Re: what about the future?
 

Heehee. Yes that, and other methods, were covered a while ago at this site....
http://cafethotz.blogspot.com/
abit less general than the site you posted but more personal :)

Re: what about the future?
 

"In forums for PoDs"

There is a forum for the prince of death? :D

--
Edit
Stealth advertisment methods also sometimes fail if you are discovered. (Recently a certain dutch sales website was discovered to use dummy accounts to increase the ratings on their own products. (The idiots used the same account to buy multiple television sets and washing machines, of which you only need one :)).

Re: what about the future?
 

I don't particularly know how well D+D 4e is doing since i disconnected from the game about when 4e was released. The internet seems to think its doing quite well as an RPG, but not necessarily very well compared to the 3E release (which was off-the-charts good). No idea how 4E's initial release compares to 4Es 2nd wave of core books.

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Re: boardgames vs. Computer games.

Boardgames have a large material cost. Especially as games with a higher toy value appeal more to a larger audience, and that toy value costs money in production.

The difference is that computer games have very little material cost, so there is profit to be made all the way down, as it were. My guess is that boardgames don't have too far to go down before they lose profitability, especially as unit sales for boardgames are typically lower than for computer games of equal popularity, since only one person needs to own a boardgame for many to play.

Re: what about the future?
 

I died and got raised as a demi-lich.

Re: what about the future?
 

actually, it makes perfect sense economically... your problem is that you're dismissing the supply vs demand issue on "infinite supply" of computer games. not only is this false in reality(they still take money to produce, even though it's much cheaper than say board games), supply is not just about the actual making of the game but also about the competition.

moreover, time is also a crucial factor that you don't really address in your own economical equations. there's a reason why "we expect" prices to go down over time, it's only sensible even under economical logic. why do car prices go down every year? why do pretty much any other products go down in prices over the years? the older a product is, the further way the company gets from the "cover their expenses" stage to the "pure profit" stage. when all the expenses have been covered the company should logically start reducing their prices, or else they're just overly greedy and will usually be unsuccessful in the long run. even giant corporations like Blizzard lowered the prices of their games, as well as make gold editions(for example Starcraft+Broodwars expansion) which costs just a bit over original Starcraft when it was released, but now you also get the expansion with it.

false again. board games also drop in price, it's just that they drop less because they have far less to drop into, due to increased expenses over computer games.

false, as I've started saying above. also keep in mind that new products are valued higher than old products, and it doesn't matter whether you're talking about cars, furniture, computer games, computers(as in hardware), TVs, or whatever else you want. of course there are exceptions, such as classic models or antiquities(mainly in furniture) but every rule(logic, etc) has exceptions...

you're mixing 2 different things here. companies that lower prices in order to destroy the competition, don't do it over the years, they do it mainly with their new products. moreover they sell their items in loss prices for a limited amount of time, in order to crush the competition. than when the competition is destroyed they raise their prices considerably, and of course release other products and product lines in full prices, now that they have no competition remaining. this method is now illegal by the way, but it's still being used due to the hardship of actually proving the existence of loss prices.

Re: what about the future?
 

I am probably am very niche here, having bought two games of which I only play dom3 (maybe a third from a bin).

That said, we are facing an audience for this game that does not have the luxury to select between a dozen products, I have not seen anything comparable to dom3 for years, have you?

This is vastly different to most of the examples (TVs, cars, etc.) where development is extremely fast, meaning a product is outdated upon introduction. This is not the case for dom3 after so many years. If you have not understood, this game lives because it wraps up mythology from the whole planet packages that into a $50 product and let you play god! WTF about graphics, sound, UI, AI, I think it is a great deal.

Sure everything could be better, but you know, I still enjoy fending off impossible AIs, and I would enjoy multiplayer much more if I had the time on a regular basis. Of course I am annoyed by transferring blood slaves one by one and the like.

I think dom3 is a product that attracts certain people and there are not many competitors. You could increase sales mainly by increasing the number of people who have heard about it, but that is easier said than done.

I think sales are important since they create the incentive to actually buy the product instead of pondering for another six months, not creating more customers.

In short, supply and demand is not applicable because demand is limited, supply not. But demand is limited in the sense that you either want it or not want it, pricing is mostly irrelevant in this target group, as long as it stays reasonable.

Re: what about the future?
 

Many products don't drop in price over time, if we're talking about product lines as opposed to actual things. Sure, two year old cars are cheaper than this year's model, but that's because the actual thing is two years old and used and thus is not likely to last as long. If they just keep making them to the same design the price doesn't drop.

