing profit as actual paychecks. Not to mention the so often mentioned "sales bins" that many of the pushers for the Shrapnel going the other way tend to add as something they would wait for. Those are efforts of the distributor and sometimes the publisher to recoup their costs and break even. Often happening before the profit point which means the devs see nothing.

ONE of the apparent advantages of Shrapnel to indy developers is almost instantly splitting sales. Ive seen some of the developers do ads for their own games but generally Im not sure where you would do it for Dom3. If you can think of one, let me know. Id be willing to look into it.
(But Im still holding out for a tshirt concession)

Re: what about the future?
 

That is true.

And that is the problem. Dom3 isn't obsolete. There is no replacement.

But a lot of RPG and boardgame publishers did just that, and still went out of business because the niche for boardgames and rpgs was shrinking. Sure the large ones like MtG and WotC survive. But the small ones die, or downsize.

Unrelated, how is dnd 4ed selling?

Only if there is a better version. Only if there is something new and shiny comparable out. Especially for a certain type of niche. (Starting to really dislike the word niche btw, used it a bit to much).

Otherwise where is nothing in conventional economics saying why prices should drop. Sure there is a method to slowly get the most out of the costumers by gradually dropping the prices, but that only works in certain situations, cant recall which exactly, and to lazy to look it up in my economy books. But supply vs demand doesn't apply in this case, as supply is rather infinite.

Boardgames also don't gradually drop in prices, and when they do, it is because the shops need the shelve space.

The idea that games should drop in prices is because you expect them to do, because it is supposed to be normal. Not because it makes economic sense.

Ps: regarding the lower prices. Never forget that this could be a business ploy. Lower pricing to drive the competition with lesser deep pockets out of business. (I'm paranoid anti-corporate, it is my Shadowrun heritage). Valve playing themselves off as the less greedy friendly corp, while crushing the competition.


---
Edit:
Perhaps there now is a better version, if Elements gets improved.
Edit2:
I think the economics theory is related to different adopters of products. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusi...ter_categories

Re: what about the future?
 

Gandalf, that is why Indies have created other ways of creating buzz and publicity. Such as blogs etc.

See: http://www.pixelprospector.com/indev...business-tips/