Dominions 2 popularity
 

I was always wondering that how popular Doms 2. is, especially now, that Doms 3. is announced. Can we have some details that how many Doms 2 copies sold?
Also I wasnt Online for a few weeks now, how many people are playing Online in these days?

Re: Dominions 2 popularity
 

Oh and one more question http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif....why is this game costs 50 bucks still? The game has been out for many months now. My friend refused to buy it, just because of this. Usually there is a price drop for each game after a period.

Re: Dominions 2 popularity
 

With large gaming companies who can afford to do so, yes. Not with two-or-three-man developers, published by a relatively small niche company.

Plus, Dom II has no paid expansions - virtually each new patch is an expansion unto itself...and they're all free.

Re: Dominions 2 popularity
 

Also, there is the fact that developers won't get money from those sales. Publishers might, or the shop-owners, but the developers... Shrapnel Games helps the game developers to get money for their work. It seems to be working as IW has signed up another contract with them...

Re: Dominions 2 popularity
 

And most of those games whose prices drop quickly suck and/or have a very short playing life. A number of other high quality games that people tend to keep playing for months or years (Diablo, Diablo2, possibly Quake/Unreal Tournament, etc) kept their prices stable for at least at year or two.

Re: Dominions 2 popularity
 

I don´t think there are many people, who would buy dom2 for bargain bin prices. I bought the game ~2 months ago and it was well worth the 40 euros I spent. Dom2 is a hardcore strategy game, either you like it and spend tons of hours on it, then it´s well worth the full price, or you don´t and you won´t buy it off the bargain bin.

Btw saying that the patches are like expansions is pretty fanboyish. The support is good, but fixing a couple of bugs, making balance corrections and adding a few needed features is in no way worth an expansion.

Re: Dominions 2 popularity
 

Yeah, I thought the same thing when I read his post.

Re: Dominions 2 popularity
 

Patches have also had new content, added full features (modding) and a few other things.

They may not be "free expansions" but they are certainly a high grade of patch that you would hope would be released with every game. I've certainly bought expansions with less of these things than what Dom2 patches have been able to provide.

Re: Dominions 2 popularity
 

Thank you for your replies guys! Yes Dominions 2 is really unique and complex so I wouldnt hesitate to spend 50 bucks again to buy it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
What Im saying is...maybe Doms 2. would sell better now, if it would be cheaper, since the game has been out for a long time...but I know nothing about marketing, so maybe I am wrong.

Re: Dominions 2 popularity
 

I can agree with that, but read your original quote again and you see why it sounds fanboyish ("virtually every").

Re: Dominions 2 popularity
 

Am I supposed to feel cowed by this in some way?

I'd say that when free patches add new races, themes, and so on, they're awfully close to "expansions". I'd also say that I could give a rat's *** whether or not you think I'm a "fanboy". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Dominions 2 popularity
 

Dominions isn't sold in stores, so a "bargain rack" pricing wouldn't help, as that mostly gets people to try a game they otherwise wouldn't ("hmm, $15, why not?"). In addition, the bargain rack pricing tends to be because they need to get rid of old / crappy games that no one wants - if the store can't return it (and many can't) then they'll take a loss, just to get _something_ on it.

The other "bargain" price tends to be for games years after they came out, where 10s or 100s of thousands of copies were sold at full price, thus recouping development costs and allowing another release to be made, now that the income only needs to be more than the cost of physically producing and shipping copies (often without a printed manual).

Neither of these applies to Dominions.

Re: Dominions 2 popularity
 

It's $39.90 at GoGamer.com.

Re: Dominions 2 popularity
 

It's $40 at Amazon, but if you sign up for their credit card on checkout it drops the price to $10. Cancel the card when it arrives if you don't want it.
Best value for money I ever spent, with the possible exception of duplicating keys.

Re: Dominions 2 popularity
 

When a significant portion of a game's appeal is that it has state of the art graphics or something like that, it's hard to sell it, say, one year after it was released - because there have been lots of newer games that topped it in the interim. So, now that the game's made its profit, its price drops significantly and the publisher can try to make a little more money out of it.

There's nothing of the kind with Dom2. By most gamers' standards, its graphics were ugly and its interface was lousy even before it was released. Its appeal lies elesewhere, and I don't think it's been topped in the Last year in what it's trying to offer.

Plus, I doubt the developers got paid a huge amount - my guess is, they made less with Dom2 than normal wages for the amount of time they probably spent on it, though of course I might be wrong.

All in all, I see no real reason for Dom2's price to drop, other than "other games' prices drop", which IMHO is not a good real reason.

Re: Dominions 2 popularity
 

Now is probably a good time, and a good thread, to point out that there is a SALE going on at GamersFront.com
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Banners_2004/spook1.gif
which is the Shrapnel store. Now is the time to get more copies of Dominions 2 and other great games. (they make great Christmas gifts) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Check it out at Gamers Front


http://www.shrapnelgames.com/affilia...amp;Task=Click