Clearance sales and discontinued products aside, furniture stays at about the same price as long as it's being produced. Chairs that were designed 2 years ago aren't half the price of this year's chairs.

Electronics are a special case. The same specs do keep getting cheaper, but that's because the tech keeps getting better. Not only do higher performance versions keep coming out, but it gets cheaper to make the lower performance hardware. Software often follows this pattern, since new versions keep being made to exploit the new hardware.

Re: what about the future?
 

Also, these examples tend to things that you can advertise pretty much anywhere.

Saying "advertise and you will sell more" is a general truth, but when you get to something like Dom3.. where would you advertise? General, or targetted? And again we are back to talking niche.

I have a few ideas (and have used some) but what would someone recommend? True, when you search in google for Dominions 3 you dont get an ad at the side for where to buy Dom3. But since Shrapnel comes out top in the search, why would you pay for that?

Forums where potential dom3 players hang out? Find one. Its either so general that the result is likely to be small, or its so specific that Dom3 is already well known and brought up in conversations. You can boost those for free without paying to add a pop-ad to the site.

Game magazines in the real world? Do you really think the amount of money that costs is worth the gamble? Easy to say with someone elses money. If someone is so sure Id recommend they go for it.

Re: what about the future?
 

fantasma, first of all I was replying on the reduction of computer game prices in general, not specifically about Dominions3. hence many of the examples I gave don't apply to Dominions3, being in the very niche category that it is in... with that being said, you're still wrong on several accounts.

wrong, the audience you're talking about is a very very small group. Dominions3 doesn't rely on the audience you're referring to, or else it would still be losing money over the production fees, sallies, etc... dominions3 targets quite a variety of people, here are a few examples:
1. hardcore TBS freaks
2. casual games who don't have a lot of time on their hands for long multiplayer sessions, yet still enjoy multiplayer a lot more than mindless battles against crappy AIs
3. strategy freaks in general(both RTS and TBS) who can appreciate good games despite having bad graphics, sound, UI, etc
4. older people, many with families already, that are not your typical "gamers".
5. people who utterly dislike the whole "click fest" of most modern games(no matter the genre).

these are just examples, there are more, and obviously some(or even most) people fall into more than 1 category.

no offense, but this was just pathetic fanboy material... Dominions3 was very much outdated even on its release date on 2004. it has awful graphics(compared to other games in 2004), unimaginative sound, very bad UI, etc. heck, just look at how little Dominions3 taxes your hardware to notice that it's very much outdated.

Dominions3 is appealing because of its concept, and because it aims for populations that don't care much about high end graphics and sound, which are the focus of most modern games. Dominions3 cares about the quality of its content instead, which is too rare these days :(

with that being said, there are still other game companies that also try to live up to the same standards as Shrapnel. the Civilization series is a good example, Stardock(and the now infamous Elemental) is another. there are still innovations even within this very limited concept, so Shrapnel just can't afford to keep Dominions3 at the same price it was on release, when for the same money you can get newer games that are a lot more appealing in many ways.

well, good for you. but most people don't enjoy fending off hordes of mindless AI that you can easily destroy with a few Earthquakes, Rain of Stones, etc. the real challenge lies within multiplayer, and the deficiencies of Dominions3 are certainly annoying(mainly the bad UI) but we still like this game because despite of them it's still a great game.

I partially agree with you here, but only partially. at 55$(the price I bought it for just a few months before they finally released the digital download) the price of Dominions3 is way too high, heck new "standard" games go for 30-50$, and these have a lot more expenses than Dominions3 had(massive game engine, state of the art graphics, better sound and UI, etc), not to mention they're new(max 1-2 year old), not 6 years old. moreover there are people, that Dominions3 appeals to, that spending 55$ on an old computer game is just too much, but they would have bought it for less. moreover the people interested in this genre have mostly heard about Dominions3 already, from various sources, it's not like Dominions3 doesn't have any publicity/public awareness...

totally agree with you, but I ask you to take it a step further. instead of inducing sales they should just lower the price globally, to get the same effect, just more powerful.

in short, supply and demand is still very much relevant. the people you imply this concept doesn't imply to are a minority within the total customer base of Dominions3. the majority of the customer base do have alternatives.

first of all we're talking about actual products here, in this case dominions3. not the whole product line, which in this case would be all of Shrapnel's games, all TBS games, etc. second of all, even for product lines, there are still innovations that are made every day which eventually impact the line, sometimes it takes more than a few years but it does happen. again, classic models and antiquities aside...

lets take a basic example you claim stays steady, furniture: say you got an office chair from 5 years ago. today you have office chairs which are a lot more comfortable, have better angles, better back padding, handles, etc. why would you still buy the lesser chair from 5 years ago instead of a new chair? the only reason you'd do so is if the 5 year old office chair is significantly cheaper than a new office chair. now, how will the price be significantly lower? line production fees, raw materials, salaries, etc haven't increased over the years, the only field in which an increase in producing cost would be in engineering innovations, but those are not nearly enough to justify a significantly higher price than a state of the art office chair of 5 years ago.

maybe not half the price, and maybe a bit more than 2 year difference, but saying furniture prices stay the same is just false. refer to example above.

electronics is not a special case, it's simply the extreme side of the phenomenon. technology advancements usually make all production lines cheaper, the only difference is how much cheaper they become and how much better they allow the final product to be. heck, the whole point of technological progress is to make production as a whole cheaper, otherwise there would be no economical logic behind investing money in making better technologies in the first place...

Re: what about the future?
 

Now you are making a little mistake here imho. You take furniture in general, and pick one example of a high end product, for which there are replacements etc. And try to invalidate his whole claim. But it was about furniture in general. Not the high end products. A simple folding chair which costs 5 bucks 10 years ago, still costs 5 bucks now. (Modulo, inflation, costs of plastics etc). A piece of high grade wooden furniture to (to let your grandchildren inherit) still costs the same now as it did 10 years ago. In general furniture prices stay the same. (Sure high end innovative stuff such as expensive office chairs is a counter example. Or fasionable furniture (don't know how people call the furniture fasion industry). But all of these invalidate the previous generation. So that is why the previous generation drops in price).

There are loads of different reasons to improve technology, making production cheaper is one of them. Radical innovation (which tends to make new products more expensive) is another one. Gradual innovation tends to either make products more affordable, or better. Sometimes companies just create new products because a "New" sticker on the product increases sales. (That is why shampoo bottles tend to chance colors and bottle types every few years. Most of it is just marketing. If anybody is interested, I have recent story about this (about shampoo :))).

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Just FYI, I also think Dom3 is a bit to expensive. But according to Tim (don't mind if I call you Tim?). It makes little difference if it sold cheaper. And I assume that he has done the numbers. I don't think he would mind more money.

Re: what about the future?
 

Even in the office chairs the reason you don't buy the 5 year old chair, is that they don't make it anymore. You don't get to choose between the most recent high-end design and the high-end design from 5 years ago. You choose between this year's top end and this year's middle or low end.

Re: what about the future?
 

Why are you guys comparing it to different stuff? Furniture, electronics etc have high fixed costs. They can be lowered, but still take high %.

When it comes to software, fixed costs are very low. Maybe 10% tops. Other things are labour/marketing/desired income. Sure, it has to be divided between many people, but just selling a game does not take much time or money. You just sacrifice small fixed part. Rest is pure profit - costs of obtaining it depend on how good you are at doing business. If Shrapnel says they cannot lower it much [but Amazon can still sell it for $50 and free shipping] it just means their business model sucks and their costs are way too high.

Re: what about the future?
 

Amazon has a tendency to cap prices and sell stuff for a loss just to get market share. They also have a highly automated sales process (benefit of scale). So they tend to do stuff cheaper.

(Not saying that perhaps Shrapnel should take a look at their costs and in that way make the games cheaper (If they can reduce their constant costs of each sale by 10% a 10% reduction of price would increase the sales numbers) but there are two sides to the story).

Re: what about the future?
 

mistake? I was simply giving an example, obviously 1 example can't count an entire field, but it doesn't make it any less valid. moreover, office chairs, a high end product? am I missing something here...? but if you insist, you can pick regular(as in kitchen) chairs, desks, tables, even outdoors furniture, whatever you want... even your example of a simple 5$ folding chair(outdoors furniture) can be made from better materials, have better axises, have longer longevity, etc. not that you can go much lower than 5$ but you can make the old 5$ chairs irrelevant by offering much better products for the same 5$s. you were just looking at my example, not my entire reasoning before that example, which was your main mistake.

There are loads of different reasons to improve technology, making production cheaper is one of them. Radical innovation (which tends to make new products more expensive) is another one. Gradual innovation tends to either make products more affordable, or better. Sometimes companies just create new products because a "New" sticker on the product increases sales. (That is why shampoo bottles tend to chance colors and bottle types every few years. Most of it is just marketing).[/quote]

I wouldn't call "radical innovation" as "technological progress". radical innovations is mainly in the realm of theories. if engineers or whoever else actually find useful products to be made out of these radical innovations than they usually try to make them with current technologies. it is rare for technological progress to happen on the basis of some crazy theory.

keep in mind that technological progress is not usually done by universities or other research institutions, unless said institutions found some miraculous break through. technological progress is normally done by corporations, and to a lesser extent smaller companies, as in the private sector. the private sector thinks economically, so if a technological progress doesn't improve their production lines in any way than they just won't bother with it.

Re: what about the future?
 

Radical innovation is a term used in economics. Radical innovation creates new types of products, new markets, and doesn't happen all that often. It is more than just thinking about a new crazy theory in a ivory tower.

Incremental innovation tends to increase already existing products. Example: New types of screens, lighter products, small feature increases.

For example, transistors, personal computers, creation of the internet, working strong AI are all examples of radical innovations. They created whole new product and markets lines where none where there before.

While for example all the recent products Apple released are just gradual innovations. (The power of Apple, or at least Steve, is to make them look like radical).

You are utterly wrong about the source of radical innovation btw. Both types of innovation are done in the private sector and by universities. Private sectors do it to try to keep ahead of the competition, if your competition is ahead with developing something radical, they have a huge competitive advantage. (Sorry if my tone is a bit off here, but I did a minor in technological management, which spend a lot of time discussing innovation, different types of innovation, economics etc).

Re: what about the future?
 

Zeldor, I think they could lower the price but lack the incentive to do so because lowering would not increase sales to any significant amount. That is my guess, and, as far as I can tell, theirs as well.

I think there are two completely different aspects about dom3, games in general, let's leave out the chairs, please:

1. the idea, concept, depth, content and whatever else makes for a high replay value. Dominions is top in this category, IMHO, there are few others, sure, but few. And this does not change or lose value over time.

2. The other thing is graphics, the UI, the sound, all that can be summed up as technology and markup, and here dom3 is getting old, I agree, it was so even when it was released. This is the part of the game that gets obsolete, that demands a discount because it is far behind the standard.

That said, my opinion is that I bite the bullet of mediocre usability and arts for a high replay value, and that comes from depth and content. And if others hadn't made pledges for improvements I for sure would have. I own this game for two years at least and have maybe played have the nations beyond expansion.

Sure, I want a better graphics and especially better interface to handle micro, but I also understand why a two man developer team has better things to do than keep a running game updated, I mean in a big way, they still do minor tweaks, anyways. And I can very much understand that they have bad feelings about giving away their code to others to work on.

I forgot what the original point of the thread was, but I doubt reducing price will increase sales significantly and I tried to argue why. I wonder how much in total went to Illwinter over the years, I doubt it has accumulated to a decent wage considering the effort and knowledge put into the game. And then it is a top seller for an indy project, no?

Re: what about the future?
 

Soyweiser, while all of you're examples were indeed made by the private sector, you're missing the main point. those are actually technological improvements, not radical innovations. radical innovations were the steps prior to the actual products, in the case of the transistor for example, the radical innovation was the whole concept of semiconductors. Transistors were 1 of the first technological usages of the radical innovation called semi conductors. sure, the transistor was an entirely new product and the begining of the major field called consumer electronics today. however it is also a technological improvement to what was available before it, for example, the previously available larger radios instead of pocket/mobile radios available with the transistor. same deal goes for personal computers and all your other examples. while they were major breakthroughs they were still technological implementations of radical innovations, not the radical innovations themselves.

radical innovations have nothing to do with products, at least not at their first phase. radical innovations that prove to be useful and profitable tend to become the begining of entire product lines if not entire product fields, however not all radical innovations prove to be useful to the private sector, and remain in the theory field or in the research institutions in which they were founded.


fantasma, you're problem is that you're only taking your own opinion into your equation. however you're in a vast minority here, the majority of the Dominions3 consumers are very much different from yourself. so basing an argument on a very limited minority, or even worst, your own personal experience alone, is just plain wrong.

Re: what about the future?
 

Really? The vast majority of Dominions3 consumers prefer "graphics, the UI, the sound" over the "idea, concept, depth, content and whatever else makes for a high replay value"?

What the hell are they doing here then?

I'll grant you, you'd get more customers if you prioritized the first over the second. That's what the mainstream games do. But the result wouldn't be Dominions. And I probably wouldn't be playing it.

Re: what about the future?
 

Let me ask one question. If you were starting a business and you were told that you could either:

1) sell 100,000 units of your product at $10.00 each (Gross $1,000,000) but you would have to hire 50 people to support that effort or

2) you could sell 1 unit of your product at $1,000,000 and you wouldn't have to hire anyone, you could do all the work yourself,

which would you do?

Re: what about the future?
 

quite an easy question in my opinion Tim Brooks, obviously the first. the reason is also simple. sure, you will need to pay salaries for 50 people, netting in less net income than if you do all the work yourself. however it also opens up the ability to manufacture more products, which in turn will increase your net income by a lot more than what you would have otherwise saved in salary fees. moreover, time equals money, even your own, so by letting other people work for you, you free your own time to do other things. those things can result in a higher income if that's what you wish, or they can be spending more time with your family, etc. it's your freedom to decide what to do with your time, and that can be worth a lot more than 50 salaries.

Re: what about the future?
 

Well, assuming it was a game and I was the developer, I'd sure as hell rather have 10000 people playing it than 1. So in that case 1.

But assuming I'm in it for the money and pure profit is the only value? Sure then 2, or...

...you also have to take into account the value of fame. Having a big title that many people play is a whole lot of money saved on free advertising next time I release something. And then those 50 people could help me supporting the company further, being friends, providing a wide slate of competence, contact network, internal feedback, idea generating, and in general enabling the business to grow and develop into something I could be proud of every day.

Nice rhetorical question. Is it fair? Are you in it just for the money? Is that why you're in the business of distributing niche TBS games?

Life is a bit like that choice isn't it? People choosing 2 are the ones speculating in land or currency, risk investment, weapon export, drugs, fast food chains and so on. Or just doing well paid jobs just for the money, or fail and do soulless ****jobs for the ones who succeeded.

People choosing 1 are ones who care. Nurses, NGO workers, artists, scientists, teachers and an endless row of others. Not the least indie game developers.

I'm an independent filmmaker, you can say I choose 1 every day. I hire loads of people to help me realize creative visions without even knowing if I'll break even. Is it worth it? Hell yeah!

Did that answer your question?

Re: what about the future?
 

I think you're a bit confused Fantomen.
I thought you meant 1, cause 2 would be a single unit(hence a single player) costing 1mil$...

actually, in his example 2 would give the most pure profit, as you're saving the 50 salaries you pay in 1 to reach the same profit of 1mil$. but it's true that 1 gives a lot more potential income.

sure, free advertisement is always nice, but that's not the main point. being proud of your business sort of contradicts what you're saying later, but it's an emotional reason not logical. now, whether you make decisions based on logic or ratio is entirely up to you(or well, any individual) but that's an entirely different subject.

totally irrelevant to his example Imho. to be precise it's more about "the big score" vs being there over time, short term vs long term if you will.

I think you missed the point entirely. people who choose 1 are the people who made companies and corporations, what makes the modern world work... being a lazy bum or a mediocre(or worst) employee isn't in the discussion, he's talking about working alone or starting a company, not about being a salaryman or being independent...

again, completely irrelevant to his example Imho.

the bold part means you chose 1 not 2, does it not...? and no, you probably didn't answer his question, I think you got confused by it.

Re: what about the future?
 

So I accidentally switched the alternatives? Big deal.

I fixed it, makes sense now?

I think my answer is very relevant. I didn't get confused by the question but I refuse to fall down into that level of debate. What is actually irrelevant is asking rhetorical questions where you try to lure other debaters into a purified logic which doesn't account for even a fraction of the real context.

On one hand Shrapnel has reasons to set the prices they do, that's a fact. On the other hand lot's of people think dom3 is terribly overpriced for what you get, feeling that it's simply a lot of money to invest in a computer game. That's a fact too.

Shrapnel wants to make money, but the customer obviously don't care about that. The customer wants a lower price, but Shrapnel obviously don't care about that. They prefer fewer customers who pay more, if I'm understanding Tim right.

So we have two angles of debate who doesn't give a **** about each others arguments. It's the worst possible climate of discussion, and indeed the amount of hostility and chest thumping fill the air with fumes of testosterone.

At least the representatives of Shrapnel are consequent in their approach to critics and perceived dissidents of the community, arrogant and repressive.

Re: what about the future?
 

no, you didn't just switch the alternatives, you were talking about completely different things... you were mainly talking about being a salaryman vs an independent, he was talking about working as an individual or starting a company(of more than a 1 man show that is). you were trying to light up 1 of the options as positive and the other as negative, when it's not about good vs bad at all, it's merely about making logical vs emotional decisions.

the people who would choose 2 in his example are the people who feel sentimental value for their work, don't trust others' work but only their own, etc. well, I guess there are also those who can't manage other people yet still wish to remain independent, hence they end up working alone, or those that are just looking for the big score than moving onto the next gamble. you know, people who like living on the edge(economically speaking, not physically as in life or death). but neither of these groups form the majority of any modern society. so for most people, who are in the position to actually make the choice between those 2 alternatives, the clear answer would be 1.

Re: what about the future?
 

Am I obliged to limit my response to a model of inscrutable logic? Just because someone is throwing rhetoric questions around?

And Tim asked if you'd rather sell 1 expensive unit yourself or many units with more effort. That question spurs a lot more than just individual vs. company. Or logic vs. emotion. That's also profit vs. availability and customer friendliness. Or in other words, what is it worth to have an audience?

Besides, you don't ask rhetorical question because you want an answer, so why give one? Better to use the opportunity to really say something you think has meaning.

Re: what about the future?
 

This is a totally false dichotomy for so many reasons, and that fact should be patently obvious. Such as

-the nature of things that sell for $10 is totally different than the nature of things that sell for $1mil. Assuming you were starting a business with a product in mind (ie, you're sensible), you don't have a choice.

-There's no way it takes 50 people to sell 100,000 of anything digital. The top watched youtube video has 253 million views. Now, granted, it took a production team to make it (but that's your 1 unit you're making in the other case too - people needed to make it are set before you start moving product), but it only took a single person to upload it to youtube.

Now, i grant its not a sold product, but it only takes one person to make a webpage and write a little code to e-mail a game key automatically with game purchase, or whatever code you feel like writing to handle digital distribution of a game. It probably took more people than that to create the game. Heck, that code already exists.

So, necessary costs to selling a game in this day and age of digital distribution:
-game development
-bandwidth
-advertising

Where are these 50 people getting involved in any way that's germain to your question and this topic? The actual process of selling the game? Requires like an hour or two of one person's time to write the necessary code, assuming you want to do so from scratch.

I could go on, but its obvious the question is pointless. Hypotheticals that will never occur aren't relevant.

------------
Regarding depth vs. graphics. I don't see why there can't be both. I mean, a dom4 that was simply code-cleaning and graphics overhaul would be worthwhile. And I don't even care about graphics personally, but I do think there would be a positive impact on the size of the community because lots of people do.

Re: what about the future?
 

What's the most watched youtube video?

Re: what about the future?
 

Some music video by Bieber.

Here's the top 10 of all time as of a month ago:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0430123849.htm

Re: what about the future?
 

We should build a turtle fence.

Re: what about the future?
 

This is a hypthetical. It is actually a question asked on one of my business course tests in college.

According to the professor, the correct answer is: You do not have enough information to answer this question.

My point: These conversations about what price we should charge, how many more sales we would get, how successful the game would be if we did x, y, or z, are not relevant. You don't have the information to make the call. They may be fun for you and go ahead, have the conversation, but what do you actually know about our business? What was our bestselling game of all time? What was its price point? How many units did we sell? How much profit did we earn? In what year did we earn the most income? How much income? What was our most profitable year? Did we sell more units of Dominions 3 last year than we did the year before? Are we on track to sell more this year than last year? How many games have we dropped the price on? What did that do to our sales for that game? How many people bought the game at the new price point that never would have at its original price? How large is the TBS game market? Is it growing or shrinking? By what percentage did it shrink/grow last year? What is the cost to us of finding out that information? What is the average cost of a customer support ticket? How many support tickets do we process in a year, month, day? What is the cost of maintaining these forums? How many spammers do we get to these forums each day? What is the cost of keeping those spammers out of here? What is the cost of keeping a database driven server up and running? How many times a day do we get crash warnings on our servers? How many hours do we spend keeping the servers running in a year?

I have the answers to all of those questions and many, many more. I also have the answer to questions you haven't even considered when it comes to pricing and what that can ultimately do to your image... and your costs. At what price point does the general public, not the niche gamer, buy your product(s), hate them, and then go around the internet bad mouthing your game(s)? How many more support requests do you get as the price of the game drops (because you now sell games to people who really don't get it)? What is the cost of these extra support requests?

So go ahead tell us how terrible we are. We're pretty used to it. But pardon me if I don't take the conversation all that seriously.

Re: what about the future?
 

Tim Brooks, while all this information is obviously hidden from us, the public, it's still false to discount everything on the basis of "lack of information". experience also counts, and can help fill some of the gap created by the lack of information you're describing. moreover, we're part of your customer base, so we know what we want personally, as well as what we like and dislike about Dominions3 and everything related to it that we're exposed to.

so sure, in a university course the obvious answer would be "can't answer, not enough information". but in life you can never have enough information, yet you must make decisions. thus you make decisions without adequate information.

with that being said, not everything we say about Shrapnel is bad, heck personally I haven't said anything bad about you guys(at least not in this thread, can't bother with digging up all my posts around here for this...) and others too. the simple(yet often overlooked) fact that we're still here, 6 years after the original release of Dominions3 should tell you a lot about your game. most games don't last this long, only truly exceptional games do, so there were many things done right in Dominions3.

but like everything else in life, each coin has 2 sides. there are the good things and the bad things. the wisdom is not to eliminate them, cause that's impossible, it's to emphasize the good and try to hide the bad as well as you can.

as for actual marketing techniques. right now it seems like you're trying to fight the community to prove a certain point, instead of actually trying to listen and filter out the useful information we give you from all the background rants. this thread, as well as other threads around here, have offer you(as Shrapnel) as well as Illwinter with some very useful information, masked with endless rants and spam. if you can filter out the useful information you'll have a lot of new material to work with, which can greatly improve your game as well as your marketing, which of course will in the end lead to higher profits.

Re: what about the future?
 

Shrapnel sucks. Discuss?

PS: Of course this is a banning offence.

Re: what about the future?
 

You replied. You generally don't react to most of the drivel posted on this forum. Clearly you care. I'd say you take this quite seriously. I mean let's face facts. Sales is your life blood. If you don't sell you die. Simple enough.

Re: what about the future?
 

I thought about this some more. The price of Dom3 is a smoke screen. If it sells then you win. If it doesn't discount. Who gives a crap about the AAA results. Dom3 isn't AAA material. You can make the decision on what price point works. Cliffski has it right. What makes nerds like me pay for a game? Content and challenge. Simple enough. Provide enough content and enough challenge and grognards will buy.

Then you have the tough part. How do you keep the grognards playing? Clearly it's not by kicking their asses when they tell you that you got it wrong.

Re: what about the future?
 

Grognards are simple. If you have the best game they will pay for it. Dom3 is pretty much the best game going.

Re: what about the future?
 

We do have this information:

We know how you treat your customers.

We know how other game distrubutors treat their customers.

We know the difference.

Re: what about the future?
 

I'm sorry you thought that I was attacking you. My bad. It wasn't meant as an attack, it was meant to impart my thoughts on the whole issue. Sorry for getting involved.

Re: what about the future?
 

The guy has already been banned once. :rolleyes:

Re: what about the future?
 

And then of course there's the meta question of whether you make more people angry by responding and explaining why you won't change your marketing strategy based on forum comments or by ignoring them.

And whether anyone will actually be annoyed enough to not buy further Shrapnel games or talk the company down to other potential customers.

Thanks for explaining some of your reasoning.

Re: what about the future?
 

I always consider this, especially in this forum. Alot of passionate gamers here. I was surprised that my post was thought of as an attack though. Thanks for the post.

Re: what about the future?
 

I think that Shrapnel insulted Dom3 community so many times, that only few people would consider buying anything else from them [unless it's IW stuff, we'd only curse at them for choosing Shrapnel again].

Tim Brooks really tries hard to get the image of arrogant distributor that thinks his customers are enemies. But why would anyone here want to harm Shrapnel? All we want is to enjoy the game. But Shrapnel insists on making this experience less pleasant.

People are giving advices and criticism cause they love good complicated games. And all ideas are towards getting more of them at higher quality - and also bigger community, people we could enjoy the game with.

But Shrapnel knows better - that people are maybe on some mad quest to take down Shrapnel? Maybe you should barricade your buildings, just in case? I have better idea - learn from mistakes. See Elemental? They totally ignored any feedback from beta and lost all trust. They listen only to fanboys, fanboys that got their agreement to mock and insult all that dare to criticise. How is situation here different? You have unknown mods, that just ban community legends, you have *deleted* who should have been banned many times already, you have one of the worst ad campaign [those drug-addicted girls], you screwed us with forum transfer, you insult us with digital download price [it costs you more than burning cd and printing manual? really?] and now you try to insult us here, in that thread.

So how about you use some money you earned on us, hire a consultant to make an audit, see why your costs are so high and also send someone [like yourself] to get some proper course on marketing and advertisement? Some training in customer relations for all your staff wouldn't hurt either.

Re: what about the future?
 

This is why, for me, Dominions is the best value I've gotten in gaming - my cost per hour played is pennies. Beats MOO, Doom, Unreal Tournament, and Halo (pistol sniping ftw!). Of course if you buy the game and don't like it, it hurts more than if you picked up a game at the bargain bin. This is why, unless they are price insensitive, I would always recommend prospective players try out the demo first. You can play enough turns to decide if the game is to your liking (and you avoid late game micro ;)).

Re: what about the future?
 

What this guy said. I did a break down of my average time playing and modding Dominions and it is one of the best values for my dollar I have ever gotten out of a PC game second only to Master of Magic.

Re: what about the future?
 

Nevermind that semiconductors where around 50 years before transistors where developed. But whatever, just ignore the definitions about radical innovations made by the textbooks, and the definitions made by the universities. I'm sorry but you are wrong. Personal computers are a radical innovation. Ivory tower research is not the only source of radical innovations. Both private and public sector R&D can provide both types of innovations.

You include the lack of products in your definition. Which is simply not true. But don't believe me, just get a innovation textbook. (Might I suggest one, Managing Innovation, by Joe Tidd et all).

--
The first part of this thread is also pretty interesting btw. Strange that a lot of development for the new IW project is done in secret. (Creating blogs, and regular updates is a great way to start buzz and pr).

Edit2:
A dom3 roguelike? Interesting, how is that supposed to work?

Re: what about the future?
 

We've insulted you, Zeldor? In this thread alone you have said this about us:


Seriously, how can coming to our forums appeal to you when you hate us this much?

Re: what about the future?
 

I don't know if this is meant to be a serious statement, but I've never felt to be "insulted" by Shrapnel Games, and that's coming from someone who's a pretty touchy guy, without a lot of shiny happy feelings towards game companies, in general. Particularly game distributors. I've purchased two games from them, paid a price I considered to be fair (and still do), and haven't had any serious complaints.

$50 isn't bad at all for Dom3. That's roughly an average 8 hour day's work. Maybe 2 days, back when I was bagging groceries as a teenager, and a third of one now.

Regardless of whatever profit Shrapnel and Illwinter may make per unit, this isn't a major release by a major distributor. You can't find it at Walmart. So, I consider it to be similar to purchasing any other specialty item. Yeah, it's expensive, and yeah it would probably be possible to price individual units lower and still clear a profit on individual units, but it's unrealistic to expect them to charge less than they have to.

Re: what about the future?
 

I may not agree with Zeldor all the way, but this question is easy to answer.

The Dom3 community and Shrapnel are separate things. That's it.

Edit: Whenever you discuss things in the dom3 fora, you also have to remember that the community has been split and severely hurt by the debacle around sombres ban. There has been a very noticable decrease of new games started, and having to monitor and post game threads in two forums is a hassle. Newbies get confused by this and get less help than they used to. Key contributors got bitter and more or less stopped posting. The community is all in all in pretty bad shape. You simply have to accept that there is a lot of bitterness against Shrapnel over this, and I think this damage is more or less permanent. That is why threads like this one are so hostile, large portions of the community simply wish you'd stay away. Sad but true.

Re: what about the future?
 

Yes. We are aware of this and we try to be understanding. But this is our home. We don't mind criticism or even discussion of our business practices. What we can't tolerate are the attacks against us.

You know, I thought the whole sombre side was starting their own forums. Whatever happened to that? Just go over there and attack us. Or choose one of the other popular Dominions 3 forums - there are several.

Is it unreasonable to ask for people to act with a little restraint in our own home?

Re: what about the future?
 

This thread is not delivering. For the first time, I am really feeling the absence of the "Sombre Crew".

Re: what about the future?
 

Same here. Like many others, I only noticed Dominions because I was looking for a replacement for MoM. I'm still looking for something that's closer to MoM, but up to date. Elemental promised that it would be that game, but from what I read here my doubts about these assertions have been justified.

That's because he is banned, as well as a couple of other guys, though I don't know who you'd count as "Sombre Crew", I only see individuals. What's missing for you?